Johnny Test – Bitch Flicks

Women Scientists Week: The Roundup

Check out all of the posts from our Women Scientists Theme Week here.

5 Women Scientists Who Need Their Own Movie ASAP by Maddie Webb

Issues around equal gender representation in film are compounded by many female researchers’ accomplishments being erased from history, resulting in very few women being key players in scientific biopics. As a woman studying for a science degree, this absence is as painful as it obvious. So in a bid to restore balance (and an excuse for me to nerd out), here are 5 female scientists that deserve to have their stories told on the silver screen.

Jurassic Park: Resisting Gender Tropes by Siobhan Denton

Yet in rewatching Jurassic Park, it struck me that not only is Laura Dern’s Dr. Ellie Sattler a portrayal of a female scientist that is largely unseen in film, but she is, on numerous occasions, keenly aware of her gender and how this leads to her treatment.

Mission Blue: “No Ocean, No Us” by Ren Jender

Audiences have to look to documentaries like Particle Fever, about the discovery of the Higgs boson, to see women scientists in prominent roles on film. The Netflix documentary Mission Blue focuses on one woman scientist, Sylvia Earle, a former chief at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and pioneering oceanographer and marine biologist who is on a quest to save the world’s oceans from dying.

When Will Black Women Play Leading Scientists More Often? by Tara Betts

In movies and on television, the absence of Black women as scientists is glaringly obvious…The response on social media to the vocation of Leslie Jones’ character in Ghostbusters offers an opportunity to ponder: When have Black women been cast as scientists in laboratories, creating and inventing significant and outlandish developments, and leading investigations? …Where are the Black women playing scientists in films in the 21st century?

Splice: The Horror of Having It All by Claire Holland

Splice could very well be a cautionary tale for the career woman considering motherhood. From the outset, the film shows Elsa as an ambitious scientist who loves her job – and who loves her life exactly the way it is. … This presents the central conflict of Elsa’s character: her repressed desire to be a mother, and her larger desire to remain in control of her own life, body, and career.

Beverly Crusher (Star Trek: TNG) and Dana Scully (The X-Files): The Medical and the Maternal by Carly Lane

The impact of Dr. Beverly Crusher and Agent Dana Scully cannot be understated, not just on the landscape of female representation on television or the portrayal of women scientists but the way they also drove young women to pursue STEM fields in reality. …They transcend mere descriptors like woman, lover, mother, caregiver, skeptic, scientist — because they’re all that and more.

Contact: The Power of Feminist Representation by Kelcie Mattson

Contact remains a singularly astute portrayal of a woman combating the oppressive confines of institutional sexism as well as a reminder of how deeply mainstream cinema still needs progressive feminist portrayals that contradict gender clichés. … How refreshing that a woman’s personal arc is considered important enough to be entwined alongside the movie’s core theme of discovering meaning in our seemingly meaningless universe.

Mary and Susan on Johnny Test by Robert V. Aldrich

While the show as a whole was run-of-the-mill, it quietly had two of the most brilliantly realized female characters in recent cartoon history: Mary and Susan Test. …Mary and Susan Test are ambitious, intelligent, and fully-actualized. Exaggeratedly brilliant scientists, it’s the twin girls who put into motion most events of the series.

The World Is Not Enough and the “Believability” of Dr. Christmas Jones by Lee Jutton

Dr. Jones went from being a promising step forward for Bond girls to one of the more maligned female characters of the franchise. … And this is what is the most disappointing thing about Dr. Jones. She’s a tough-talking woman whose best moments in the film come when she grows impatient with Bond’s testosterone-driven idiocy and counters his quips with her own formidable sarcasm, yet in the end, she’s just like any of those earlier Bond girls that Denise Richards dismissed as lacking depth…

In Praise of Jurassic Park‘s Dr. Ellie Sattler by Sarah Mirk

Dr. Sattler is awesome. She’s a character who doesn’t fit into any typical Hollywood box: A friendly, stable, super-smart woman who wants to be a mother, has her own nerdy career, and doesn’t think twice about being a badass. … I saw Jurassic Park when I was seven and from then on wanted to be Dr. Ellie Sattler.

1950s B-Movie Women Scientists: Smart, Strong, but Still Marriageable by Linda Levitt

While the happily ever after scenario in these 1950s B-movies comes with an expectation that women give up their careers in science to become wives and mothers once the appropriate suitor is identified, it seems there are women in B-movies who do have it all — they maintain the respect afforded to them as scientists and also win romantic partners, without having to sacrifice their professional interests to assume domestic roles instead.

Ghostbusters Is One of the Most Important Movies of the Year by Katherine Murray

They’re moved to realize that, after everyone talked shit about them for weeks or months on end, someone actually appreciated what they did. It’s a moment of art imitating life that mirrored my experience with Ghostbusters… I also vastly underestimated how powerful it would be, and how great it would feel, to watch an action-comedy with only women in the leading roles.

The Female Scientists of The X-Files by Angela Morrison

The X-Files consistently worked against the idea that women could not be capable scientists. In fact, there is evidence to suggest that the character of Dana Scully inspired many young women to pursue education and careers in science and technology – what is now known as “The Scully Effect.”

Women in Science in the Marvel Cinematic Universe by Cheyenne Matthews-Hoffman

Female scientists are few and far between in the Marvel world. Of the 65 MCU scientists in a live action movie or television show, 18 are women. And of those 18, 2 are women of color… While those numbers may seem a bit low, MCU’s female scientists statistics are pretty much right on target with the national average. Women are greatly underrepresented in the STEM fields in the U.S.

Contact 20 Years Later: Will We Discover Aliens Before Fixing Sexism? by Maria Myotte

But the entire gist is still pretty radical: A big-budget film about a woman leading a monumental mission that, if successful, would be the most important discovery of our time. Contact‘s feminism is all the more stunning to watch two decades after its release because of its stingingly accurate portrayal of sexism in science and refusal to appease the hetero-male gaze.

Dana Scully: Femininity, Otherness, and the Ultimate X-File by Becky Kukla

Instead of investigating the science, Scully actually becomes the science. …There seems to be a substantial link between Scully’s gender and the tests and science that is inflicted upon her. Is this her punishment for daring to be a woman in a male-dominated sphere? … There’s also something pretty grim in Scully’s abduction/missing ovum storyline that feels very reminiscent of higher powers meddling and making decisions about women’s reproductive rights.

Gorillas in the Mist, Dian Fossey, and Female Ambition in the Wild by Jessica Quiroli

Dian Fossey, a zoologist, primatologist, and anthropologist, was a controversial figure because she approached her work with primates in their natural habitat in a radical and unconventional way. … Just by doing work that she loved and believed in, Fossey made a statement about women’s value in the world.

If She Can See It, She Can Be It: Women of STEM on Television by Amy C. Chambers

It is important to have women represented in fictional media as scientists from across the spectrum of sciences… By making women more visible in science settings on television – in both fictional and factual programming – the inspiring images of science that can and are being produced can be associated with women who are not only represented as smart individuals but as part of a network of diverse and complex professional women.

The Ponytail Revolution: Why We Need More Women Scientists On-Screen by Kimberly Dilts

We are truly in a moment of struggle over whose stories are being told. Do filmmakers believe that women are active protagonists worthy of their own tales, or passive objects to be used to further male narratives? It’s as big and infuriating and important as that — what is the story we want to tell about a woman’s place in the world?

In Rewatching The X-Files, One Thing Is Clear: Mulder Is a Real Jerk by Sarah Mirk

I realized something even worse: Agent Mulder is not a dreamboat. In fact, he’s an asshole. An asshole who spends most of the series mansplaining to Agent Scully. … Twenty years after The X-Files debuted, it’s still rare to see a female character who’s as complicated and resilient as Scully — especially who works in science. … What stands out about The X-Files while watching it now, though, is how consistently Scully stands up for herself.

Rise of the Women? Screening Women in Science Since 2000 by Amy C. Chambers

I am interested in thinking about how women have been represented in recent Hollywood/American science-based fiction cinema and whether we have really moved beyond relying on stereotypes, sex, and spectacle. Female scientists are increasing in frequency in Hollywood, but they are not being given adequate representation – they are often secondary to their male partners.

Mary and Susan on ‘Johnny Test’

This guest post written by Robert V. Aldrich appears as part of our theme week on Women Scientists.

No one’s going to blame you if you haven’t heard of Johnny Test.

It was a quiet little show that ran from 2005 to 2014, first on The CW (Kids’ WB at the time) and thereafter on Cartoon Network. There wasn’t a whole lot to it as a show, to be honest. It was pretty casual fare about a boy and his talking dog, with simple art and generic animation. The voice acting was pretty decent but nothing to write home about. Each episode was usually a very simple concept (often revolving around school, chores, and similar mundane events) that got milked for all it was worth. The series’ episodes had a few decent jokes to make you smirk, a lot of lowest-common-denominator giggles, and one or two gags that went over the kids’ heads that only mom or dad got. It was a perfectly decent show, perhaps even good at times, but never anything particularly stellar.

In another time and place, Johnny Test might have been a bigger deal, but like its ancestors from the late-80s, the series suffered from being an adequate cartoon just after a major epoch of great cartoons (with the 2008 conclusion of Avatar: The Last Airbender and the cancellation of Toonami) as well as being overshadowed by a few stellar standouts (like Ben 10 and Transformers: Animated). As such, only its very core target audience even knew it existed. Which is a shame because while the show as a whole was run-of-the-mill, it quietly had two of the most brilliantly realized female characters in recent cartoon history: Mary and Susan Test.

While the TV series Johnny Test was very clearly aimed right at the ‘boy’ demographic, with the titular character and his talking dog Dukey (…shudder…) being the centerpiece of most episodes, the two pivotal characters were Johnny’s older twin sisters. Whereas Johnny was an average, no-brand kid who was equal parts jock, geek, and lay-about (IE your generic all-American pre-tween), Mary and Susan Test are ambitious, intelligent, and fully-actualized. Exaggeratedly brilliant scientists, it’s the twin girls who put into motion most events of the series. The two red-haired teen girls are constantly working on scientific experiments that push the boundaries of human comprehension, ability, and rend the very laws of nature. Basically, think Dexter from Dexter’s Lab, only with actual manners, social graces, and no bizarre accent.

Mary, the eldest of the twins and visualized with curly hair and baggy pants, is an open-minded sort of scientist, willing to engage with most any theory. She’s slightly more out-going of the two girls and focuses mostly on their collective work. She seems to be the more mature of the two and the most well-adjusted of the three Test children.

Susan is Mary’s counterpart (if differences that subtle can be called such). The younger of the two, Susan has straight hair and typically wears a skirt. She’s a little more hard-nosed when it comes to science and interpretation, and is a little more curt. She evidences a quicker temper than her sister, and has also garnered the attention of an unwanted paramour in the form of Eugene ‘Bling-Bling Boy’ Hamilton.

Both Mary and Susan are brilliant scientists, whose work is courted by the U.S. government (who seem synonymous with the military, though they’re frequently played for comic relief) and other institutions, even while they attend school at Porkbelly Technical Institute (which seems to be a generic higher-ed establishment and made unclear if it’s a high school or a college).

Mary and Susan are not the first female science wonks in cartoon history. Prior to them, cartoon-watchers had Gadget Hackwrench from Rescue Rangers and Sandy Cheeks on Spongebob Squarepants (yep, technically the squirrel in a diving suit is a scientist). Go back any farther and you could debatably include Penny from Inspector Gadget, but at about that point, the already paltry list begins to thin out completely. Sure, some shows had the occasional one-off or even recurring character as a female scientist (Transformers had Carly, Spike’s girlfriend who seemed a little too enamored with the alien robots), but by and large, the media was woefully lacking in such representation. This necessitated audiences look to live-action entertainment for any semblance of female characters into science, math, and the like. But live-action stuff’s like, for adults and who wants to watch that?

Even more remarkable is that while female science characters are in short supply, in even shorter supply – so much so as to border on unheard of – are female scientists who are still GIRLS. In the annals of cartoon history, one would be hard-pressed to find any other characters so prominent and also so well-rounded. While Mary and Susan’s cartoon predecessors were often more scientist than girl, the Test Twins are still very much regular teen girls. They like to get gussied up in dresses, go to the pool, and go dancing. They like makeup and many of the usual trappings associated with femininity. They just also really, really love science.

This is best evidenced by both girls having an unrequited interest in Gil Nexdor (get it?), the hunky airhead that lives down the street. Both girls pine for Gil’s easily-distracted attention, but are exceptionally clueless as to how to achieve it or hold it. For most of the show, Gil seems largely oblivious to the Test Twins’ very existence, an interesting reversal on the usual trope. It’s doubly interesting because of how it is similar to Susan’s struggles with Bling-Bling Boy and his constant, unwanted (and at times, toxic) attention.

Most every episode of Johnny Test involves the girls and their intelligence. Either an invention of theirs kicks off the episode’s action, or one is needed to save the day. Episodes vary from the run-of-the-mill charm-of-life episodes involving the usual kids’ matters (lazy afternoon, not wanting to do homework, sibling rivalry, etc.) to hyper-exaggerated inanity (alien invasions, feuds with other super-geniuses). Mary and Susan sometimes struggle with one another, as sisters are wont to do, but always end up reconciling. Likewise, their attitudes towards Johnny vary from episode to episode, depending on how much trouble he’s getting them into or how much they want him to test a new invention, but they always drop everything to help him.

The Test Twins really are quite remarkable as characters. As progressive as cartoons can be, there remains a colossal dearth of science-minded female characters, especially ones who embrace femininity. Were we to guess based off the likes of their peers and predecessors like Penny or Gadget, we might get the impression that once a woman puts on a lab coat or a stethoscope, she ceases to be a woman or a girl. Once she commits to STEM interests, she quits being interested in dresses, dances, or swooning after crushes. Mary and Susan Test challenge this quietly but directly.

For girls tuning in to watch this show, they found two prominent and visible characters who appear in nearly every single episode and always contribute meaningfully, if not outright save the day. Moreover, they do it not with beauty or social graces or even physical might, but with their intellect. These girls are the force in the show because of their smarts. Name any other cartoon with any other female character (much less two!) that can say the same. Don’t worry, I’ll wait.

Moreover, these two girls are not the centerpieces of the show. While they’re certainly not supporting characters, they’re not quite tritagonists with Johnny either. Mary and Susan occupy some unique territory where, depending on the episode, they find themselves as anything from partner-in-crime to background character to even deus ex machina. At first glance, this might seem a bit to undermine their importance, but consider instead that the target audience of this show is likely to be boys (because heaven forbid a show appeal to both, but that’s a discussion for another matter). By having these two super-science girls in the background of the show helps normalize the notion of girls who are smart, ambitious and love science. If this show were a little boy’s favorite TV show, it would be very likely that he would be completely accepting of girls at school being into biology, math, and the like. After all, why wouldn’t they be?

The world of entertainment has not been kind to women and girls who are interested in science, technology, engineering, and math. Often these characters are written quickly out of shows, turned into one-off joke characters, or relegated to quiet support. When they are featured in any way, they are nerdy outcasts who are scientists not just first, but almost exclusively. If a female character is into STEM matters, it’s as if they must sacrifice their femininity.

Mary and Susan casually dismiss all of that as the garbage that it is. They’re girls, fully realized and healthy in every way, who love science and lose themselves in their pursuits. No struggle exists to reconcile their intellects with their lives as girls. They are the perfect role-models of the aspiring scientist who also wants to wear cute clothes and go to the prom. On a show that otherwise was solid but quite forgettable, these girls stood out as contributing wonderfully to the tapestry of rich female characters cartoons have offered.

Not too bad for a cartoon with a talking dog named Dukey.

Robert V. Aldrich is a writer and novelist, living in Raleigh, North Carolina (and plans to vote against Pat McCrory as soon as November gets here). He’s the author of numerous books including Samifel and Rhest for the Wicked, as well as a contributing writer for multiple websites. You can find more of his work at TeachTheSky.com and he can be found on Facebook and Twitter. When not writing B-rate sci-fi or smarty-pants evaluations of kids’ shows, he is working for the health department, teaching martial arts, or losing arguments to his cats.