The Sexy Scientist

Who doesn't love a good sexy scientist character? Even straight chicks can't deny the awesomeness of a well written sexy scientist type character. That being said, the sexy scientist has to actually, well, be a scientist not just boobs in a lab coat.

I spent last weekend as any self respecting nerdy film student would. That is working on a film set. I was production designer which was awesome because it was a science fiction shoot and I got to build some really awesome props and put together some awesome costumes. I seriously did more sewing and even some ironing than any person should do because seriously I was the only person that knew how. (The damn director didn't even know what was needed to work an iron.) It was a lot of work, but I enjoy making props and costumes a lot so I was fine with it.

The original script I liked a lot. It was a first draft so it probably needed a couple tweaks, but was over all pretty awesome! One of the main characters was a female scientist. Yes, she was the signature sexy scientist, but you could tell that she actually had the brain power to do science and I quite liked her character. So, starting out, I was pretty damn excited to work on the shoot. All the cool stuff I got to design and build as well as the cool characters made it a dream job.

Things only started to get iffy when the director decided to rewrite the script. It wasn't originally the director's script. A friend of ours wrote it and if it needed revisions, for all intensive purposes, it should have been the writer to make them, but the director opted to do it himself. The script suddenly ended up being twice as long (mostly because he pumped up the dialog), it made the assassin a guy who apparently doesn't know how to unfurl his eyebrows (this one at least worked), and stripped our friend the sexy scientist of a brain. Instead of the smart, but sexy scientist we all know and love, she has now become a woman who got the job apparently because she has boobs (which to be fair might know more about science than the actual scientist). The character felt a fair amount like a stripper doing a sexy doctor strip tease.

I must give kudos to the actress who played our doctor, however. Somehow when we started out filming and before the director gave her the instructions of "act slutty" she somehow managed to make the line "I left my makeup in the car. I wanted to touch up before the surprise party!" sound like it was coming from an intelligent woman and wasn't just written by some guy who apparently never talks to girls. That line physically made me cringe everytime I heard it. I had to fight the urge to either 1. Walk out the door and take all my props with me or 2. Confront the director and beg him to change that line to something someone might actually. Even the most stereotypical of woman don't say shit like that.

It was frustrating, very damn frustrating and I wasn't the only one who left that shoot more than a little annoyed. The guy who was the director really is a great guy, but there are two things he needs to do. 1. Learn how the hell time management works. (There was way to much waiting around for him.) And 2. Maybe just ask and actual woman how her brain functions. And possibly 3. Stop watching so much porn. (It's starting to show in your work, dude.)

Like I said I'm all for a sexy scientist, but can you please keep them as actual scientists. This director isn't the only one to do it. It's all over Hollywood movies. There's the sexy scientist that doesn't actually seem to know what science is, or in at least a couple cases, she knows, but is to preoccupied with love interests. (*cough* Suzanne Storm *cough*)

Come on filmmakers. Is it really too much to ask for a sexy scientist that actually knows and cares about her work. Sorry to burst your guy bubbles people, but we don't just get jobs with our boobs and there isn't a special branch of science where woman are chosen as scientists by the quality of said boobs under a lab coat.