Problematic Movies of the '80s | Revenge of the Nerds (1984)
In high school (1980–1984) I was part of a group of four known throughout the school as The Four Guys. There was Lynn, the eventual valedictorian of our class who was about four foot eleven with a huge strawberry birthmark on his face. Lew, a Dungeons & Dragons enthusiast who was both a drummer in the band and played the organ for fun. Merc (his last name was Mercer and, given we were both named Don, the abbreviation stuck) a soft-hearted Christian rock kid with a goofy smile and built like a Great Dane pup. And me. Known as Don R. because I signed my name with the middle initial and my debate coach thought that was funny.
We did skits in classes that didn’t call for them. We played hearts at lunch. We were all four in the band. Lynn was super-smart as was Lew. I was bigger and louder than my three friends so when the jocks wanted to beat on us, they always had to go through me first. Lynn and I were debate partners and led our team to regional, state, and national victories. We all four loved computer class with Coach Strong. We graduated as the top four in our tiny class: Lynn, then Lew, then Merc, then me.
We were nerds.
We didn’t really care that we were nerds nor that the football players made fun of us. My girlfriend and I broke up my senior year so Lew was my prom date and we had a ball. Lynn probably never once saw himself as a nerd because he was so razor sharp that he just carried himself as slightly bullet proof. Of course, I was almost always in some sort of battle with the jocks because I had (had?) such a big goddamn mouth, but we were nerds of the highest level.
We graduated in 1984 and all four of us went of to college just like Lewis (Robert Carradine) and Gilbert (Anthony Edwards) in a movie that sought to define the dilemma faced by nerds across America.
What film is more iconic of the ‘80s than Revenge of the Nerds? What iconic film of the ‘80s is more prescient for today?
It is easy to connect the idea of the Nerds using the hazing tactics and bullying methods against their Frat Boy and Sorority Sister Oppressors to the social justice movements of today. In 2019, the marginalized, outcast, oppressed minorities of identity have taken to utilizing the strategies of the Alt Right to turn the table on them. In the ‘80s it was the wealthy frat boys using public shaming and media shout outs to shame the Left into losing elections. Today, the Rage Profiteers on the Fringe Left use online call outs, prank videos, and YouTube gotcha moments to do the same thing.
Don’t get me wrong, the Alt Right uses these tools as well but the Radical SJWs out there are smarter than them and far better at it. Just recently there’s been squawk about the scene at the end when the head of the Bad Guy Sorority gets tricked into having sex with the head nerd, so that may be quite problematic. Nikki Sixx, in his book The Dirt and the subsequent Netflix film, tells a random story about having sex with a groupie who was so wasted that he switched out with Tommy Lee and she didn’t notice, which sounds similarly horrifying, was in real life, and Motley Crüe were hardly nerds.
Anyway, that’s about all I can remember. This was not one of my favorite comedies of the day but I recall liking it.
Revenge of the Nerds
Directed by Jeff Kanew
Written by Tim Metcalfe, Miguel Tejada-Flores, Steve Zacharias, & Jeff Buhai
The set up is relatively simple and the film wastes little time establishing things through the use of broad stereotypes. Gilbert and Lewis are nerds going to college. They drive up to Adams College, get a dorm room, and due to the stupid jock frat (the Alpha Betas) who burn their house down by drunkenly blowing fireballs at a set of curtains, are moved with an entire group of nerds to a corner of the gymnasium. Here they meet Booger (Curtis Armstrong), Poindexter (Timothy Busfield), Lamar (Larry B. Scott), and Takashi (Brian Tochi). The group of nerds find a rundown house on campus, fix it up, and apply to be a fraternity house.
They only manage to become a probationary member of Lambda Lambda Lambda, a black national fraternity, through a by-law. When the Alpha Betas are threatened by the nerds joining their game, they try to destroy them and the nerds fight back and win. It’s not terribly complex and it isn’t supposed to be. Relying on the caricatures of drunken white frat boy jocks, big-boned nerd girls in the Omega Moo sorority, John Goodman as an abusive asshole football coach, David Wohl as the milquetoast Dean, and the broad swath of nerds in the Tri-Lambda frat makes for some quick setups and quicker storytelling.
It is notable that venerated actor James Cromwell is listed as “Jamie Cromwell” in his short role as Lewis’ father.
Problematic Moments/Themes
Oh, Nelly — there are almost a catalogue list of jokes, images, and plot points of things 2019 would consider problematic.
The Asian and the Gay Nerds
The caricature of Takashi (Asian, pigeon English, a series of jokes around his inability to pronounce “Rs,” and perhaps the most bizarre — in the talent contest, these brainiacs decided to take the stereotyped Asian kid, dress him up as a Native American chief with feathered headdress and have him play the gong. Not only problematic but completely unnecessary.
Lamar is gay. You know he’s gay because he speaks like a girl, does aerobics, has a limp wrist and brings a guy as his date to the frat party.
Once the nerds get hazed by the Pis and Betas, they decide to take — you guessed it — revenge. For the guys, they put Liquid Heat in their jockstraps. For the girls, they stage an elaborate panty raid with plenty of gratuitous naked sorority chick shots, all to create a diversion so that Lamar and Wormer (a genius kid sent to college before he even hit puberty) to rig giant cameras (1980s…) so that they can sit on a couch and peep on the unsuspecting and surprisingly nude sorority girls. The revenge on the guys gets about four minutes of screen time and no tit shots. The revenge on the sorority gets about twenty minutes of screen time and exists almost entirely to showcase 1980s’ co-ed jugs.
Christ! Who thought this was funny instead of completely fucking creepy? I half expect Dirty Harry Callahan to be hunting this guy down…
And, of course, there’s the rape. And, yes. It is a rape by every definition minus the violence. Betty (the über-chick) is refused by Stan (the alpha-male) for an invitation of sex (“You’re like a goat,” he says) and Lewis, seeing Ted McGinley’s mask, takes it, pretends to be Stan and fucks Betty under these false pretenses in a funhouse. Does it matter that Lewis is so good at sex that Betty, once she sees it isn’t her boyfriend but a nerd, falls in love with Lewis? Nope. Still rape. Does it make any difference at all that Betty is not traumatized or in any sort of distress? Not at all. Still fucking rape.
R. A. P. E.
Sure, at the end there is an odd co-opting of the mantra of the Civil Rights Movement to unify the nerds against the jocks but, for crying out loud, they use the black fraternity members of the national Tri-Lambdas as Black Panther muscle (marginalizing, awkward, and, yes, problematic).
In 2019, unfortunately nerds have become incels (The Involuntarily Celibate) and are so hellbent on the same basic goals as the 1984 Tri-Lambdas that even the theme song evokes images of hostile white guys plotting revenge against women who find them unattractive and end up hating women and sometimes killing them.
Mom packs us a lunch and we're off to school
They call us nerds 'cause we're so uncool
They laugh at our clothes
They laugh at our hair
The girls walk by with their nose in the air
So go ahead, put us down
One of these days we'll turn it around
Won't be long mark my word
Time has come for revenge of the nerds
We wear horn-rimmed glasses
With a heavy duty lens
Button down shirts
And a pocket full of pens
Straight "A" students
Teachers pets
They call us nerds
But we don't regret
While the jocks work out
With the football team
We're trying to score
With the girl of our dreams
You know we ain't good looking
But here's the surprise (gasp)
Nerds are great lovers
In disguise (ah)
So go ahead put us down
One of these days we'll turn it around
Won't be long mark my word
Time has come for revenge of the nerds
If I heard a 2019 gamer dude singing this song, I’d alert the authorities.
Did It Hold Up?
Not really. Not even close.
Overall
Scale of 1 to 10
1 = Classic
10 = Burn all VHS copies of it
Revenge of the Nerds gets a 9
Next Up: National Lampoon’s Vacation (1983)
