Read this over at the New York Times:

“If you are in the mood for a movie about the rejuvenation of an aging, widowed college professor — and don’t pretend you aren’t — then this is a weekend of rare and unexpected abundance. By some miracle of film industry serendipity, two such movies are opening today in limited release. Even more bizarre: each is pretty good.”

The two movies are The Visitor and Smart People, both of which figure a disillusioned professor who gets “saved” either by art (and a healthy dose of ethnicity) in the case of The Visitor or by sex with a younger woman in the case of Smart People.

The review goes on to praise the performances of Richard Jenkins and Dennis Quaid (respectively) and states: “There is something about impersonating thwarted intellectuals, their early promise and ambition fading into vanity and irrelevance, that inspires a certain kind of actor to tap into deep veins of pathos and wit.” To wit, the author cites Jeff Daniels in The Squid and the Whale and a commenter adds Michael Douglass in Wonder Boys.

And what do each of these films have in common? Apparently all professors are men.

I enjoy a good send-up of academia as much as the next person. I still chuckle over that surreal episode of Law and Order a few years ago about a murder that had taken place in an Ivy League English department. Oh, it was terrifically terrible!

But seriously, when is there going to be a half-way decent filmic portrayal of a female academic? We’re as disillusioned and in need of rescue as the next guy.

Let’s revisit some of the more infamous female professors on film:

There’s the Professor as Sex Pot in Rodney Dangerfield’s Back to School (1986). Remember that pornographic reading of Ulysses?

There’s the Professor as Make-Over Candidate in Barbra Streisand’s The Mirror Has Two Faces (1996).

Honestly, I can’t think of any other examples. Ain’t it pitiful?