Nerd Sex Symbols!

Haven’t posted for a while, but I came across this amazing shot of nerdsexsynbol awardee Jodie Foster I’d never seen before.  Wow.

(via fuckyeahhotactress)

Olivia Wilde

Who didn’t see today’s entry coming?

In the NY Times article the pic links to she actually refers to herself as a “world class nerd”.  Okay, Olivia, I get it.  You want to be here!

Lucky for you the article (along with a few back-channel sources I have in H-town) rates your intelligence as high as your attractiveness, so welcome.

Nerd bonus: Tron: Legacy, Cowboys and Aliens, the ‘e’ on the end of her name.

Mila Kunis

I’ve been waiting for an excuse to add this stunning woman to the list, and GQ has finally provided it.  In her latest interview she discusses Star Trek and even ranks the different series against each other.

Not that she couldn’t have joined the fray here earlier seeing as she’s appeared in SciFi movies and done animated voiceovers - most importantly (for this demographic) for Robot Chicken.

And then there’s the sexiness.  Her sex-fu is strong and has an exotic Ukrainian twist.  Overall her sexual charisma is unique and probably the most powerful of any woman so far on this list.

Felicia Day

It’s sometimes difficult to find a pic of a nerd sex symbol caught in the act of being nerdy.  This is not the case with Felicia Day.

Her nerd cred is so rock solid I don’t even have to list it.

If you don’t know who she is you might not actually be a nerd.  Sorry.

Rachel Bloom

The woman behind “F*ck Me, Ray Bradbury”.

The woman who made reading science fiction sexy again.

…

…

…

Okay, okay, she made reading science fiction sexy for the first time ever, an even more monumental achievement.

I started this blog because of Elizabeth Warren, but I’m sticking with it because of Rachel Bloom.

Téa Leoni

On the day of her (one hopes) permanent separation from David “my show is like my life, funny right” Duchovney I would like to welcome one of the sexiest women in the world to this list.

Smart, well educated (including Putney and a fashionably incomplete taste of Sarah Lawrence), Leoni, with her fearful symmetry and perfect blonde color and attitude, is like the Platonic ideal of a shiksa.  Ben Stiller served as her training wheels in the fantastic “Flirting With Disaster” until she graduated to an actual, but inferior, Woody Allen movie.

Her nerd cred includes outings in Jurassic Park III, Deep Impact, and a walk-on on a single episode of X-Files (thanks, Hubby!).

You deserve better Téa, we hope you find it.

Lily Cole

She’s a supermodel, and she’s appeared on “Dr. Who”, which is nerd heroin.  Actually maybe “Dr. Who” is closer to nerd cigarettes.  Each one isn’t that good and you constantly ask yourself why you don’t stop.

She’s also been in a Terry Gilliam movie, which is nerd heroin.

But the reason she comes to the attention of this blog is that she just picked up double first honors in History of Art from Cambridge University this week.  This is supposedly the highest possible honor (what, no triple first?) and not many achieve it - especially not nerd-attracting supermodels who manage an active media career at the same time.

Jolly good show, Lily!

Alyssa Campanella

Only two Miss USA contestants thought evolution should be taught in school.  She was one of them.

She won. 

That’s right folks, your new Miss USA believes in Science!  Thank you, Alyssa!

I admit I may be grading on a curve with this entry.  I don’t know and hope to find out.  Okay I found out.  She even calls herself “a huge science geek!”  Do I have good taste or what?  <333

Jodie Foster

The first Yalie to make the list. 

Her geek appeal is abundant.  She’s appeared in such geek favorites as “Contact”.  She starred in “Silence of the Lambs”, the film that essentially won the psychological thriller genre for all time.

But there’s so much more to love.  Foster is a polymath who epitomizes grace, intelligence, and talent as an actor, director and producer.  Listening to her on a chat show like “Fresh Air” is fascinating.  She seems to have a wall of separation between topics she won’t talk about at all and topics she will discuss with complete candor.  Not like any other Hollywood person I can think of.

And to top it all off she told Diane Rehm to watch “Team America World Police.”

Duh, winning!

(Oh crap!  Is it already too late to make any more humorous Charlie Sheen references?  Why didn’t anyone tell me!?)

Mindy Kaling (aka Vera Chokalingam)

Another Dartmouth woman of color!  Is this a trend?  (Trust me, it’s not a trend.)

Kaling is both a brilliant writer and a brilliant comic performer.  I actually saw her in her co-written play “Matt and Ben” before she was famous.  I knew she had big things in her future, but her rise to head writer of the American version of the Office was beyond meteoric.  It’s nice when the good guys win and raw talent is enough.

Oh yeah, also, she’s totally hot.

Hedy Lamarr

Looking at her you might think “so pretty!  She’s kind of like Rachel Weisz.”

Yeah, she is kind of like Rachel Weisz, if Rachel Weisz had also invented cell phones…!!!

Alright, that’s gilding the lily a bit, but only a bit. 

By day she burned up the cinema screen with her smoldering good looks.  At the time some thought her the most beautiful woman in Hollywood.  In fact a guy once yelled “fire” in a crowded theater that wasn’t on fire but was showing a Lamarr film.  Three people were gravely injured in the rush for the doors, but the judge let him off anyway ruling that “Lamarr’s beauty has lit a fire in all of our hearts.”  (See “City of Los Angeles v. Ogler”, 1942, docket#1173912)

But in her free time she co-invented a form of radio communications called “frequency hopping” that is used extensively to this day.

Aisha Tyler

Here’s another wonderfully lovely woman who also happens to be smart, funny and nerdy - as she thoroughly proved during her brief run as a sit-in for Roger Ebert.

She graduated from Dartmouth “yes it’s really officially Ivy League” College.  She likes Kung-Fu movies.  She plays video games.

Done.

Kate Beckinsale

The other British Kate.  Her sexiness is almost ostentatious, so I won’t go into detail.

The nerd-appeal needs to be expanded upon a bit because the full extent of it is not known popularly.  You see aside from appearing in some very geekish films, such as “Underworld” and the new “Total Recall”, she’s also brilliant.

As a teen she won the W.H. Smith Young Writers’ contest - twice.  Then she studied French and Russian literature at freaking Oxford and all the while appearing in movies including Branagh’s Shakespeare adaptation “Much Ado About Nothing!”  (Can someone get back to me on whether or not she was reading French and Russian lit in the original languages?)

Any questions?

Alyson Hannigan

Anyone who’s ever seen her sexy nerd roles (perhaps the most of any woman on this list) needs no explanation for her presence here. She single-handedly popularized the ultimate nerd phrase “band camp” while at the same time, almost unbelievably, sexualizing it.

She gets more beautiful and successful with each passing year, but her indelible and inimitable joyful nerdiness remains firmly in place.

Kathryn Bigelow

Ok, so she was married to nerd-god Jim Cameron, creator of the Terminator franchise and re-inventor of the Alien franchise.  Big deal.

She’s gorgeous.  She directed a kickass vampire movie that makes Twilight look like Twee-light.

But here’s the main thing.  She narrowly averted a national embarrassment. You see, the same year her ex made “Dances With Wolves Meets Ferngully Meets That Computer That Won Jeopardy” for 200 trillion dollars (aka “Avatar”) she made a gritty poetic movie about actual soldiers in an actual war (war still ongoing) that actually won best picture.

I am so grateful about not having another “Titanic” year I’ll even forgive her the spelling of her first name.