Geeks, celebrate: Your time is now

KANSAS CITY, Mo. - How does a bookish 77-year-old detective remain popular, sexy and relevant today?

It's a mystery.

But for Nancy Drew, whose movie opens today (review on Page 23), that age-old appeal might be evidence of a certain truth already proven by the likes of Ugly Betty, Napoleon Dynamite and, well, let's face it, anyone from the cast of Heroes: Nerds are cool. Who knew?

"Geekdom is front and center, celebrated rather than mocked," said Michael Slezak, senior writer for Entertainment Weekly's Web site, ew.com. "There's something appealing about characters getting ahead through their smarts, sense of humor and passion for things they like that aren't necessarily cool."

Trekkies and techies have stumbled onto TV and movie screens as central characters and romantic leads. Whip-smart Cristina Yang of Grey's Anatomy, dweeby Dwight Schrute of The Office and 30 Rock's bespectacled brainiac Liz Lemon have emerged as breakout prime-time stars.

The upcoming network lineup includes even more social misfits and smarty-pants, with CBS's The Big Bang Theory, about a pair of A Beautiful Mind-style geniuses; ABC's Miss/Guided, starring a former outcast returning to high school as a guidance counselor; and NBC's The IT Crowd, featuring a group of computer tech nerds.

And the box office recently has been rocked by a couple of unlikely idols: Tobey Maguire as the unsuave Peter Parker in Spider-Man 3 and goofball Seth Rogen in Knocked Up.

The geek mystique has even struck a chord in the music scene. Weird Al Yankovic snorted his way to the bank when his single "White and Nerdy" peaked at No. 9 on the Billboard Hot 100 in October.

And you've been living under a sorcerer's stone if you don't know who Harry Potter is, whose fate will be determined in J.K. Rowling's final novel next month.

Hip has never been so square.

"It's interesting to look at their rise from second fiddle to center stage," Slezak said. "Maybe audiences weren't afraid of them all along. It just took time for the studios to see it."

In fact, mainstream media have moved beyond the popular transformation story of bumbling geek to sexy chic, he said. The Pygmalion plotline of She's All That, Love Don't Cost a Thing and The Princess Diaries offers a hopeful message: The uncool (given the right beauty products and high-fashion access) have a chance to be cool.

But now, the pressure's off. Take Ugly Betty. Her biggest transformation at the end of the show's first season was adding hot pink bands to her braces.

Lately producers are proposing a different message: The uncool are already cool.

"In a certain regard, there's a freedom in being, 'I'm so comfortable with myself that I don't care if you know I'm excited about the new Fantastic Four movie coming out,'" said Kevin Dilmore, a Prairie Village, Kan., nerd who co-authored six Star Trek fiction books. "The closer you are to embracing your inner geek, the more comfortable people are with you."

Jerome Walker, owner of a computer service company called Kansas City Geek, said he has never felt marginalized as a self-proclaimed nerd.

"I don't feel insulted by the term 'geek,'" he said.

Unfortunately, he couldn't comment on the trend because he said he's not in touch with pop culture, but he offered to answer any computer-related questions we had.

What a nerd.