"Smart" girl Alex gets a lesson from her not-so-dumb-after-all sister, Haley
ABC
I have a girl crush on Haley Dunphy, and (finally!) this week's episode of Modern Family has given me a reason to brag about her. Alex is graduating middle school and as class valedictorian—her competitor Sanjay Patel got attacked by a robot, so he's out—she has to give the class speech. As she's practicing for the big day, Haley overhears her nerdtastic sister's musings. Alex plans on taking down the popular elite with a rant about how the cool kids ignored her while she silently rose to the top by not caring about boys or skinny jeans.
Haley, a popular girl who rocks a lot of skinny jeans, not only finds Alex's speech offensive, but recognizes that it is social suicide. She knows Alex will crush any possibility of reinventing herself in high school by hating on all of her classmates at the ceremony. Instead of railing on the people, Haley suggests Alex nix the lecture and Google some song lyrics. Alex refuses.
I find the Alex cliche—smart equals uncool—a little unbelievable. All the smart kids I knew growing up weren't losers. The intelligent young woman who gave the speech at my middle school graduation may not have known much about skinny jeans (flares were hip back then!) but she definitely cared about boys and popularity. And, she for sure Googled her entire speech (whatever, the crowd had no idea—they loved it).