Girl, You Have No Faith in Medicine: Nurses in Pop Culture

It's National Nurses Week in the United States, and this weekend is International Nurses Day. Nurses are more than deserving of celebration, and they should be honored year round! I've had many wonderful experiences where a nurse's care made all the difference, either for me or a family member.

Because this blog often focuses on popular culture, let's take a minute to celebrate a few favorite nurses in film and television. Of course, when it comes to pop culture's portrayal of nurses, certain tropes have been easy to spot through the years. While a few of the nurses in this list might fit aspects of these tropes, they each offer so much more than that. Please note, the nurses below are female, but this doesn't mean male or non-binary nurses are any less awesome. These are just a handful of pop culture nurses who've left an impression on your humble narrator.

You're going to have to repeat that. I'm having trouble concentrating.

Tell me your faves in the comments!

Jenny Agutter: Nurse Alex Price, An American Werewolf in London (1981)

Paging Florence Nightengale, paging Florence Nightengale.

For folks my age, this is an absolutely seminal performance. One of my first, and strongest, adolescent crushes was on Jenny Agutter, based almost entirely on her work in this film and Logan's Run (1976). I wrote about the latter recently, and not to sound like a broken record, but I can't overstate just how much this nerdy kid swooned (and still swoons) over Agutter. Both films ran on cable TV constantly in the 1980s, and whenever I came across them while channel surfing, you can bet your sweet Aspercreme I stopped to watch. I loved each film, and still do, but come on now, Agutter was the primary reason my adolescent self watched them over and over again. Her performance in An American Werewolf is simply lovely, exuding warmth and compassion. She's one of the finest examples of the Florence Nightengale effect in cinematic history. In fact, it might be the most powerful example of the Nightengale effect on film because, not only does David Naughton fall in love with Alex (and she with him), but entire audiences also fell for her.

The scene that launched a million adolescent crushes.

Hell, I'd wager that 99 our of 100 Gen Xers, no matter their sexual preferences, could tell you exactly where they were when they first saw this film and how they lost their damn minds in every one of Agutter's scenes. Trust me, the stories would all be the same.

I still can't see this film without getting woozy every time Agutter graces the screen. *sigh*

*swoon*

Pamela Susan Shoop: Nurse Karen, Halloween II (1981)

Karen has a certain appealing insouciance. She is over it, y'all.

Another 1981 film—clearly an influential year for nurses on the big screen—Halloween II has several memorable nurses, each of whom meets a grisly end, though none more so than poor Nurse Karen. Look, I can't  help it, I've always had a soft spot for dear, departed Karen. First of all, she spends many of her scenes boinking Leo Rossi's I-talian Stallion ambulance driver Bud, and while he has a certain gauche charm, I can't help but think Karen deserves better. Then there's how impressively she, um, fills out her nurse uniform. She really makes the ensemble work for her. I also enjoy how positively bored she seems with everything. It's kind of hot, not gonna lie, and Shoop really sells it well. Karen's death is particularly gruesome, and never fails to make me wince and weep in equal measure. Karen deserved better, not only better than Bud, but better than being dunked repeatedly in a boiling hot tub by a supernatural slasher freak in a William Shatner mask. Such a cruel way to go out, and certainly no way to treat a nurse.

I want to shout at the screen and warn her, every single time. Guh.

What can I say? Childhood crushes never die, they just keep coming back to haunt us forever, sort of like ole Mikey Myers himself.

Louise Fletcher: Nurse Ratched, One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (1975)

Not the person you want overseeing your care.

Louise Fletcher's Academy Award winning performance is so ingrained in popular culture that she's been synonymous with the mean, vindictive, and inflexible female authority figure ever since. It makes you wonder how much harm this character did, not only to the nursing profession, but to all women in positions of authority. In a film comprised mostly of men—the other featured women are prostitutes—it's a bit sad to realize the one woman playing a central role is such a horrible shrew. Still, even though it does nurses no real favors, the film is rightfully regarded as a masterpiece, and Fletcher is truly magnificent in one of cinema's most iconic, bad woman roles.

Rosario Dawson: Nurse Claire Temple, Daredevil, Jessica Jones, Luke Cage, and other Netflix Marvel series

When are we getting the Night Nurse series, starring Rosario as Claire? When??

Honestly, I just love Rosario Dawson and her guest appearances across all of the Netflix Marvel series are always a major highlight. Claire is smart, resourceful, sarcastic, and as compassionate as any nurse on the big or little screen. The Marvel series have varied in quality, but even when the material doesn't quite match her excellence, Dawson has always shines as Claire.

As an added bonus, Dawson also appeared briefly as a nurse whose throat is ripped out by Dr. Satan in Rob Zombie's The Devil's Rejects (2005).

If only she'd switched shifts with Denise that day.

Her brief scene wound up on the cutting room floor, but you can see it here. I'm simply mentioning it because it's another instance of Dawson playing a nurse, and because I believe she's an underappreciated national treasure, I'll take any chance I get to promote her awesomeness. Also, fitting with the film's 1970s vibe, she's even wearing Hollywood's favored uniform for movie nurses—white, snug-fitting, and with the classic hat pinned to her hair—similar to Agutter and Shoop.

Dawson really plays the hell out of her death scene, too.

Katharine Isabelle: Mary Mason, American Mary (2012)

She should really wear a surgical gown.

This one's a total cheat, because Katharine Isabelle is playing a surgical med student, not a nurse. But this film is so outrageously disturbing and gory to the max that I had to give Isabelle an honorable mention. Her performance is astonishingly committed, and completely unforgettable. I would rank it among the very best, most jaw-dropping performances in horror in...geez, decades, honestly. Mary has issues, It's an intense performance, but one with plenty of nasty, dark humor as well.

Seriously, what is it with her and inappropriate surgical attire?

I have a feeling she'd make a terrible nurse, but as a body modification surgeon often operating in less-than-ideal circumstances, she's positively aces!