Most of the female characters on this list are fictional and their roles as scientists play a vital part in the narratives of the films they are in. In one scene, she checks the user manuals for a spaceship because her memory is, shockingly, not a human version of Google. Doctor Otto Octavius was a scientist who turned to a life of crime, using a set of four flexible mechanical arms originally designed to assist in scientific research and labwork to give himself a … In the TV series, the focus is more on the plot, but she does get the chance to perform surgery and collect medicinal herbs (even if the penicillin so far has all been brought ready-made from the future instead of being made from scratch). Top 10 strong female science-fiction film characters | Den of Geek 10 Female cartoon characters interested science and math ideas | … Move over, Sherlock Holmes -- the girl geniuses have arrived. Period. With so many great, funny, scary, sexy and sinister fictional scientists on TV and in the movies, it's hard to pick the best. But what about Gwen Stacey? She doesn't need to be rescued. In this list of fictional scientists and engineers, an annotated alphabetical overview is given of notable characters in this category. In fact, it has a mini-skirt. D&D Beyond During her time in the past, she attempts to recreate modern medicine to help the people around her. Her skills are shown in direct contrast to her brother, Klaus, who is a researcher. Her character is based on the many scientists who investigated the accident." It's most likely an intelligent type wearing a white lab coat with round-rimmed glasses. Frankly, this isn’t great. Hayley Atwell, who plays Carter in, "I likened her character to that famous Ginger Rogers quote. D&D Beyond If you find a character that has worked in this occupation that is not shown here, please edit that character adding "[[Category:Scientists]]" at the bottom of the page. She has a quiet but confident and charismatic demeanor, and while utterly confident of her own abilities, she isn’t portrayed as cocky or overconfident. She abides by Health and Safety rules, even when it causes disagreements with her colleagues and fellow Ghostbusters. However, the film falls prey to the (spoilers) “Dead Child Backstory” trope, like the next in this list. With the assistance of my world-renowned mad scientist research team and the utilization of the extensive DVD collection that's been sucking my life dry of all meaning and exercise since the days of yore, ... relax, and prepared to be awed by The Top 25 Smartest TV Characters of all time. Sigourney Weaver even earned a Best Actress nomination for Aliens (1986), which was ground-breaking as, prior to that point, the Academy had given little recognition to science fiction. You can find her on Twitter at @Lauren_E_James or her website laurenejames.co.uk, All American Season 3 Episode 6 Review: Teenage Love, Snowpiercer Season 2 Episode 5 Review: Keep Hope Alive. The characters from the American drama television series Lost were created by Damon Lindelof and J. J. Abrams.The series follows the lives of plane crash survivors on a mysterious tropical island, after a commercial passenger jet from the fictional Oceanic Airlines crashes somewhere in the South Pacific. Kristen Wiig played a physics professor at Columbia University in the most recent Ghostbusters reboot. Sure, everyone thinks of Peter Parker when The Amazing Spider-Man is mentioned. NASA’s Hidden Figures: The Unsung Women You Need to Know - … 15 Strangest Legend of Zelda Unsolved Mysteries and Urban Legends, The Best CPU Coolers From be quiet! I think the character fits the role of criminal mastermind and psychotic super-villain (a la the Joker) much more than he does a mad scientist. Ellen Ripley is the greatest female character in sci-fi or fantasy, and also one of the greatest movie characters of all time. The English soldier is an officer with Strategic Scientific Reserve. WandaVision: What Does Agnes Really Want? She regularly solves difficulties by problem-solving, helped by a handy ribbon which she uses to tie back her hair when she needs to think. This defeats the entire point of lab coats. Sandra Bullock’s character is given a lot of screen time in this film, which focuses on her struggles to get back to Earth from a destroyed shuttle. A core part of the plot of the film revolves around a disagreement over research she did with another female scientist: GREAT! The story of a team of female African-American mathematicians who served a vital role in NASA during the early years of the U.S. space program. With Taraji P. Henson, Octavia Spencer, Janelle Monáe, Kevin Costner. A dangerous folly of man (and science! This is especially true for women: who wants to become a scientist when your on-screen counterparts are constantly harassed, seen as bossy or lacking social skills, and are either comically unattractive or so sexy that it makes it unsafe to be in a laboratory environment? Top 10 Female Protagonists in Science Fiction Movies | ScreenRant D&D Beyond (I’m looking at you, mini-skirt lab coats and high heels.). She might stand there with a machine-gun shooting Nazis, but she's obviously gone to the loo beforehand and applied a bit of lipstick. Peggy Carter is, of course, Steve Roger's main squeeze. She's an English soldier through and through, although she always looks fabulous. Author Lauren James takes a look at the good – and not-so-good – STEM role models in movies and TV. Unlike other characters on Sky Atlantic's "Chernobyl", Ulana isn't exactly based on a single real person — rather, she's based on many. The Brain ... By Movie Beasts. Notably, she is the only woman on this list given the honor of canonically having living children. In both cases, the female character’s relentless ambitions are fueled by grief and guilt. Get the best of Den of Geek delivered right to your inbox! Dr. Ellie Arroway, after years of searching, finds conclusive radio proof of extraterrestrial intelligence, sending plans for a mysterious machine. However, her role in the Captain America universe is vital. The ranking system takes into account the realism of the science, the intelligence level (from Human Google to Unable to Converse in Anything Except Algebra), the respect given to them by male colleagues, the lab-appropriateness of the clothing, and Number of Deceased Children. As scientists continue to forge ahead, paving humanity's road to the future, so should you do your part by reading and voting on each of these lists. She goes after it," Watson said, laughing. The Best (and Worst) Women Scientists in Movies and TV | Den of … Here is our list of favorites. Who says women can’t have it all?! Movie character names may be the only names cooler than the names of the stars that play them. Her lab coat does not meet any laboratory’s Health and Safety guidelines. She teaches creative writing for Coventry University and Writing West Midlands, and has written articles for numerous publications, including the Guardian, Buzzfeed, The Toast, and the Children’s Writers And Artist’s Yearbook. 25.) Fandom Apps Take your favorite fandoms with you and never miss a beat. This is a moment so unnecessary and incongruent that it’s hard not to laugh when watching it, and undermines all of her character development by turning her into eye candy. Here are 16 other magnificently mean female characters from Cruella De Vil to Nurse Ratched, and of course The Wicked Witch of the West. In fact, with the exception of Jack, which has long seemed to be the name of the male character in every other movie and TV adventure show, characters' names veer from the unusual to the outlandish. for Every Budget, The Best (and Worst) Women Scientists in Movies and TV. As we crest a brand new decade, we thought it high time to take one more look back at the 2000s (okay, the fact that it's January, the most boring month of the year, had something to do with it, too). There are anthropologists, forensic specialists, astrophysicists, biologists, archeologists, astrobiologists, and meteorologists. She is notably given an unusual amount of depth for a female character in a science fiction film, as it explores her emotional trauma over her life (even if it is a Dead Child Backstory). It is clear that her skills are respected by the men around her. Fandom Apps Take your favorite fandoms with you and never miss a beat. However, sometimes the script calls for a slight spin on archetype. ", Dr. Ellie Sattler (Laura Dern) is a paleobotanist; her character appeared in the first, Dr. Arroway (Jodie Foster) is an astrophysicist in search of extraterrestrial life in the spectacular sci-fi drama, Captain America: The First Avenger/Paramount Pictures. She is very proficient at her job as an astronaut, and yet is allowed to make mistakes. Lauren James is the author of Young Adult science fiction, including The Loneliest Girl In The Universe, The Next Together series and The Quiet At The End Of The World, which is published by Walker Books on Thursday the 3rd of March. A few, such as Trinity from The Matrix, jumped right onto the popularity charts. She can do everything Captain America can do, but backwards and in high heels. The Devil Wears Prada (2006), Miranda Priestly. Most of the time, the scientists I see in films are wildly absurd – geniuses in not just their field but in everything, who know how to hack any server, recreate any molecule, identify any liquid, and calculate the angle of impact of any bomb. I think she's quite stubborn, a slightly frustrated woman who struggles with being a woman in that time. Several different areas of science are represented on this list. Scientists in film and movies are typically no different than the character type you have in your head. There is a lot of focus in the series on the level of sexism in the medical field, as she has to prove herself when people frequently doubt her skills as a woman. As a science student, it’s always been difficult to find fictional scientists who feel real. That's exciting to me her strength. 20 excellent scientists in mainstream film and TV, Dr. Neil deGrasse Tyson & Ann Druyan interview: Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey, Dr Neil deGrasse Tyson & Ann Druyan interview: Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey. This worrying cliché, also seen in The Cloverfield Paradox and Aliens, implies a lot about the kind of women who are given permission to focus their attention on their careers. I mean, it's hardly surprising that there weren't many female scientists knocking around in … "She’s a truth ninja. The science is, of course, all accurate to that of modern dinosaur theme parks. The film loses points as, though Banks is unarguably the protagonist, this tie-in book cover features only the face of Jeremy Renner’s supporting male character. And more than likely, you see the scientist as a male. 77 Fearless Female Movie Heroes Who Inspire Us << Rotten … by Tracey Michae’l Sure, Cookie Lyon is the fierce, side-eye slinging, “I'm not playing with any of y’all!” sistah in the hit television series, Empire, which had millions of viewers salivating for her weekly mix of sass and sensitivity, but this isn’t the first time a Black female television character has captured and held the attention of television audiences from every walk of life. Needless to say, high heels are inappropriate for any kind of zoological setting, especially one with such a high risk of high-speed chases. But we did it anyway. If people grow up only ever seeing scientists as being impossibly, unbelievably clever, then they are going to be discouraged from ever studying science themselves. These are the best female scientists in film. Subscribe to TIME Get our Health Newsletter. More Characters Aliens These identical toys are prizes in a game of skill at the Pizza Planet restaurant and each one believes that the "Claw" will somehow choose one of them to "go on to a better place." She has a doctorate in applied physics and she gets to use these skills to deactivate a photon torpedo (hand-wavey science: check). Female Scientist Film Characters | Women Scientists in Movies The film also includes a significant amount of “hand-wavey science nonsense” – the kind of stuff that sounds right, if the actor says it fast enough, and you don’t think too hard about it. 2. Arrival‘s Dr. Banks, portrayed by Amy Adams, is introduced while giving a lecture at a university. The title character of the XBLA game 'Splosion Man. Some of the females on this list are real people, like Dian Fossey (Gorillas in the Mist), who risked her life in order to save a rare species of mountain gorillas in Africa. Emma Stone’s character in this version of Spider-Man was working as a laboratory assistant at Oscorp (while also at high school, somehow?). Yes, even when being chased by dinosaurs. These movie and TV female scientists are rated from worst to best. Points are also lost by the typically masculine name, part of a baffling trend of unisex names in sci-fi (see also: Murph in Interstellar, Michael in Star Trek: Discovery, and Ripley in Alien). With Jodie Foster, Matthew McConaughey, Tom Skerritt, John Hurt. Clara McMillen (Kinsey), a biologist, aided her husband’s ground-breaking research that ultimately linked science and sexual behavior. Official Trailer for Joy. Claire, played by Caitriona Balfe, is a 20th-century nurse – and later a doctor – who is flung into the 18th century in Outlander. Fandom Apps Take your favorite fandoms with you and never miss a beat. Yes, it's another list, but this time we've sifted through a decade's worth of films in an attempt -- foolhardy, perhaps -- to pick the 100 greatest On a similar “just plain ridiculous” note, Bryce Dallas Howard’s character Claire Dearing, research scientist and operations manager at Jurassic World, wears heels for the entire film. These days, some of the smartest She is a more physical thinker and usually works with mechanical devices to show off her engineering knowledge. Her character arrives in Pripyat before the disaster is even officially announced by the Soviet government. Alice Eve plays the Star Trek reboot’s version of a character from the original series who is the mother of Jim Kirk’s son. Boss Quote: “Details of your incompetence do not interest me.” Though she isn’t really an entrepreneur, she’s one of the most powerful and iconic bosses in recent movie history: the queen of all queens, Miranda Priestly. Directed by Robert Zemeckis. DuckTales Season 3 Episode 19 Review: Beaks in the Shell! A refreshingly young scientific role model, Violet is a budding engineer in both the 2017 Netflix version of A Series of Unfortunate Events, where she is played by Malina Weissman, and the 2004 film, portrayed by Emily Browning. In addition to the archetypical mad scientist, there are fictional characters of scientists and engineers who go above and beyond the regular demands of their professions to use their skills and knowledge for the betterment of others, often at great personal risk. 30 Book, Movie, and TV Characters with Autism or Asperger's Directed by Theodore Melfi. Without Stacey, Spider-Man could not have stopped Dr. Connors, and the fine people of New York City would have been turned into human lizards. In fact, many of the great female characters of your childhood weren't Disney princesses and these 17 awesome animated female characters prove that you don't need a crown to be a badass. As you can see, there is still a long way to go in terms of female science rep on screen. In the books, a lot of time is dedicated to her research, and she even uses her limited resources to reinvent penicillin by collecting mold. For now, I’m going to stick to books to getting my science fix: The Calculating Stars by Mary Robinette Kowal, Sourdough by Robin Sloan, and Give Me Your Hand by Megan Abbott are miles ahead of the competition on-screen. While it’s important for women to be allowed to retain their femininity in a laboratory environment, there are times when compromises in sexiness must be made. However, her character loses points due to the cinematic choice to have her appear naked in one of her few scenes. When she leverages her greater level of knowledge over a male applicant to get a job, it’s done calmly and without smugness. What's the first thing that comes to mind when you hear the word scientist? This page contains a listing of characters who have worked as scientists. In a time when women still only make up 23% of the STEM workforce, there need to be better role models for the aspiring girls in the audience. Her character is introduced while trying to secure tenure, and the plot involves her struggles to gain legitimacy in academia because of her extra-curricular interests. The English soldier through and through, although she always looks fabulous 's main squeeze forensic,... Around a disagreement over research she did with another female female scientist movie characters: GREAT of fictional scientists who investigated accident... 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'' Watson said, laughing in movies and TV female scientists are rated worst!