# Hollywood, give us some black professors/scientists/geeks
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hollywood-give-us-some-black-professors-scientists-geeks/288067
**Category:** Cafe Society
**Created:** [February 2, 2005, 11:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hollywood-give-us-some-black-professors-scientists-geeks/288067 "2005-02-02T23:03:28Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@Bippy\_the\_Beardless](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bippy_the_Beardless)
#### Post date: [February 2, 2005, 11:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hollywood-give-us-some-black-professors-scientists-geeks/288067/1 "2005-02-02T23:03:28Z")
Please Hollywood, can we have at least the ocasional African raced scientist or inventor. Are there any films from America with a black genius who is played as an intelectual genius (not a nutty professor played for laughs).
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### Author:  [@Eutychus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Eutychus)
#### Post date: [February 2, 2005, 11:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hollywood-give-us-some-black-professors-scientists-geeks/288067/2 "2005-02-02T23:06:58Z")
Well, there was the black science teacher in _Gremlins_ but he gets killed off fairly early, so I guess he doesn’t count.
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### Author:  [@Captain\_Amazing](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Captain_Amazing)
#### Post date: [February 2, 2005, 11:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hollywood-give-us-some-black-professors-scientists-geeks/288067/3 "2005-02-02T23:20:53Z")
It’s TV and not Hollywood, but Dr. Franklin on Babylon 5, the chief medical officer, was black and a genius. And, for that matter, on Star Trek:TNG, LeVar Burton’s character was supposed to be an expert engineer who could do anything if he inverted the polarity of the phase inducers. 🙂
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### Author:  [@Green\_Bean](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Green_Bean)
#### Post date: [February 2, 2005, 11:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hollywood-give-us-some-black-professors-scientists-geeks/288067/4 "2005-02-02T23:23:19Z")
> [@Eutychus](#):
>
> Well, there was the black science teacher in _Gremlins_ but he gets killed off fairly early, so I guess he doesn’t count.
[Askia’s Law](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=5571414&postcount=56) strikes again!
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### Author:  [@Motorgirl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Motorgirl)
#### Post date: [February 2, 2005, 11:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hollywood-give-us-some-black-professors-scientists-geeks/288067/5 "2005-02-02T23:25:04Z")
Joe Morton as Dr. Miles Dyson in Termintaor II, maybe?
He was a brilliant scientist, though not terribly geeky, IMO.
And played as a very sympathetic character, even though at first you expect not to like him. After all, he helped invent SkyNet & all that…
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### Author:  [@monstro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/monstro)
#### Post date: [February 2, 2005, 11:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hollywood-give-us-some-black-professors-scientists-geeks/288067/6 "2005-02-02T23:29:03Z")
Panthro in the Thunder Cats was an engineer/techie guy. But he was a purple cat, who’s blackness was rather implicit.
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### Author:  [@Bippy\_the\_Beardless](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bippy_the_Beardless)
#### Post date: [February 2, 2005, 11:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hollywood-give-us-some-black-professors-scientists-geeks/288067/7 "2005-02-02T23:32:32Z")
Good one **Motorgirl** I should have said to leave out Doctors and Lawyers which are starting to become reasonably common.
I suppose Morphius (sp?) from the Matrix trilogy might count, but he seems more Charismatic than genius. I also loved Dr. Franklin from Babylon 5 as a breaker of many steriotypes.
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### Author:  [@Ephemera](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ephemera)
#### Post date: [February 2, 2005, 11:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hollywood-give-us-some-black-professors-scientists-geeks/288067/8 "2005-02-02T23:33:58Z")
This is stretching a bit (and I mention it only to goad **Askia** ) but Don Cheadle played a demolitions genius in _Ocean’s Eleven_. Does that count?
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### Author:  [@gobear](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gobear)
#### Post date: [February 2, 2005, 11:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hollywood-give-us-some-black-professors-scientists-geeks/288067/9 "2005-02-02T23:36:15Z")
No love for Steve Urkle?
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### Author:  [@Ephemera](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ephemera)
#### Post date: [February 2, 2005, 11:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hollywood-give-us-some-black-professors-scientists-geeks/288067/10 "2005-02-02T23:38:07Z")
No nutty professors played for laughs.
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### Author:  [@Ephemera](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ephemera)
#### Post date: [February 2, 2005, 11:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hollywood-give-us-some-black-professors-scientists-geeks/288067/11 "2005-02-02T23:39:13Z")
…and no. No love. At all.
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### Author:  [@Captain\_Amazing](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Captain_Amazing)
#### Post date: [February 2, 2005, 11:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hollywood-give-us-some-black-professors-scientists-geeks/288067/12 "2005-02-02T23:44:45Z")
In Bruce Almighty, God, who is omniscient, is played by Morgan Freeman. Ha! Got in on a technicality!
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### Author:  [@Miller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miller)
#### Post date: [February 2, 2005, 11:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hollywood-give-us-some-black-professors-scientists-geeks/288067/13 "2005-02-02T23:49:21Z")
> [@Aesiron](#):
>
> No nutty professors played for laughs.
That implies that something about Urkel was funny.
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### Author:  [@Ephemera](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ephemera)
#### Post date: [February 2, 2005, 11:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hollywood-give-us-some-black-professors-scientists-geeks/288067/14 "2005-02-02T23:55:02Z")
The key word being _played_.
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### Author:  [@pinkfreud](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pinkfreud)
#### Post date: [February 3, 2005, 12:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hollywood-give-us-some-black-professors-scientists-geeks/288067/15 "2005-02-03T00:05:41Z")
A few years back, there was a very good TV series called “M.A.N.T.I.S.” which starred Carl Lumbly as a brilliant scientist who overcomes a disability with the help of a prosthetic exoskeleton which he invented. The first few episodes of the show had a largely African-American cast, but then they started whitening things up. And then the show, having lost a lot of its zip, was cancelled.
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### Author:  [@jsc1953](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jsc1953)
#### Post date: [February 3, 2005, 12:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hollywood-give-us-some-black-professors-scientists-geeks/288067/16 "2005-02-03T00:08:13Z")
Samuel L. Jackson in **Jurassic Park**. Not a big part, but fits the OP criteria.
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### Author:  [@Podkayne](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Podkayne)
#### Post date: [February 3, 2005, 12:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hollywood-give-us-some-black-professors-scientists-geeks/288067/17 "2005-02-03T00:12:23Z")
I haven’t see _The Core_, but wasn’t Delroy Lindo some kind of a genius invincible - subterrianian - tunnel - boring - vehicle builder?
Morgan Freeman also played a physicist in the incredibly lame _Chain Reaction_.
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### Author:  [@audiobottle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/audiobottle)
#### Post date: [February 3, 2005, 12:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hollywood-give-us-some-black-professors-scientists-geeks/288067/18 "2005-02-03T00:31:05Z")
What geek in a movie isn’t played for laughs? I mean a stereotypical geek, not super hot person who just happens to be good with computers. When I read the title, the first thing I thought of was the guy from “Revenge of the Nerds.” Although I don’t know if he was actually intelligent or not.
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### Author:  [@easy\_e](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/easy_e)
#### Post date: [February 3, 2005, 12:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hollywood-give-us-some-black-professors-scientists-geeks/288067/19 "2005-02-03T00:39:33Z")
Samuel L. also played a violin expert in **The Red Violin**. While it may not fall under your criteria for scientist or inventor, in the course of the movie he had a lot of scientific tests (acoustics, varnish analysis, etc) done on the violin.
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### Author:  [@Askia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Askia)
#### Post date: [February 3, 2005, 12:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hollywood-give-us-some-black-professors-scientists-geeks/288067/20 "2005-02-03T00:42:35Z")
Don Cheadle. BAH.
Part of the problem with these scientist types is that a bunch of them DIE.
Let’s take my boy, Mr. Jackson. He’s Dr. Harry Adams in SPHERE is a mathematical genius and the first to figure out how to open the Sphere. His character was also a globetrotting-scientist-millionaire industrialist of a major scientific research center (who once resorted to cannibalism to survive) in DEEP BLUE SEA. He’s seen trying to keep JURASSIC PARK from falling apart in the eponymous film, and is the Africentric geek who’s damned good at figuring out solutions to brainteasers, word games and puzzles under pressure in DIE HARD 3. He’s a biochemist in the 51st STATE who claims to have created the ultimate designer drug. I have never seen the Triple XXX movies – does he invent those gadgets or just provides them?
The aformentioned father of SkyNet, Dr. Miles Bennet Dyson, is played by Joe Morton in TERMINATOR 2: JUDGMENT DAY.
The incomparable Delroy Lindo plays the inventor Dr. Ed Brazzelton of the Earth core ship in THE CORE and the Harlem numbers runner West Indian Archie with total mathematical recall in MALCOLM X.
Of this group of actors only Lawrence Fishburne played a college professor: in HIGHER LEARNING. Oh wait… James Earl Jones plays a law professor in SOUL MAN.
Offhand I can’t think of any black SCIENTIFIC geeks, like in THE GOONIES mode, played seriously in movies. (I can think of a few artistic/street smart ones, though.)
Carl Lumbly plays the best of them – Dr. Miles Hawkins, who becomes the superhero M.A.N.T.I.S. after fashioning an ex-skeleton to cure his own paralysis in a made for TV movie. The movie rocked – the subsequent TV show that followed dropped a bunch of Africentric elements and was thererafter merely “meh.”
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