1. Some well‐known examples include: Good Will Hunting (a film; Affleck & Damon, 1997 Affleck, B. and Damon, M. 1997. Good Will Hunting, United States: Be Gentlemen Ltd/Lawrence Bender Productions/Miramax.  [Google Scholar]), Pi (a film; Aronofsky, 1998 Aronofsky, D. 1998. Pi, United States: Harvest Filmworks/Plantain Films/Protozoa Films/Truth And Soul.  [Google Scholar]), Proof (a film; Madden, 2006 Madden, J. 2006. Proof, United States: Miramax Films. Writer: D. Auburn [Google Scholar]), Enigma (a film; Apted, 2001 Apted, M. 2001. Enigma, UK: Jagged Films/Broadway Video For Senator Entertainment/Intermedia Films.  [Google Scholar]), The Curious incident of the dog in the night‐time (a book; Haddon, 2003 Haddon, M. 2003. The curious incident of the dog in the night‐time, London: Jonathan Cape.  [Google Scholar]), The Da Vinci code (a book and a film; Brown, 2003 Brown, D. 2003. The Da Vinci code, Croydon: Corgi.  [Google Scholar]; Howard, 2006 Howard, R. 2006. The Da Vinci code, United States: Columbia Pictures. Writer: A. Goldsman [Google Scholar]), Numb3rs (a TV series; Gansa, 1997 Gansa, A. 1997. Numb3rs, United States: CBS.  [Google Scholar]), A beautiful mind (a film; Goldsman, 2001 Goldsman, A. 2001. A beautiful mind, United States: Universal Pictures/Dreamworks Pictures/Imagine Entertainment.  [Google Scholar]), 21 (a film; Luketic, 2008 Luketic, R. (2008). 21. Writer: P. Steinfeld, A. Loeb, G.H. Tree, & Mezrich B. United States: Michael de Luca Productions/Relativity Media/Trigger Street Productions [Google Scholar]), Oxford Murders (a film; de la Iglesia, 2008 Iglesia (de la), A. 2008. The Oxford murders, UK: Eurimages/La Fabrique de Films/ Telecinco Cinema/ Tornasol Films S.A. Writers: Guerricaechevarría J., de la Iglesia A. & G. Martinez [Google Scholar]) and Gifted (a book; Lalwani, 2007 Lalwani, N. 2007. Gifted, London: Viking.  [Google Scholar]).

2. Analyses of texts and of interviews have been published elsewhere (for an analysis of ‘texts’, see Moreau, Mendick, & Epstein, 2009 Moreau, M.P., Mendick, H. and Epstein, D. 2009. “Constructions of ‘mathematical man’ in popular culture”. In Pimps, wimps, studs, thugs and gentlemen: Essays on media images of masculinity, Edited by: Watson, E. 141–156. Jefferson: McFarland Publishers.  [Google Scholar]; for an analysis of interview material, see Mendick, Moreau, & Epstein, 2009 Mendick, H., Moreau, M.‐P. and Epstein, D. 2009. “Special cases: Neoliberalism, choice and mathematics”. In Mathematical relationships: Identities and participation, Edited by: Solomon, Y., Black, L. and Mendick, H. 71–82. London: Routledge.  [Google Scholar]; Epstein, Mendick, & Moreau, 2010 Epstein, D., Mendick, H. and Moreau, M.P. 2010. Imagining the mathematician: Young people talking about popular representations of maths. Discourse, 31(1): 45–60. [Taylor & Francis Online] , [Google Scholar]).

3. For example, after showing the various video extracts, we asked what they thought of the characters depicted, if they would like to be their friends, if they felt they were ‘like them’. We also asked about their views of mathematicians in general, for example asking them to describe a mathematician, with some probing related to personality, body image, clothing, what do mathematicians like/do, family and friends.

4. The focus group schedule can be accessed on the project website: http://www.londonmet.ac.uk/mathsimages

5. With a few exceptions, e.g., the character of Catherine, in Proof.

6. Examples are discussed more in depth in Moreau, Mendick and Epstein (2007), as well as in Mendick, Epstein and Moreau (2008 Mendick, H., Epstein, D. and Moreau, M.P. 2008. End of award report: Mathematical images and identities: Education, entertainment, social justice, Swindon: Economic and Social Research Council.  [Google Scholar]) and Mendick, Moreau and Hollingworth (2008b Mendick, H., Moreau, M.P. and Hollingworth, S. 2008b. Mathematical images and gender identities: A report on the gendering of representations of mathematics and mathematicians in popular culture and their influences on learners, Bradford, , UK: Resource Centre for Women in Science Engineering and Technology.  [Google Scholar]).

7. Again, there are exceptions to these, which we have discussed in details elsewhere, but they always are of women students/girls (e.g., Matilda, DeVito, 1996 DeVito, D. 1996. Matilda, United States: Jersey Films/Tristar Pictures.  [Google Scholar], or Cady Heron, Waters, 2004 Waters, M. 2004. Mean girls, United States: Paramount Pictures. Writer: T. Fey [Google Scholar]), whose options about their future remain open, and tensions between their mathematical abilities and their femininities are central to these narratives.

8. In A beautiful mind, John Nash’s bisexuality, first wife and divorce are disappeared from the film, while in Enigma the persona of Alan Turing is altogether replaced by the character of Tom Jericho, a heterosexual man. In both cases, this allows for the telling of conventional, heterosexual love stories (Mendick, Moreau, & Hollingworth, 2008a Mendick, H., Moreau, M.P. and Hollingworth, S. . ‘Who says you can’t do maths in stockings?’ An exploration of representations of women doing mathematics in popular culture. Paper presented at the 11th International Congress on Mathematics Education. Monterrey, Mexico. July 6–13,  [Google Scholar]).

9. This echoes construction of scientists as identified in the (In)visible Witnesses project conducted by researchers at the Open University. Asked to draw a scientist, 73% of the children drew the picture of a man (Whitelegg, Holliman, Carr, Scanlon, & Hodgson, 2007 Whitelegg, L., Holliman, R., Carr, J., Scanlon, E. and Hodgson, B. . (In)visible witnesses: Investigating gendered representations of scientists, technologists, engineers and mathematicians on UK children’s television. A Report for the United Kingdom Resource Centre for Women in Science Engineering and Technology. Milton Keynes: The Open University.  [Google Scholar]).

10. In the UK, where all the fieldwork was conducted, the law does not allow same‐sex couples to enter a matrimonial arrangement though it does allow civil partnerships which are, in all but name, the same as marriage, with the same provisions for inheritance, kinship and so on.

11. This should not necessarily lead to the conclusion that these figures of the ‘mathematical genius’ offer a radical critique of patriarchy or an alternative to hegemonic masculinities (Connell, 1987 Connell, R.W. 1987. Gender and power, Cambridge: Polity Press.  [Google Scholar]) as (men) mathematicians are also often described as heroic and as world conquerors thanks to their mastering of mathematics, as recalled in Mendick (2005 Mendick, H. 2005. A beautiful myth? The gendering of being/doing ‘good at maths’. Gender and Education, 17(2): 89–105.  [Google Scholar]). See, for example, the film Enigma, in which Tom Jericho uses his mathematical skills to break German codes during World War II.

12. This mix of mainly unappealing features is encapsulated in a scene in which John Nash observes about the tie of another student as they meet for the first time: ‘There has to be a mathematical explanation for how bad that tie is’.

13. This is a characteristic of biographies as well as fictional works (see Nasar, 2001 Nasar, S. 2001. A beautiful mind, London: Faber & Faber.  [Google Scholar]; Hodges, 1983 Hodges, A. 1983. Alan Turing: The enigma of intelligence, London: Unwin.  [Google Scholar]).