When those plucky nerds out-fundraise those darn jocks by selling pies with naked pictures of the same cheerleader hidden at the bottom, we\u2019re supposed to be laughing the trademark Nerd laugh (something like a snort while choking) alongside them. But we don\u2019t. Because they just handed out compromising pictures of a young woman to an entire college campus. And how did they get such a picture? Like pimpled, perverted Hans Grubers, our enterprising heroes led a daring panty raid on her sorority as a clever distraction from the cameras they were also installing in the house. Then, they spend what must be at least 12 hours lying around their frat, watching the nubile coeds do all the things college movies like this think they do. Good for our boys, invading the privacy of a dozen women and committing a crime<\/a> that should earn each of them at least a year in prison.<\/span><\/p>\n For a movie about nerds earning the respect they deserve, it makes a better case for the jocks trying to kick them off campus. Frankly, the geeky heroes embody more negative stereotypes of fraternities than the dim-bulb athletes do. Who would <\/i>welcome a band of criminal misfits who spy on sororities and sell nude photos of their members at school functions? By complete accident, Revenge of the Nerds <\/i>predicted the rise of Gamergate, Men\u2019s Rights Activists, and the YouTube comments section \u2014 if a nerd feels disrespected, they\u2019ll take it out on any woman who hasn\u2019t yet blocked them.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n But that\u2019s a broad term, \u201cnerd,\u201d and it doesn\u2019t really mean anything anymore. It means so little that misguided nerds police the nerd credentials of anyone they deem unworthy (women, mostly). Wal-Mart sells distressed tees for Star Wars<\/i>, Star Trek<\/i> and every major video game franchise. One of the biggest subscription boxes around sends a pile of ambiguously nerdy junk to your front door every month. It\u2019s most telling that the last in-character appearance of Robert Carradine and Curtis Armstrong (the infamous Booger), shepherds of the franchise, was in King of the Nerds<\/i>, a TBS reality show ordered as a companion piece to The Big Bang Theory, <\/i>a ratings behemoth about socially awkward scientists that too many forum threads call \u201cnerd blackface.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n Point is, there\u2019s no membership requirement for being a nerd, and certainly less discrimination against nerdy folk than ever before. \u201cDiscrimination\u201d might even be too heavy a word, though the rest of the Nerds <\/i>franchise makes the case that it\u2019s not heavy enough.<\/span><\/p>\n Revenge of the Nerds II: Nerds in Paradise <\/i>(1987)\u00a0<\/i>is that rarest of sequels whose subtitle is also its entire plot. Most of your favorite nerds return, taking the fun on the road to Fort Lauderdale for a national fraternity convention. It\u2019s the exact same movie, down to the implausibly elaborate musical number, with extra palm trees. If you forget most of the first one, Nerds in Paradise <\/i>actually makes the gang sympathetic, but it takes an accidentally disastrous decision to pull it off. Removed from a college campus, a zeroes-versus-heroes conflict doesn\u2019t make much sense. That\u2019s why there\u2019s no Animal House 2000 <\/i>where John Blutarsky raises his trademark hell on the campaign trail. That\u2019s why American Pie <\/i>started following different (cheaper) casts of characters still in college. It\u2019s hard to imagine and harder to portray nerds getting bullied outside of school.<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cI don\u2019t want nerds in this hotel!\u201d the upper-crust manager declares to his concerned underling. Admittedly, he is a former member of the jock frat. But he\u2019s still an adult, who admits he\u2019d rather lose money on an unsold room than rent it to nerds.<\/i> It may only seem like a goofy byproduct of \u201880s teen comedy exaggeration, but the follow-up takes it farther.<\/span><\/p>\n Revenge of the Nerds III: The Next Generation <\/i>(1992)\u00a0<\/i>takes the franchise into the fuzzy PG world of TV movies and freely equates nerd discrimination with homophobia. Robert Carradine returns as Lewis Skolnick \u2014 excuse me, Lew <\/i>Skolnick. See, he\u2019s not a nerd anymore. He grew out of that phase<\/i>. He\u2019s all about ponytails and cell phones the size of meatball subs now. Lew even derides his college-bound nephews (the titular next generation) as nerds.<\/i> <\/span><\/p>\n Meanwhile, Ted McGinley\u2019s alpha male cop, Stan Gable, returns from the first movie as one of several unnecessary commitments to continuity, becoming the new Dean of Students despite a complete lack of qualifications. His mission: eliminate the new nerds and steal Lew\u2019s wife, played by Julia Montgomery, reprising her role as the cheerleader he kind of <\/i>raped in the original. <\/span><\/p>\n The plot progresses exactly as you\u2019d expect \u2014 the young nerds are harassed, old white guys hate them, a 100% renewable form of celery-based ethanol is casually invented in a montage. But it\u2019s Lew\u2019s plot that gets interesting\/uncomfortable. When former foe Gable deceptively befriends him, Lew is giddy at the acceptance. But his wife (and later his best friend Booger) tries everything to appeal to his true, buried self. When he does finally see the light, he retrieves his nerd gear from a dusty, hidden closet and comes out, pocket protector and all. And I do mean he comes out<\/i>. Lewis announces on the radio that he is, in fact, a nerd. He talks of the \u201csystematic elimination of nerd culture,\u201d calls for a nerd protest and appeals to any non-nerds with nerd family members. Then Villainous Old White Guy demands Lew and anyone like him be yanked off the air. And the police actually drag them out of the radio station.<\/i> <\/span><\/p>\n But the line that seals the deal, proving that the writers knew exactly what they were doing, comes almost immediately after. Villainous Old White Guy\u2019s receptionist walks into his office and say she\u2019s leaving to support the protest. When he reminds her she isn\u2019t a nerd, she replies, \u201cNo, but my son is, and whatever he is or wants to be, I support him 100%.\u201d The movie then reveals, to the bad guys\u2019 surprise, just how integrated nerds are into society. When they go on strike, every industry falls to its knees. The remaining workers put their hands up in lazy, inoffensive neutrality. A gas station owner (an uncredited Clancy Brown, somehow) tells Villainous Old White Guy, \u201cI got no feeling for \u2018em one way or the other.\u201d <\/span><\/p>\n And then there\u2019s the finale. Lewis goes to trial for a crime he did not commit, and Gable takes the stand. He boldly admits that all of his nerd hatred was actually self-hatred, because he never wanted to admit he was a nerd in a non-nerd\u2019s body. It\u2019d almost be admirable if one of the few characters to appear in every Nerds <\/i>installment wasn\u2019t a staggering gay stereotype. It\u2019s an uncomfortable equation that a comedy so slipshod can\u2019t possibly make into anything more than a reductive joke. That\u2019s all to say nothing of the casual racism that\u2019s plagued the series since it introduced a revolving door of Asian stereotypes.<\/span><\/p>\n Lucky for us, Revenge of the Nerds IV: Nerds in Love\u00a0<\/i>(1994),\u00a0<\/i>a loose remake of Guess Who\u2019s Coming to Dinner<\/i>, says plenty. Unlike III<\/i>, which doesn\u2019t get queasy until an hour in, IV <\/i>hits the ground stumbling. See, Booger is engaged to a high-society woman with a family to match. Her mother faints upon seeing him. Her father asks if he came from money, scoffs because he didn\u2019t. Her brother says the dreaded n-word \u2014 nerd<\/i> \u2014 and the whole family gasps. He adds with what can only be described as an \u201880s-Creep-Sneer (this movie came out in 1994) that he can \u201csmell them a mile away.\u201d Her mother weakly offers that she heard nerds make \u201cgood husbands.\u201d <\/span><\/p>\n Now entirely removed from a college setting, the only way to maintain a plot about nerd discrimination is to paint them as genuine second-class citizens in the eyes of the closed-minded. It\u2019s a fantasy that never remotely approaches believability, especially when the Stuck-Up Dad assumes his daughter is only marrying a nerd<\/i> for \u201crevenge\u201d or because she\u2019s pregnant, and offers to buy her therapy to fix what must be a mental deficiency. <\/span><\/p>\n Nothing greater illustrates the problems of Nerds in Love <\/i>than when the Chairman of the Republican Party arrives. He watches in quiet horror as these lowlife nerds <\/i>swarm around him, like another species entirely. He only forces himself to stay when Stuck-Up Dad reminds him that even nerds <\/i>vote. But in this scene, his bug-eyed discomfort is justified. One nerd presses his bare ass against a picture window. Others compete in a hotly spectated burping contest. <\/span><\/p>\n If the Nerds <\/i>franchise has an Achilles heel, it\u2019s a repeated failure to paint the nerds as heroically as they\u2019re clearly supposed to be. It turns toxic in IV<\/i> only because it calls on racism, yet provides plenty of valid reasons to discriminate against nerds. In perhaps the baldest exposition dump ever aired on network television, Lewis Skolnick tells Booger the plots of the other three Nerds <\/i>movies, all of which Booger was present for, in a passionate plea against \u201cthe yoke of nerd oppression.\u201d Why is he having this conversation? Because the nerds started a food fight at Booger\u2019s bridal shower. By the time the scheming brother frames Booger for having an illegitimate child and Stuck-Up Dad discovers how to satisfy his wife with a few tips from the nerds, you wonder what was intentional and what was catastrophically accidental. <\/span><\/p>\n Nerds in Love <\/i>ends as all Nerds <\/i>movies do, with everyone accepting who they are. Not even the additions of 3-D, Aroma-Vision or Al Bundy doing the commercials<\/a> can save the final chapter of the Nerds <\/i>saga from itself.<\/span><\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/07\/revenge-of-the-nerds-ii-03-g.jpg\")
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