Geeky challenge

[drwex]

At dinner discussion last night one of my coworkers asserted that Tony Stark was the only engineer(1) in pop culture who is depicted as attractive. I dispute this, but so far I've only been able to come up with two counter-examples:

1. Kaylee (Firefly)
2. Geordi (ST:TNG) - not my type, but I've definitely heard women say appreciative things about LeVar Burton in that role.

(1) the rules of the game exclude doctors (e.g. Bruce Banner) and straight-up scientists (e.g Jon Osterman/Dr Manhattan from Watchmen).

Help me, oh geeks of my acquaintance. What am I forgetting?

ETA: I think we might include Bruce Wayne/Batman, at least in some incarnations, and MacGuyver. ETA 2: I think Dan Dreiberg from Watchmen also qualifies.

Comments

[drwex]

I don't think formal education is the issue here so much as "what do they mainly do"? To take the prototype (Tony Stark) - what he does mostly is build stuff. There are lots of scientists who also happen to build things, often because nobody else can understand their ideas. They also tend to program computers, but I don't think of them, per se, as programmers.

[aelf.livejournal.com]

Then Chris Knight from Real Genius shouldn't be disqualified on the basis of his education, because he's definitely into building things. I read him as one of the people who's interested in making things, and gets the education because it supports that drive. (Whereas I could go with the reverse for Jordan from the same movie, she's interested in the theory, and the doing is something she's also driven to do, but it's an "also" and not necessarily a primary.)

From my view, Dr. Walter Bishop from Fringe wouldn't count because he's primarily a scientist and he builds things primarily to support his science. But his son is more of an engineering type.

[drwex]

He's not per se disqualified on the basis of his education so much as he's disqualified on the basis of how the character is presented. It's a scientist character, who makes things to test out his crazy theories. Compare with Tony Stark who makes things and develops the theories necessary to make the things.

(I and my coworkers are engineers so it's perhaps not a distinction obvious to others. I hadn't thought of it that way before.)

[aelf.livejournal.com]

I read the Chris Knight character differently from you. That could be because I haven't seen the movie in ages, but it could also be because we see it differently - much like I don't think Jordan was presented in the movie as being unattractive. I think she was presented as being "awkwardly" attractive, in direct contrast to the cheerleader types who were conventionally attractive. Chris Knight clearly enjoyed designing things, not only to test out his theories, but also to just be goofy with people.

I make/design things and have engineers in my family and among my friends. Many engineers don't develop large theories, they build things, often putting things together in unexpected ways (if you're considering how they're presented in popular media). If you're aiming more for people who derive grand theories you're by definition looking for more scientist types and less pure application types (which seems to be the reverse of your initial proposal which excluded more pure science types).

I've kind of been thinking about it as the difference between inventor/engineer/scientist, but I think you have a different taxonomy in your head.