School, meet streaming. This spring, the nerdy nostalgist can find several depictions of campus life on their small screen. On Netflix, the adaptation of Julia May Jonas’ Vladimir draws us down a well of dark academia. And on HBO, we have Steve Carell cosplaying a hapless professor who may still be a student at the old School of Life.
All the intricate meetings and rolling knolls, all the reliable critiques of the kids today, have left this former student in the ranking spirit. After all, what’s school without grades? To that end, here are ten recent-ish depictions of the university prof, from film and television, in order of realistic-ness.
10. Dr. Dillamond, Shiz University (Wicked)
In college, I learned that I have certain literal tendencies. And as much as I love and respect the animal rights lobby and Peter Dinklage, this professor is not a plausible professor because he is a goat.
i9. Professor Duggan, University of Northeastern California (Undeclared)
This guy—from the unjustly canceled aughts/Apatow sitcom, Undeclared—just wants to make history fun!
Though realistically a try-hard, we must give the late Fred Willard’s Professor Duggan low plausibility marks for syllabus reasons. It strains credulity that even a remedial course at a mid-tier uni would truncate Kennedy’s tenure this much.
8. Professor Rooster, Ludlow College (Rooster)
As Professor Greg “Rooster” Russo, the airport bestseller late to academia, Steve Carell makes for pleasant company. But as anyone who’s sat through a Title IX meeting in the past ten years can tell you, that whole drunk student party infraction—let alone the grab—would have seen my guy on leave at best.
On the flip side? As consigliere, Danielle Deadwyler’s tenured Professor Shepherd is convincingly over it.
7. Professor Chang, Greendale Community College (Community)
I love Dr. Ken Jeong’s wild card of a Spanish teacher, but it’s gotta be the third or fourth rule in the handbook: professors can’t join the paintball war.
6. Professor Fleming, “Yale University” (Gilmore Girls)
Professor Asher Fleming (Michael Gore) is totally mid on the plausibility index. I buy that he conducted a tawdry affair with his smartest student and never faced a single institutional consequence.
I do not buy that he wrote a bestselling novel called Jaglon[!]that everyone seems to have taken seriously.
5. Professor Agnes, Fairfield College (Sorry, Baby)
Agnes, the tender, bristling English associate about which this film spins, does have the wardrobe and wit of my favorite adjuncts. But in a movie that’s worth a meatier discussion, this prof (played by the auteur Eva Victor) gets a demerit for class planning.
Lolita feels like a suspiciously low lift for advanced seminar.
4. Professor Hathaway, Pacific Tech (Real Genius)
Does anyone else have the late Val Kilmer on the brain? Perhaps it was this recent news. Real Genius, the woefully underrated comedy he made with Martha Coolidge, could also be in the air for darker reasons; the film’s about a group of pacifist nerds who pull a reverse Oppenheimer and derail their own efforts to invent what is essentially drone warfare.
But I digress. William Atherton’s Jerry Hathaway—the money-hungry mad king behind Project Crossbow—is unfortunately medium plausible. The open threats probably wouldn’t fly past committee, but Jerry’s willingness to sacrifice student wellbeing for profit has the whiff of many a modern Ivy League president.
3. Professor M, Stillcrest College (Vladimir)
Onscreen and on the page, I adore Professor M’s commitment to living the lessons she took from her favorite novels. But since her whole thing hinges on unreliable narration, it’s hard to get a sense of her actual vibe in the classroom.
The award for most mercurial, though? She has in the bag. I’d hate to be a Tracy Flick gunning for her approval. And Rachel Weisz is very professorial in all those gently eccentric power separates.
2. Professor X, “The Iowa Writers Workshop” (Girls)
Let the poets sing of Hannah Horvath’s brief but eventful stint at the Iowa Writers Workshop. In fact, they have; in 2015, when this arc first aired, everyone had an opinion about whether or not A Voice of her generation was faithfully replicating the MFA experience.
Speaking as a workshop veteran, I found Myra Lucretia Taylor’s unnamed professor convincingly even-handed. But her facilitating skills could use some finesse. (She really left our girl out for the wolves during crit!)
1. Professor Kim, Pembroke University (The Chair)
Sandra Oh’s Ji-Yoon Kim is frazzled, idealistic, and inclined to compromise as her stock rises at the university. She loves her students and wishes she could spend all her time in the classroom—but bureaucracy interferes at every turn.
In other words, she wins the list. Netflix’s The Chair may also take the prize for reading academia to its purest filth.
