I’m a geek worshipper. It’s really a form of positive self-esteem, since I am kind of a geek myself. I always love to find women in entertainment who seem to be geeks, not only in the characters they play, but also in real life. GeekSugar.com shares that sentiment and has kicked off a poll of the most popular female geeks of 2007.
First candidate: Mary Lynn Rajskub, Chloe O’Brian on 24. The pictures are from her spread in Geek Monthly earlier this year. Although Chloe is an übergeek on 24, always able to hack into secret data just in time to save Jack’s life, Rajskub herself is not too technically savvy. But in my opinion, she has geek cred because she does things like appear as a troubadour on Gilmore Girls
and volunteer for the Young Storytellers Program. I do have one geekish issue with Chloe & company, though. Are we really supposed to believe that a government agency is smart enough to use Macs?
Next candidate: Jenna Fischer, Pam Beesly on The Office. Her April Wired cover certainly got our attention this year. And interviews with Fischer reveal that she’s as smart and funny in real life as she is as Pam. She also posts regularly on her myspace blog. True, she may be in better shape than standard-issue geeks – she broke her back in four places in May and was back on The Office set 12 weeks later. But no complaints here. Third candidate: Tina Fey, Liz Lemon on 30 Rock. OK, I know – AfterEllen.com bloggers have a hard time not writing about Tina Fey. But honest, this is GeekSugar.com’s poll, not mine. And you have to admit, Fey is a big reason why geek is chic. But since Dorothy Snarker treated us to a Tina Fey post chock full of adorable pictures just yesterday, I’ll restrain myself from prattling on and give you the link. If you’ve read it, read it again. Because the only thing almost as adorable as Tina Fey is Dorothy Snarker writing about Tina Fey.
Final candidate: Kristen Bell, Elle Bishop on Heroes. We miss Veronica Mars, where Kristen Bell got her geek credentials. And although her techie ways continue in Heroes as a Company agent with the power to generate and manipulate electricity, Elle’s mental instability causes me not to want to classify the role as True Geek. Bell did, however, earn a permanent place in the hearts of gamer geeks by lending her likeness and voice as a character in Assassin’s Creed. Here’s Bell beside her digitized version. Creepy. Who’s missing? Katee Sackhoff, for one. Sackhoff’s characters couldn’t get much geekier – Starbuck in Battlestar Galactica and Sarah Corvus in Bionic Woman. She also voiced a female marine in
Halo 3. Sackhoff herself is a self-professed Star Trek addict, an important part of the Geek Code. One of my favorite Sackhoff facts is that she quit smoking because of fan mail from young girls who wanted to grow up to be like Starbuck. Sounds pretty smart to me.
I’d also put Emma Watson, aka Hermione, in the running. Watson has admitted that she is quite a bit like her Harry Potter character. And this year, in an interview with Parade, Watson said that she’s pleased that Hermione was proud of her brains and never dumbed herself down to be accepted. Watson is intelligent enough to keep both feet on the ground despite her early stardom. In fact, she considered leaving the part of Hermione behind
in order to focus on her education. I’m glad she found a way to do both.
Who else should be on this poll of favorite female geeks of 2007? And who is No. 1 for you?
