Revenge of the Nerds: Deep Thoughts About Toxic Masculinity, Dehumanizing Women, and Recreating Harmful Hierarchies

Send us a message! Include how to reach you if you want a response. NERDS!!!On today’s episode of Deep Thoughts, Emily shares her analysis (and horrified shuddering) about the oddly influential 1984 comedy Revenge of the Nerds. Though the filmmakers thought they were writing the “gentle and funny underdog story” that Gene Siskel characterized the movie as, Nerds treats women as less-than-human trophies by using sexual assault as a punchline. While the film does accept Lamar Latrelle’s open homosexuality as NBD (but still pokes fun at stereotypical gay behavior), the majority of the storytelling relies on misogyny, racism, homophobia, and fatphobia while the film undercuts its own message by telling nerds they can beat the jocks at their own game–which continues to have devastating consequences 40 years later.Content warning: Discussions of rape by deception, revenge porn, and pedophilia.Throw on your headphones and join us in the unenlightened early 80s…Mentioned in this episode:The Oral History of Revenge of the NerdsReconsidering Revenge: How Revenge Of The Nerds‘ Misogyny Is Evident In Current Nerd CultureSiskel & Ebert - Revenge of the Nerds (1984)Our theme music is "Professor Umlaut" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 Licensehttp://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Learn more about Tracie and Emily (including our other projects), join the Guy Girls' family, secure exclusive access to bonus episodes, video versions, and early access to Deep Thoughts by visiting us on Patreon. We are the sister podcasters Tracie Guy-Decker and Emily Guy Birken, known to our extended family as the Guy Girls.We're hella smart and completely unashamed of our overthinking prowess. We love 80s and 90s movies and tv, science fiction, comedy, and murder mysteries, good storytelling with lots of dramatic irony, analyzing film tropes with a side of feminism, and examining the pop culture of our Gen X childhood for gender dynamics, psychology, sociology, religious allegory, and whatever else we find. We have super-serious day jobs. For the bona fides, visit our individual websites: tracieguydecker.com and emilyguybirken.com. For our work together, visit guygirlsmedia.com We are on socials! Find us on Facebook at fb.com/dtasspodcast and on Insta at instagram.com/guygirlsmedia. You can also email us at guygirlsmedia at gmail dot com. We would love to hear from you!