Travis writes about a recent debate he and a friend had over which actresses are most attractive to geeks:
So far, the contenders are:
Jessica Alba (Dark Angel, Sin City)
Jeanette Lee (Pool player)* Not an actress
Kitty Pryde (Not real)Aeryn Sun (Farscape)
Kate Beckinsale (Underworld)
Jolene Blaylock (Vulcan on Enterprise)
What’sername… the Borg chick… Jeri Ryan
Lucy Lawless
The debate shifts at this point to a discussion as to whether imaginary characters–Travis volunteers Rogue from the X-Men–are permitted.
Though I’ve never heard of Jeanette Lee and never watched Farscape, that list isn’t bad, but it’s incomplete. Permit me to add a few:
- Carrie-Anne Moss, the ass-kicking, PVC-wearing, ice-cold-staring rebel from The Matrix.
- Tricia Helfer, the babeilicious Cylon who’s all arms and legs-that-go-up-to-where from Battlestar Galactica.
- Natalie Portman, for her regrettable turn in the Star Wars movies. And while we’re at it, retro geek props to Carrie Fisher and her metal bikini in Return of the Jedi.
- Darryl Hannah, whose geek-friendly career has extended from Blade Runner through Kill Bill.
- Angelina Jolie, for obvious reasons, but also because most geeks first met her as a fellow geek in the 1995 film Hackers.
I could go on. Plus, to be fair, there ought to be a list of actors that geek girls like. But I wouldn’t want to speculate on that list.
DarrenBarefoot.com 
Ack. How can this conversation happen without a Alyson Hannigan topping the list? Disgraceful.
Jennifer Garner, Alias.
The problem is getting Geek Girls on the same page. You can pretty much guess who the women will be based on basic criteria: geek girls I know, on the other hand, seem to have extremely divergent tastes. Also, there are no Johnny Depps & Ewan McGregors & Heath Ledgers, I think, in the land of geek; standard “this guy is hot and if you like Danny Devito that’s your business but, like, weird…” The big sex star power was all used up in Han Solo, who we all know shoots first. They seem to try, but no.
We also seem to have different tastes in the fictional dudes. Wolverine would be pretty loved: even Huge Ackman’s Wolverine. I have one friend who loves Boba Fett with a firey passion. Data was a definite fetish. I know of two Morpheous crushes (but no one would admit to loving Neo. Even though you *know* it’s out there.) The love doesn’t seem to translate to the actor, though.
Jeri Ryan is *a* Borg chick.
Alice Krige is *THE* Borg chick (both in terms of her role — the Queen — and in terms of her delicate, almost fragile, beauty)! And when you check out her acting credentials, she’s clearly an outstanding actress.
Ultimate geek celeb babe:
Chess Grandmaster Alexandra Kosteniuk
As long as you’re appending to the list, there’s still Firefly/Serenity’s Summer Glau (River).
I’ll have to second Willow and River.
I’m surprised no one has mentioned Jodie Foster through her role in Contact. I hear she’s very smart and is kinda introverted herself. But maybe she appeals more to bookish intellectuals than sci-fi and TV franchise fandom geeks. I guess you’d have to define “geek.”
Any serious geek would already have raised the following issue: define “like”.
Like to look at?
Like to imagine dating?
Like intellectually?
It appears to be “like to look at” based on the above list, because most of the women on the list would kick the ass of any geek to infinity and beyond.
It appears to be a list of hot but frighteningly athletic chicks, in which case, hello, new Starbuck. Mmm, new Starbuck.
http://nakedcondo.blogspot.com/2004/10/starbuck-is-hot.html
As for Tricia Helfer, the true geek attraction is… Tricia Helfer, in glasses.
http://nakedcondo.blogspot.com/2005/02/glasses-2-cylon-invasion.html
As for the subject of actresses that geeks would actually imagine dating… hmm, perhaps I’ll continue that discussion in my blog.
From Firefly/Serenity I would say Jewel Staite (Kaylee) would be the preferred geek actress. She is afterall an engineer. Pauley Perrette, who plays Abby on the TV show NCIS, is also quite the cute goth geek.
No mention of Lara Croft, the pixels that launched a multimedia franchise? I’ve never played Tomb Raider or seen the movie(s) inspired by the game, but it seems she was a big noise. Boner fuel for the twichy gamer.
Oh. c’mon! First of all, you’ve GOT to start with the greatest of geek loves, Janeanne Garafalo, esp. since she’s smart in RL along with onscreen. Like many, I succumbed to a delusional affection for Sarah Michelle Gellar before realizing the Hannigan, hem, magick.
Let’s face it, everybody on Firefly is real purty though Gana Torres and Summer Glau both have sexy quotients requiring scientific notation.
Then there’s Jennifer Jason Leigh, even before her turn in Cronenbergland. Yeah, Portman is sweet as country pie but she’s what, nineteen? Too young for me.
Gotta have the canonical Xena ref though I know a lot more geeks of both sexes who far prefer Gabrielle.
Many of us carried a torch for years for Michelle Meyrink, who was not only magnetic and fascinating as Jordan in Real Genius, but also got her chops in Revenge of the Nerds and Valley Girl.
Many of us from the old days thought that Carrie Fischer was cute and all but that Molly Ringwald was flat out stunning in that unearthly, china doll way that entrances so many hamhanded geeks. Of course Fischer has since roared back into the lead with her novels and cameos that prove her to actually BE a hyperverbal, neurotic, squirmy, girly maniac of the sort that would utterly have many a geek babbling in desire.
Moving *way* past neurotic we get Fairuza Balk, who makes psychotic look so good in The Craft. Mmmmm; spicy. Christina Ricci has been rocking the goth/rebel thing to great enthusiasm since her Addams Family days. And Sean Young has never been as compelling again as she was in Blade Runner but for that brief span you HAD to watch.
Winona Ryder is yet another not-so-nice Jewish girl with a huge geek following, though I’ll never forgive whomever cast her in Aliens, The Final Embarassment. Far more appealing are Rachel Weisz from the Mummy series as well as being the daughter of a successful inventor and Getchen Moll from The Thirteenth Floor.
If we’re talking fiction, then obviously the queen is Miranda of Userfriendly. Monica of Wapsisquare and Monique of Sinfest bracket the range of curvy cuties, though many would claim precedence for one of the pandering bimbos of After Y2K.
But if we’re talking unstoppable, smart, tough, increasingly goth, and HAWT women in deeply geeky comics, nobody comes close to Pricess Mari in the original Micronauts.
Anime? Whatever. But the women of Girl Genius provide a wide range of distaff delights. And, let’s admit it, millions out there harbor impure thoughts about a somehow grownup Emily The Strange.
Oddly enough, quite a few of my geeky female friends have talked about fantasizing being Bond Girls and, of course, the Buffy fantasies are everywhere.
In other words, the Geek Fantasy Girl pantheon is vast and growing. Now if only more geeks would start talking to actual human women in the same room with them.
-Rustin
Oh, man; just came across my own post and noted that I misspelled the name of Gina Torres. Oh, the pain. I apologize abjectly.
But it does give me an excuse to comment that since, let’s face it, Joss sure likes ’em pretty, *all* of the castmembers of his shows end up with their geekish followings. Go ahead, google “captain tightpants” if you doubt it.
Also, did I somehow neglect to mention Linda Hamilton as she was in Terminator II? That slinky, predatory rampage during her asylum escape left a hell of a lot of guys suddenly *very* attentive. Badass; absolutely badass.
Though, of course, the queen of s.f. badass continue to be the great, unconquered Ripley. Sigourny Weaver in Aliens I through III sealed the compact of sexy, sweaty, mayhem so briefly promised by the last bits of Ghostbusters. Oh, yeah, I’m the keymaster, baby.
Also I realize now that my Weisz comment was ambiguous. What I meant to point out is that out here in reality she is the scion of a multinational family of actual smart people. Dad was a Hungarian inventor. That kind of thing. Serious geek cred.
I think Mira Sorvino probably belongs in a proper “object of geek adoration” list. She has the requisite looks as well as good academic credentials (Harvard degree in Asian studies, fluent in Mandarin). Her turn as Woody Allen’s muse for a film also makes her worthy.