10 Female Characters We Love, Even Though They’re Barely Geeky In Any Way

Gracie-Lou Freebush! Right on. 

I love Gilmore Girls too, but come on…Rory is a HUGE geek. I mean, she and Paris spend their spring break watching The Power of Myth.

I have to admit, Rory’s geeky ways was one of the catalysts to me letting my “freak flag” fly when I was younger.

If they are geeks they are severely underrated as such, though, so we thought it’d be fair game since I’d probably never get the opportunity to write about them here again.

Aw, I need to watch Mulan now!

I really love the version of the Mulan story presented in “The Woman Warrior” by Maxine Hong Kingston, too. She’s insanely bad ass in there! Had the baby on the battlefield, kept it with her only as long as she had to to make sure it would live, then gave him to her husband and told him to GTFO, take care of the kid, and try not to die. Definitely worth the read!

Mulan and Gracie Hart have to be two of my favorite movie characters EVER. :D  One of the things I love about their stories is that getting the man is just a nice side dish, as it were.

Very fair. I like any reason to write about the Gilmores. 

Absolutely! I love that version. It’s like those stories of the women going into labor in the middle of the bar exam, but about 100 times more intense.

Caroline Julian – LOVE HER!!!

The Disney Mulan also says no to actual political power in order to go home and take care of her family and husband. The movie was good until that point.

@Sanna Well, she wasn’t really going to take care of her husband, as they weren’t together yet. And it was kind of all started by her family, so why not end there? I don’t think caring about your family erases or taints all the badass things she did.

While I loved Mulan let’s not talk about the sequel that Disney made, I remember being quite frustrated at that one. >.>

Effing love Mulan!

Disney sequels are usually sucky cash cow projects…unless Pixar is involved.

I wanna be CJ Cregg when I grow up. “My Secret Service name is Flamingo…”

But I really need to get Mulan on dvd. So so good.

She might be a sprts geek, but definitely a geek! Anyone who wears racing stripes at all times no matter the occasion qualifies as geek.

What I love about Mulan is that she didn’t join the army because she was looking for glory or to find herself, like in an early draft of the movie. She did it because it was the only way to save her dad’s life! She might have been graceless, but until then she knew what was expected of her… and regretted that she didn’t fit the mold even though she tried.

I also liked that she didn’t accept the Emperor’s offer. Her priority had been, and still was even in that moment, her family. And when her father told her that the greatest gift and honor was having her as a daughter… best father-daughter bonding movie, indeed.

BTW, Sue Sylvester rules. That’s all.

I’m working my way through West Wing in order for the first time (I’ve seen a lot of it, but in sort of sporadic order) and the women on the show pretty much never fail to make my day.  CJ is amazing of course, but so are the First Lady, Ainsley, Donna, Joey Lucas, and a whole host of other characters.

Someone didn’t see Cars 2….

Caroline Julian works in the U.S. Attorney’s Office as DC doesn’t have a District Attorney’s office. I love Bones, but the portrayal of the justice system there is terrible. They also have no idea what the DC courthouses look like. Sorry, used to work there and it frustrates me.

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Uh… she didn’t have a husband yet. And she turned down political power because she fought out of a sense of personal responsibility, not ambition.

Amy is the Bomb. Mary Louise Parker’s performance in this and Angels in America are the only reasons I stuck with Weeds for so long.

MARGIE! She’s so badass.

Can I add Ingrid Bergman for her role in “Notorious”? That’s one of my favorite films and Bergman is amazing as the shrewd Alicia Huberman who marries an old family friend (and former Nazi) in order to spy on him for the US government. She’s the perfect Hitchock “icy female”: radiating the perfect smile to her guests yet much in love with Agent Develin (Cary Grant).
 
Thumbs up for including Mulan in this list because yes, Disney is definitely mainstream.

Kima Greggs from the Wire? Or Starbuck?

Much love for Kima.

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I’m glad that this list got down to business at the end.  To defeat. The Huuuunsss

Great list!  I actually cheered when I saw C.J. being honored.  But I think you meant “right-hand woman”, not “second-hand woman” for Peggy Olsen.  Second-hand would mean that she’s used!  ;)

and @PenguinOnTheTelly. Sure, she did badass things. But as far as I’m concerned, the matter of personal responsibility extends to making a difference outside the battlefield as well. She might not have fought out of ambition, but there are other, and maybe better, reasons than ambition to accepting political power as well. Such as a sense of personal responsibility. Obviously she wasn’t happy with status quo to begin with, yet she turned down the opportunity to make actual political changes within her society. Such as opening doors for other women to do what she did but without having to dress up as men, so they wouldn’t have to fear discovery and punishment. It is possible for a person and a character to have multiple motivations at the same time. Accepting political power and political responsibility does not equal “not caring about your family”. She could have done both, she definatley had the capacity. 

There are any number of ways to care about and for your family. The way I read it Disney allows her to be a warrior, for a while – and only because she was a super warrior (the old “women can play as well, but have to work twice as hard to be accepted as equals” cliché) – but she still had to return to the norm in order to have a “happily ever after”. I’m sure you’re right about the fact that she wasn’t married as she turned down the offer, but her “getting the guy” would have been a lot more interesting if she had accepted that political position. Or, rethorical question, wouldn’t he want her if she had that power? Do you se him turning that kind of offer down if he was the hero of the day? Would she have been a bad daughter or less of a pride to her family if she had said yes?I liked the movie, but for me the experience sure was sallowed by it’s ending. Liking it doesn’t mean that the ending is unproblematic from a narrative perspective.I’m only talking about the Disney version here, I haven’t read anything but bits and pieces about the original myth. 

I agree that it would have been cool if she started overhauling the structure of Imperial China, but I don’t agree that it devalues her character’s strength to turn down a reward of political power for her service. It’s a common trope amongst epic heroes: they don’t want to change the world to fit their views, they just take what individual actions they feel compelled toward out of moral integrity. Mulan is a warrior, not a bureaucrat.

Sure, she is a warrior. It doesn’t devalue her strength as a warrior to turn that position down. However, narratively speaking, the choise Disney makes of letting her turn it down and retreat into a traditionally female-coded path is problematic, it’s bending her to fit into a stale, mainstream idea of “the proper place for a woman”. To me it breaks character for her to go back to a role that she obviously found awkward and problematic in the beginning of the movie. She won’t fit better in the every-day-life of a village woman just because she’s a hero – it will probably just make it more difficult to find friends. Yet it’s portrayed as bliss. If she’s to be read as a full warrior – let her turn bureaucracy down to be a warrior. 

She would probably have made an awsome officer or instructor in that army of hers – that’s also a way to make change, totally in line with her being a warrior AND it’s a common reward for the epic warrior (the ones who doesn’t follow Lucky Luke into the sunset). She could still have cared for and about her family and she could still have had a boyfriend. Read as a warrior an ending like that makes more sense. However Disney has a pattern for writing “happy endings” for female protagonists that comes into play with force. Don’t get me wrong, there is nothing wrong with wanting to live a quiet life with ones family, but doing it like that just doesn’t seem like the Mulan who is the protagonist of the rest of the movie. It just comes across like an old, tired structure forced into play where it doesn’t fit. Somehow the awsomeness of the rest of the movie makes it worse. The message is “Go out, do awsome, have fun developing your true talent for a while, but don’t forget to return to your *real* life and purpose (even if it don’t fit who you are)”. And I don’t like it. 

You win. 

Good article. But one correction. In the bit about Jenny Mellor you mention someone named Peter. I assume you meant “David” because there is no Peter in that movie. It was quite a good movie though.

Thank you so much for pointing that out! I mistakenly wrote down the name of the actor who played the character (Peter Sarsgaard) instead of the actual name of the character. 

Does this mean that Veronica Mars stole the “I believe cartoon birds braided your hair this morning” line from Gilmore Girls? Disappointing :(

Honestly, I think it’s somewhat of a saying. I might just be saying that because I’m a big fan of both shows, though. 

I’m totally going with your version, it makes me feel better about Rob Thomas & crew.
It makes sense that it’s an allusion understood by anyone who’s seen a Disney Princess in action.

B-But… where’s Mary Shannon?!?!

Finally somebody that appreciates the brilliance that was Tyra Collette.

This list needs an edit to include Merida (or at least mention her along with Mulan).

Wanda Gershwitz from Fish Called Wanda (Jamie Lee Curtis, who is amazing)…coming out of left field but she is the sexiest, funniest, badassenest lady who is totally in charge of herself. Love her to death.

AND Lisa Simpson OBVIOUSLY.

The characters I recognized are all pretty great (CJ Gregg, Marge Gunderson, Sue Sylvester and Mulan especially), but I don’t think Rory and Lorelai Gilmore could ever qualify as non-geeks. They’re high-functioning, but severe geeks.