Revenge of the Nerds
I promise the blog isn't becoming a movie blog, but I am starting to rewatch a bunch of ones from my youth through my 20s. ;) This time, the rewatch was for Revenge of the Nerds.
There are quite obviously some problematic scenes in the movie. Lewis tricking Betty by pretending to be her boyfriend was wrong. I know they needed the two to connect for the movie to completely work, but there had to be another way.
Lamar's homsexuality carried a message of inclusion, but at the same time was played as a joke. I suppose that was the only way it could have been played at that point in the 80s, but it doesn't make it right. The jokes surrounding it most definitely fall flat these days. Asshole 14 year-old me probably found it funny. Luckily, people can grow out of stuff like that.
The body-shaming of the women of Omega Mu played for comedy was another problem with the film. I get that 14 year olds weren't meant to be allowed to see the film, but my parents were pretty liberal in some parts of their lives. I saw through that, because 14 year-old me thought most of the girls who were meant to be shown as "ugly" were better looking than most of the cheerleaders. I've never been one to abide by society's concept of "beauty." ;)
There are lots of of other problematic issues which made the film not age very well at all. Those issues were also problems with society at large back then, and many of them are, unfortunately, still a problem. But some of us managed to grow since then.
Now, you might be thinking that I did not enjoy rewatching the movie. You'd be dead wrong. I was a nerd. I am a nerd. I've alway preferred "geek," thank- you-very-much, so I identified with Lewis and Gilbert and the rest. I still do. The underlying story is still good, and not all of the comedy relied on the problematic parts. I still enjoyed the film, because I was able to look past the problems and at the underlying message of acceptance and inclusion, which I think is the real message of the film.
Tags: movies, comedy, revenge-of-the-nerds
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