Screengrab’s Ten Sexiest Nerds
By Craig Kennedy - April 17th, 2008; 1:49 pm
We love us some nerdy girls here at LiC, so much so that Daniel suggested we do a list. Well, while we were trying to pick between pissing and getting off the pot, Screengrab beat us to the punch.
I must say they did a pretty fine job.
Check out Part One and Part Two.
Filed under: Miscellaneous
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Well, that’s kind of unfair to label some of those women as “nerds”. Unless, of course, the definition of “nerd” changed while I was bathing. Or something.
I LOVE Samantha Baker (Molly RIngwald) in Sixteen Candles. I always laugh my ass off when Jake Ryan comes to get her at the church where her sister’s getting married. She’s so thrilled and overwhelmed that she can’t even manufacture a coherent sentence. Then, as she’s following him, she spots her dad in the crowd. She points to him and mouths, “This is the boy,” and her dad gives her the OK sign. Sheer awesomeness.
Samantha is a nice girl who did good. I like that.
Sorry. I guess I’m off my cynical pills today.
And my childhood hero, PRINCESS LEIA, a nerd? NEVER.
Yeah, I don’t see either Princess Leia or Molly RIngwald as nerds.
Thumbs up to Holly Hunter from Broadcast News though.
Miranda, I think calling them Sexiest Nerds is a way of pointing out the non-traditional appeal of these various actresses in their performances and also pointing out their appeal to a specific demographic of men.
None of these roles can be classified as sex symbols nor were they cast to be sex symbols in these roles, even if it’s wildly apparent that all of them are attractive, smart girls/women/hotties.
THAT said, I think the top five is pretty damn good and the bottom five ain’t bad either. I’m not sure Princess Leia really qualifies, but lord knows that outfit has skyrocketed her to fanfict queen, so I guess it makes sense.
Alyson Hannigan is the hands-down winner here, if not for American Pie and her flute then for being the greatest hot geek girl ever on Buffy.
I’d also nominate Ione Skye for Say Anything, Sara Tanaka as Margaret Yang in Rushmore, Winona Ryder in Lucas, and Sarah Jessica Parker in Footloose.
I added my two cents to the Margaret Yang cause over at Screengrab.
I also threw in Olivia Thirlby whose performance in Snow Angels got me thinking about this whole thing in the first place.
But yeah, what Joel said. These aren’t quite nerds in the traditional sense, but they’re alternative girls who go against the Movie Star Beautiful Type.
Princess Leia does not fit.
I could have gone with Thirlby in Snow Angels but I saw her first in Juno, where she was cast as a cheerleader so I mentally see her differently now.
Even if she was great in Snow Angels.
Curious that the nerd girl stereotype has become something of a offbeat sex symbol in movies since the 80’s (and on TV). It goes back to Pygmallion, but those John Hughes movies are my first recollection of teen roles that go against the grain of traditional central female characters in American films.
Any thoughts on that Craig?
See, I conveniently had the portion of my brain that contained Juno removed via Manhattan Lobotomy, so I don’t even know what you’re talking about.
John Hughes definitely popularized the alterna-girl. I’m trying to think of earlier examples, but I’m drawing a blank.
I have to say Jamie Lee Curtis was hot in Halloween, but that might be a post-Trading Places brainwashing.
hmmmm….this will require more thinking…
early example of “alterna-girl”
bookstore clerk in The Big Sleep
(though she was faux-nerd on several levels)
that’s a tough one though.
Kate Hepburn in Pat and Mike?
I was thinking of Kate in general. Kind of a proto-nerd.
Good point. Kate Hepburn definitely kicked the ball off, but did she initially get portrayed as glamorous and then switched to less glamorous for a specific role? I don’t know her early films much at all.
oh, Barbara Bel Geddes as Midge in Vertigo.
Kate was a movie star no matter how you slice her, but she was always kind of Tomboyish.
Hah, Midge! Or the girl that Bruno strangles in the park from Strangers on a Train.
See, I think there are numerous examples of minor characters that are sexualized to some extent in pre-80’s cinema, but I’m having a hard time thinking of main or supporting characters that fit the mold.
I imagine there have to be some, especially in the teen-oriented movies of the 50’s and 60’s.
oh yeah, Midge!
good catch.
Joan Fontaine… Suspicion… maybe?
That was Hitchcock’s daughter in Strangers on a Train, Patricia Hitchcock.
You are correct, Ryan. I forgot about that one.
As for Kate Hepburn, I’m feeling more like she was an early percursor of the feminist movement rather than a candidate for sexy nerd. I don’t know them…I’m not a huge authority on Hepburn.
Well, I think Nerd is an amorphous designation that’s asking to be misunderstood…as this thread illustrates.
To me, it can cover just about any woman who doesn’t fit the classic beauty tropes, though really I think it’s meant to imply a certain awkward, bookish quality…and that’s not Kate at all.
mmm, Joey Lauren Adams in Chasing Amy
not at all close to what we’re talking about, but I was thinking Kate as more “early precursor to lipstick lesbian” and Joey Lauren Adams sprung to mind.
Sorry. It’s not even an older movie.
But who cares. Joey Lauren Adams, I’ll say again.
As long as we’re cheating, Marilyn Monroe in glasses in How to Marry a Millionaire.
That’s unfair to true nerds, but life is funny that way, isnt it?
I liked JLA in that movie and elsewhere, possibly because she’s not Hollywood or America’s standard vision of sexy.
True Craig, nerd is subjective and easily misinterpreted, like the concepts of “sexy” and “beautiful.” If we’re going to start parsing the concept of nerd though, we’re going to get caught in a downward spiral since virtually everyone in film or TV history that has ever portrayed a nerd has played a completely opposite character elsewhere.
Except Bob Denver.
What makes this question tougher is that there have never been any really true nerdy females in Hollywood, especially the farther back in time we travel.
So the only “bookish” females are really just hot sexy females that somebody stuck some glasses on. So that’s why my book store clerk from The Big Sleep was a flawed example too.
Unsexy girls never got close to being in front of the camera. Unless we’re talking about Marjorie Maine, Mercedes McCambridge, or Jane Darwell types.
Plus, teenagers as lead roles in movies is a phenomena that really only began in the ’60’s, right? so good luck trying to find early examples to match Molly Ringwald pre-1960.
hahahaha. Bob Denver.
Good point about the 60s Ryan.
Cheese and rice, Ryan, I had to google image search Marjorie Maine, Mercedes McCambridge, and Jane Darwell just to be on board with you. I grok your mouth music there, mandingo, so let me mention that for me the “hot girl with glasses” concept does not go unnoticed BUT I think most of those Screen Grab top 5 fall just outside of those parameters.
I’m not saying Alyson Hannigan isn’t hot, but she had to earn her sexiness in both American Pie and Buffy by excellent acting and having natural charisma and cuteness. The kind of roles I’m thinking of the actress (at the time at least of their casting) was not an object of desire, but because of great acting they made the performance work that way. Later they would become sex symbols, in most cases, to some extent.
It’s subjective and subtle, but Sarah Jessica Parker was playing nerdy girls long before Sex and the City. Winona Ryder started out as awkward long before Heathers made her a sex symbol. Margaret Yang is just simply Margaret Yang.
But Hitchcock was way ahead of his time in jump-starting a different image of female sexuality. So we all got on the right track pretty quick.
Teresa Wright, Shadow of a Doubt. 1943
Yeah, she came to mind although if you’re going to include her then you’ve opened it up to a wide variety of proper young actresses from the 40’s and 50’s. Wright was a pretty standard concept of the girl-next-door back then.
Girlz rule. All I’m sayin’
I tried to cheat by Googling “history of tomboys in movies”
Google comes back at me with that condescending question: Did you mean: “history of atoms in movies”
No, smart-ass. But I get it. Not a lot of results.
Although you know, for google that’s pretty smart because if you’re geeky enough to search for tomboys in movies, atoms might be an interesting point of cross-referencing.
yeah, except next thing you know, I’ll be accidentally clicking on instructions for a DIY H-bomb, and be spirited off for extraordinary rendition. So I think I’d better slowly back away from the keyboard for a while.
Heh heh, and you’ll be played by a ex-WB actor like Joshua Jackson in the Lifetime TV movie version of your ordeal. Assuming of course, that you look anything like Joshua Jackson, although considering the way they cast those things probably wouldn’t come into account.
This turned into the best thread ever.
Nerd obviously covers a great variety of less conventionally attractive/sexy types. I’ve always found great intelligence and the strength to be oneself really attractive. Women refusing to conform to the strictest presentational notions of beauty or femininity is one way of expressing these qualities. When they’re also combined with natural but not necessarily striking beauty, a kind heart that produces thoughtfulness and compassion, courage to follow/discover ones own path, black humor, loyalty to those they’re close to, playfulness, complexity, passion, irreverence, a curious mind, and artiness, I go wobbly at the knees.
Off the top of my head I can’t think of any female characters that embody all those qualities. But examples of different varieties of “nerdy” women -> Audrey Tautou as Amélie Poulain, Jennifer Jason Leigh as Suzie Waggoner (Miami Blues), Nancy Olson as Betty Schaefer (Sunset Boulevard), Veronica Lake as the girl (Sullivan’s Travels) – she was nerdy despite the glamorous hair and dress, Geena Davis as Thelma, Claudette Colbert as Ellie Andrews (It Happened One Night), Donna Reed as Mary Hatch (It’s a Wonderful Life) – particularly prior to becoming the ideal wife.
And teen centered films took off in the 60s but the thirties and forties had the Andy Hardy films.
Well, well. Nerdy girls are on the collective consciousness. Doesn’t mean you can’t pull your own LiC list, Craig, especially with a more strict definition.
Margaret Yang is a major exclusion from that list, but Thora Birch helps make up for it a little bit. At another point in my life I would have considered Tracy Flick, but at this point she seems too Hilary-esque, and her sexiness factor was low to begin with. Back to Rushmore - how about Olivia Wiliams as Rosemary? I don’t know, I guess the definition of “nerd” really factors into this more than I realized. sartre tempts me with his descriptions, but I think I was originally thinking of glasses as a requirement, which narrows the list significantly. Ryan makes a great point as well. I feel like I can’t think of some in recent years, too. Rocket Science had a couple, and I feel like there are some other recent indies that brought this up in the first place. Blanking.
Good point about Amelie, sartre. I think if the nerdy girl loses the glasses, she instantly shifts to be described as “pixie-ish” in reviews and advertising. But Amelie is truly the nerd girl ideal. Passionate, weird, cute, and hopelessly trapped in her own head but lucky enough to find someone as odd and perfectly disconnected from reality as she is. TRUE LOVE.
Part of the reason I love Amelie so much is that is celebrates the very impossibility of its own crazy romanticism. That, to me, is a wonderful thing.
Daniel, I was thinking of something along these lines. I’m not sure Olivia Williams qualifies as a nerd girl so much as she’s the perfect nerd romantic obsession. I started thinking about this based on the inclusion of Silvia Kristel on the Screengrab list. You could easily develop a top ten of memorable performances that are just idealized fantasies of a real woman or girl who entertains the notion of hooking up with the nerd guy or actually does.
John Hughes has a whole string of these starting with Sixteen Candles (Haviland Morris in Sixteen Candles, Lea Thompson in Some Kind of Wonderful, Christie Brinkley in Vacation). Heck, Weird Science is entirely based on creating your own fantasy woman.