I was watching a Sex and the City rerun the other day, the one where Carrie gets to be a model and Margaret Cho is the surly fashion director who affectionately calls everyone "fuckette." It was a fantastic episode full of girl power bravery, yet something about the show nagged me to the bone. The fashion stuff was cool. Samantha's naked photo shoot was fine. Charlotte's gay matchmaker routine was innocuous enough. But wait just a minute. What about Miranda? Yes! It was Miranda's plotline that got my thigh-high socks in a knot.

Miranda is working out at her gym. Hard body Dave approaches her and says "I've been watching you for months. I think you are very sexy." Miranda blushes. "Me? Sexy?" On the phone with Carrie she recounts the tale.

"I just can't believe that a guy would think that I was sexy. Smart, yes, sometimes cute. But never sexy. Sexy is the thing I try to get them to see me as after I win them over with my personality."

And this is where the nagging kicked in. Why is it that most intelligent women in the popular cultural realm are not permitted to see themselves as hotties who dig their own bodies in a super sensual way? Why is intelligence always inversely bound to sexiness in binary opposition? Why aren't women characters allowed to be both thinky and sexy for their own corporeal and cognitive pleasure? And more importantly, have we become so familiar with this smart/sexy dualism that we don't even notice the consistency with which intellectual women are represented as dumpy, frumpy, and lumpy? Let's look at some evidence.

1. Janet Wood from Three's Company. The sensible one. Juxtaposed to the boob machine that was Chrissie, Janet's role was to be level headed, trustworthy and loyal, like a good Smurf.

2. Diane Chambers from Cheers. The cerebral one. Fine looking to be sure, but devoid of any sensuality whatsoever. Her clothing and body language signified only one thing: cold fish.

3. Willow Rosenberg from Buffy the Vampire Slayer. The nerdy one. As an invisible female unit who could hack her way into any computer system, Willow was relegated to the world of good grades and constant razzing by the voluptuous Cordelia (though the recent Willow is most assuredly a sexual being of the first order).

4. Bailey Quarters from WKRP in Cincinnati. The naïve one. Bailey had an awesome body and bouncin' and behavin' hair. But even still, her pragmatic persona was cast as the antithesis to Loni Anderson's blonde bombshell routine.

5. Sabrina Duncan from Charlie's Angels. The bossy one. In a white pants suit Sabrina was gorgeous indeed, but her "masculine" reasoning skills and her constant pairing up with non-threatening Bosley created a signification devoid of any sexuality.

6. Velma from Scooby-Doo. The brainy one. She wore geeky glasses and a pleated skirt; she had buckteeth and a potato sack body. Standing next to Daphne, the message is clear: you can only be smart OR sexy, never both.

The eradication of sexuality in smart chicks - The Velma Syndrome - is as pervasive in our popular landscape as the Britney Spears Pepsi commercial. And though most of these examples have been reclaimed as feminist and lesbian icons (indeed, Velma wallpaper adorns my desktop), I have to wonder … where are the mainstream representations that bring together the erotic and the intellectual in such a way that makes us dream of being Velma instead of Daphne? Why must these two subjectivities be kept so divorced from one another, so impossibly segregated?

The Velma Syndrome is so established, so credible, so normalized - only a revolution of representation could unseat it from its invincible throne of power. So I say, let the revolution begin…

Note to Self: praise Lisa Simpson in public more often and wear "smart chicks rule!" t-shirt at least three time per week. Sweat stains be damned.

©Shauna Pomerantz, 2002
All Rights Reserved

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