Revenge of the Nerds (1984) They've been laughed at, picked on and put down. But now it's time for the odd to get even!

I decided it's time to start keeping track of my frequent encounters with popular culture - in other words, I'm adding a new category: Reviews. I'm going to try to reflect briefly on films and books I read, as they come my way (or as I'm reminded of them). Although, I'm calling the category reviews, they will mostly be brief reflections from the point of view of my interests rather than summaries of content - we have IMDB, Amazon and Wikipedia for that.

And what better way to start this enterprise than with a look at Revenge of the Nerds.

There are two things that this film brought up for me (as many others do, as well). First, it is interesting to observe the intersection (blending) of several genres. Bildungs roman, freedom narrative, teenage comedy, cult classic. Looking at this from the perspective the conceptual blending theory would be beneficial for both fields. The question that blending allows us to ask is to what extent are the different genre spaces integrated and are there any obstacles to this integration. This film (BTW: more cult than good) treads a not very fine line between a freedom narrative and lewd farce but seems to borrow elements from both genres to further the other. For instance, nerds are portrayed as the oppressed pseudo-minority but at the same time their oppression is defined as sexual deprivation.

Which leads me to my second point. Something I’ve been noticing a lot lately (I even wrote a short article in Czech on this topic) is the extent to which many scenarios that seemed commonplace only twenty years ago would be considered completely unacceptable today. The film contains two scenes - one where the ‘nerds’ install hidden cameras in the girls’ dorms and the other where one pretends to be someone else to have sex with a woman. (A similar film in this respect is Porky’s). Both of these things might be considered borderline rape, yet they are included as part of the positive characterization of characters in question. This is just another reminder that if we look closely at the behavior of any “oppressed” group, we will find another group that is being trod on in the name of liberation of the first group (strangely enough it reminds me of a BBC Radio 4 reading from a memoir of a female judge during the Iranian revolution).