Revenge of the Nerds (1984)

5 months ago

C’MON, GILBERT, LET’S GO TO COLLEGE

by Chris Cantwell

On the vinyl soundtrack for Revenge of the Nerds (which I got from Amoeba for one dollar), they laid in fart sounds during the refrain of the title track, something to the tune of “Revenge of the Nerds! (fart) Revenge of the Nerds! (fart).” The fart sounds are not in the movie version of the song.

I think this explains Revenge of the Nerds perfectly, so if you’re busy, it’s okay to stop reading now.

Revenge of the Nerds was probably pitched through a mouthful of Waldorf salad in Beverly Hills. “Nerds get the drop on the jocks—” SOLD! The word screamed as a fork is jammed into a studio VP’s eye.

Doesn’t it seem like this premise was grown on a fruit tree in a development executive’s Beverly Glen Canyon backyard? From the title alone, it’s clear this movie idea was outlined like a parking space that the writers, directors, cast, and crew proceeded to back into with a moving van full of a bunch of random crap.

The title is one of those movie titles that tells you EXACTLY what the movie is. Hotel for Dogs also comes to mind. THIS IS WHAT THIS IS. IT’S A HOTEL FOR DOGS. THESE NERDS GET REVENGE. It’s a great title. As a matter of fact, the whole movie is pretty great. It actually holds up some 27 years later, whereas I feel other movies in this genre and decade now seem a little stale or dated. But Revenge of the Nerds is still funny, still tight, and still pretty good overall.

However, there are several caveats to this statement:

1) This was probably a complete accident.

2) Most good studio films are accidents.

3) This movie could have easily been terrible.

4) This movie probably should’ve been terrible.

This is how I imagine the writing session went for Revenge of the Nerds (note—the writers had to be a good 15 to 20 to 25 years older than the characters the movie portrays. I might be wrong about this, but watch the movie. How old do you think the writers were?):

“Okay, who are the nerds in the movie?”

“Well, we have to have a group of nerds.”

“We should have every kind of nerd.”

“Yeah! Because ‘Nerds’ is plural in the title.”

“Okay, so a lot of them have to wear glasses.”

“Yeah, the nerds I knew at William and Mary in the 60’s wore glasses.”

“So we should have guys who like computers.”

“They ALL like computers.”

“Yeah, and robots and shit.”

“Okay, so there are guys that like computers. And then like a boy genius kid. You know, that kid you hated in school because he was really smart and skipped a couple of grades?”

“I skipped a couple of grades.”

“Really?”

“Just kidding, guys!”

“Okay, and then a foreigner. Because I hate foreigners.”

“Like an exchange student.”

“Yeah, like a Japanese guy.”

“Japanese guys like computers. Perfect.”

“We should have a pervert. Like a gross disgusting guy who is a pervert.”

“JESUS, I love it!”

“What about a guy with glasses?”

“We already have guys with glasses.”

“Sure, but like really THICK glasses. Like he’s blind. Like he’s almost handicapped. And he’s scared of everything, especially women. When he sees a woman, he has an orgasm in his pants.”

“What about female nerds?”

“What kind of nerds are female?”

Said simultaneously: “Fat girls.” “Ugly girls.”

“Okay, I’m gonna write down ‘fat ugly girls.’”

“Gross.”

“Yeah, which is why the pervert guy loves them. Because they put out.”

“To make up for it.”

“EXACTLY!”

“What about a gay guy? They’re weird.”

“What about a black guy?”

“I’ve got it. A gay black guy.”

At that point, director Jeff Kanew likely came into the room and hit a high operatic note while brandishing a deadly erection.

Conversely, the writing session for the cool kids probably went something like this:

“Okay, who are the cool kids?”

Said simultaneously: “Football players.” “Cheerleaders.”

“Great, let’s go get some more pizza / cocaine.”

I think the writers of this movie had zero experience with any kind of group of human beings, including football players and cheerleaders. Every group in the movie is shown as “an other.” The only person you come close to identifying with is Gilbert Lowe (Anthony Edwards), because his only flaw is that he’s meek. We’ve all been meek at some point in our lives.

So, speaking of “the other,” let’s talk about this movie’s REALLY uncomfortable racial allegory. The nerds are so uncool that they’re forced to join the black fraternity. That’s a real plot point.

Writing session:

“So the nerds need to become cool somehow so they can compete with the jocks.”

“Well, the only way to be cool in college is to join a fraternity.”

“No frat is gonna take a bunch of nerds. SAE’s William and Mary chapter certainly wouldn’t have taken them in the 60’s.”

“Is there a fraternity made up of marginalized people?”

“A black fraternity.”

“HIGH FIVE! Let’s get more pizza / cocaine.”

I can’t decide if the allegory is offensive or smart. I think it’s… both? Remember, the jocks put a burning wooden sign outside the nerds house that says “NERDS.” It’s not a cross, but… they also throw a rock through the window. It says, “Nerds Go Home.” It plays like a deleted scene from In the Heat of the Night.

Smart: Their black fraternity brothers come to defend the nerds at the end of the movie.

Offensive: As the fraternity brothers walk out, funk guitar music plays.

Smart: U.N. Jefferson, head of Lambda Lambda Lambda, is shown to be clear-thinking and accepting of the nerds.

Offensive: Lewis plays “Swing Low, Sweet Chariot” so that U.N. will have more fun at a party.

Offensive: Even if the black frat members are shown more realistically, Takashi, the Japanese exchange student, is… I don’t know, just watch this: http://youtu.be/i5_gWOR7woU

By the way, Ted McGinley looks 35 in this movie.

So what makes Revenge of the Nerds good? What makes it stand the test of time?

1.) John Goodman.

2.) Robert Carradine.

3.) This scene: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1mRG2oAQhso

That scene is the best thing Jeff Kanew has ever directed. I don’t mean it as a slight; that scene will be remembered forever. I hope the second unit guy didn’t do it, because Jeff Kanew may as well have become a Star Wars blue ghost after filming this.

I could add a number 4 and explain why the editing makes this film good, but that would get really boring really fast. It boils down to: Cut on joke. Cut on screaming. Cut on fall. Cut on boob. Do not cut on John Goodman.

They tried to remake Revenge of the Nerds in 2006 but they shut it down after something like two weeks of production. The dailies were that bad. But I feel like its development process was no different than that of the original. It just happened to go the other way and it turned out not good instead of good. You could make the argument that we’re too PC in our culture today and that’s why the reboot failed, but the original Revenge of the Nerds is empirically and audaciously offensive, even for 1984. The movie successfully offends the following:

Nerds (see “the people who made the Internet,” “the people reading this”)
Women
African Americans
Asia
Alumni boosters
James Cromwell’s career

These offenses are unmitigated. Some of this lends to the movie’s fun. I watch it and I can’t believe what they get away with. I can’t believe Timothy Busfield is Poindexter.

This movie has become deeply ingrained in my subconscious. It was the first time I saw full-frontal nudity. By the way, the full-frontal nudity in this movie is some of the creepiest full-frontal nudity I’ve ever seen.

Jeff Kanew, drinking a glass of blood: “THERE’S NOT ENOUGH BREASTS.”

Unit Production Manager: “There are 24 breasts in a minute and a half.”

Jeff Kanew, in the midst of French kissing a Fox studio exec high on meth: “MAKE HER TAKE HER PANTIES OFF.”

This film continues to sit there, at the forefront of my subconscious, daily. When I first showed up to USC on move-in day in 2000, the campus looked just like Adams College (turns out Adams College is actually University of Arizona). So college for me, at least in color and texture, looked like Revenge of the Nerds. The only thing that was missing was creepy full-frontal nudity on a closed-circuit television.

And, as a student in film school, I’ll admit that the movie and its sequel heavily influenced any early aesthetic I might have had. Here is proof—a scene from a short I did in college: http://vimeo.com/28844050. The plot of that short? A nerdy student builds a time machine to go back to 1965 and sleep with his then-young college professor BEFORE she meets her husband, who in the present day is MIA in Vietnam.

It’s a classic piece of filmmaking.

I can’t really sum up the legacy of Revenge of the Nerds because it is so sprawling in my mind. I will say those TV sequels are a piece of shit. The culmination is perhaps best crystallized by Bradley Whitford at the end of Nerds in Paradise: http://bit.ly/p6Ae4f

How much do you hate Bradley Whitford there (and how awesome is he at the same time)? Underdogs trigger something chemically in our brain. Bullies do as well. We will root for underdogs—no matter how ridiculous they are—in the face of a bad enough bully. Because watching an idiotic buffoon triumph over a bully is even better than watching a normal person triumph over a bully. The loss of dignity the bully endures is enormous, which makes revenge that much sweeter.