Top Five: TV’s Female Role Models

By Michelle Patterson

I want to lavish praise upon a few of my new favorite strong female role models on the small-screen. More realistic than the perfectly-tousled china dolls of Gossip Girl (although dammit, do I love me some Blair!) and much smarter than the featured bad actress of the week on Supernatural, I’m relieved to know that young girls can and do attempt to be like the women they see on their televisions when these types of characters exist. Ladies who have the required sass and the ability to kick-ass, but who also bring across the most poignant and heart-breaking moments are my favorite kinds. The following are my top five female role models on television.

Yvonne Strahovski as Sarah Walker

The first two demonstrate that they can take over the Buffy and Sydney Bristow thrones with great ease: Natalie Morales as Wendy Watson on The Middleman and Yvonne Strahovski as Sarah Walker on Chuck. It’s satisfying to see a girl take down a guy four times her size—as Yvonne took on Michael Clark Duncan’s thug on a recent episode and made it seem pretty plausible—you can’t help but want to try it yourself. She doesn’t let much of herself out in order to not appear vulnerable. Nonetheless, when she does allow any weakness to show, it is obvious that she has it under control, no matter what.

Natalie Morales as Wendy Watson

Morales’s Wendy Watson tempers her hand-to-hand combat with one of the most staggering wits this side of any of the dweebs on The Big Bang Theory. She is one of the smartest women to take on anyone or anything: animal, mineral, or alien. It feels possible to deal with anything life happens to throw at us because of her comforting and warm presence.

It used to be that women in comedy could be as ridiculous and silly as their male counterparts—in addition to the option of possessing looks outside of the hot spectrum—and not have to worry about being less popular. Unfortunately, it’s more important to be as affable as possible (in addition to having a sense of comic timing) in the eyes of most television viewers. Thankfully, there are a couple of actresses who are willing to poke fun at this idea: Cobie Smulders as Robin Scherbatsky on How I Met Your Mother and Tina Fey as Liz Lemon on 30 Rock.

Cobie Smulders as Robin Scherbatsky

Cobie presents Robin as a living, breathing and attractive woman who has a focus, career-wise, and the tendency to favor cigars and whiskey. Instead of coming off as a pure male writer’s fantasy, though, her character’s attractiveness is tempered with the concept that not all women want marriage and babies to fulfill them. Then, there’s the extreme dorkiness and the fact that she and her character are from Canada, both of which make Robin feel real and attainable.

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