“My favorite explosions always involve some kind of fuel. I love when you add gasoline, I love when you add propane, I love when you add coffee creamer!” -Kari Byron
The Mythbusters aren’t your stereotypical nerdy scientists with over-sized horn-rimed glasses, pocket protectors, high squeaky voices and awkward social skills–they are a special kind of nerdy. Passionate about science, incredibly intelligent, personable, absolute nerds/dorks/geeks (insert your favorite implied smarty pants insult here) and totally nutty–they endear themselves to your heart and make science interesting and cool in one short hour.
All of the Mythbusters are awesome and inspiring in their own right, but I find it especially awesome to have gun-loving, blow torch wielding, passionate, and all around bad ass Kari Byron on the team, inspiring girls everywhere, destroying the stereotype that science and enjoying things that go boom are relegated to the world of boys.
Kari isn’t the token girl on the team who needs to be watched or pacified or taken care of, she is a full fledged team member bringing her own expertise, work ethic and passion for science to the team, adding to the great chemistry that makes the Mythbusters so endearing. And more than that she is treated as such by her colleagues. I fee like I shouldn’t be so incredulous or perhaps envious, this is how all competent colleagues should be treated and yet it seems so rare, especially on TV!
When Kari was pregnant, the show didn’t make a big deal of it, and she continued working close to her due date and then took some time off, in a very natural and appropriate way. She wasn’t treated like a fragile doll unable to do anything but sit and watch, she participated and worked right along side the rest of the team, taking a few extra precautions and not attempting any of the crazy stunts herself, in a very appropriate and balanced way. My favorite vision of Kari pregnant is in attempting to bend bullets while testing physics from the movie Wanted. Picture it: Kari standing in a open field at a shooting range with her giant belly, sporting a bullet proof vest, and swinging her arm around as fast as she can attempting to shoot the target 100 yards away–how awesome is that! The picture is such a jutxtaposition of everything that woman traditionally told not to be and yet the joy on Kari’s face is priceless! (I searched Google for about an hour looking to find the shot, alas to no avail! You’ll have to rely on your imagination and my descriptive skills.)
If you want to be cynical, you could argue that there is only one girl of the team of five, she is cute and white and doesn’t do all of the stunts the boys do, but to you I say nay! Instead of being disappointed for what Kari is not because no one is perfect and there are many different types of women and men, lets demand more strong female Kari-type role models on TV!
