# The underlying evil behind "Revenge of the Nerds" **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [July 3, 2011, 4:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-underlying-evil-behind-revenge-of-the-nerds/587685 "2011-07-03T04:27:21Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Arkcon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/96bed5/32.png) [@Arkcon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Arkcon)\ **Post date:** [July 3, 2011, 5:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-underlying-evil-behind-revenge-of-the-nerds/587685/21 "2011-07-03T17:51:55Z")
Robot Chicken has parodied this: they list all their crimes, voyeurism, rape, etc. and note in the Robot Chicken skit that they’re not getting rewarded, they’re going to jail. However, the gay character, Lamar, is now overjoyed at the prospect of imprisonment. So yeah, the black hole of intolerance still has us in some of it’s pull. 20 years from now, when we’re talking about the Robot Chicken skit, remember you heard the criticism here first. ---
**Author:** ![WarmNPrickly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/d78d45/32.png) [@WarmNPrickly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WarmNPrickly)\ **Post date:** [July 3, 2011, 6:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-underlying-evil-behind-revenge-of-the-nerds/587685/22 "2011-07-03T18:55:22Z")
> [@joebuck20](#): > > When I was going to school, in the late 90s, the University never would have allowed alcohol related games on campus (too great a potential for a lawsuit, I would imagine). But off campus, most of the time they just looked the other way. I participated in Greek Week games in the early 90’s, there was definitely no drinking in the events themselves. The fraternity and sorority associations would never have allowed it. There was plenty of drinking, but it was done out of the public eye. Kegs were explicitly forbidden at fraternities and sororities at all times. ---
**Author:** ![Sateryn76](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a88e4f/32.png) [@Sateryn76](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sateryn76)\ **Post date:** [July 3, 2011, 7:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-underlying-evil-behind-revenge-of-the-nerds/587685/23 "2011-07-03T19:03:57Z")
I love this movie. I watch it all the time. But it occurred to me - when they were tricked into rushing Alpha Beta, are we to assume they were forced to have sex with the goats? Really? ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [July 3, 2011, 8:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-underlying-evil-behind-revenge-of-the-nerds/587685/24 "2011-07-03T20:46:38Z")
> [@](#): > > My girlfriend giving me a BJ while i’m asleep is also legally rape but i don’t see how anyone can call it that when the victim is happy about it. But presumably your girlfriend knows ahead of time that you’d enjoy a blowjob while you’re asleep. In order for consent to have any meaning at all, it has to come before the act, not after. I mean, what if Betty _didn’t_ decide after the fact that she wasn’t happy about it? That’d still be rape, wouldn’t it? But Lewis didn’t know at the time which way she’d decide. ---
**Author:** ![Ura-Maru](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/51bf81/32.png) [@Ura-Maru](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ura-Maru)\ **Post date:** [July 3, 2011, 10:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-underlying-evil-behind-revenge-of-the-nerds/587685/25 "2011-07-03T22:08:43Z")
I suspect the reason people don’t comment on it is because Rick Moranis is the least threatening person on the planet. I missed the rape-by-deception angle myself, and I went to that high school that banned ‘leering’ in 1990. There’s a certain amount of values dissonance as well. _ **Revenge of the Nerds** _ came out almost 30 years ago, and while culture hasn’t shifted much in a lot of ways, one of the ways it has is that we take sex based crimes more seriously, and a lot of the things that might have been considered borderline at the time are now well over the line. Fun’s fun, but I don’t see how anyone can seriously argue that this was a case of ‘Filmmakers hate women!’ instead of ‘writer didn’t think through the implications of his wacky scenerio.’ – That’s a real problem for SF, fantasy and comic book writers. (The DCAU Flash, for instance, got in pretty much the same situation. That one WAS funny) ‘Regular’ writers like to tip their toes in the pool most of all. I suggest we call this kind of thing ‘_ **Lovely Bones** _-ing’ ---
**Author:** ![Baker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/bb73d2/32.png) [@Baker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Baker)\ **Post date:** [July 3, 2011, 10:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-underlying-evil-behind-revenge-of-the-nerds/587685/26 "2011-07-03T22:12:24Z")
I think a lot of folks take this movie and it’s situations way too seriously. They’re confusing it with real life, ---
**Author:** ![Andy\_L](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/c67d28/32.png) [@Andy\_L](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Andy_L)\ **Post date:** [July 3, 2011, 10:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-underlying-evil-behind-revenge-of-the-nerds/587685/27 "2011-07-03T22:12:47Z")
> [@Ura-Maru](#): > > I suspect the reason people don’t comment on it is because Rick Moranis is the least threatening person on the planet. I missed the rape-by-deception angle myself, and I went to that high school that banned ‘leering’ in 1990. Robert Carradine ([Robert Carradine - IMDb](http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0001019/)) not Rick Moranis, though the resemblance is strong. ---
**Author:** ![Ura-Maru](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/51bf81/32.png) [@Ura-Maru](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ura-Maru)\ **Post date:** [July 3, 2011, 10:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-underlying-evil-behind-revenge-of-the-nerds/587685/28 "2011-07-03T22:22:44Z")
Oops. Ok. He’s the SECOND least threatening person on the planet. The bitch of it is, I even had that imdb page open already, to check the release date . . . – Did Rick Moranis did have sex with the geeky receptionist in _ **Ghostbusters** _, though… Someone possessed by an ancient sumarian dog-demon in no position to give consent. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [July 3, 2011, 10:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-underlying-evil-behind-revenge-of-the-nerds/587685/29 "2011-07-03T22:23:52Z")
> [@DigitalC](#): > > My girlfriend giving me a BJ while i’m asleep is also legally rape but i don’t see how anyone can call it that when the victim is happy about it. I think your girlfriend can reasonably assume you would consent to a blowjob if you were aware of what was happening. But the girl in the movie wouldn’t have consented to have sex with Lewis if she had been aware of what was happening. ---
**Author:** ![Andy\_L](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/c67d28/32.png) [@Andy\_L](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Andy_L)\ **Post date:** [July 3, 2011, 10:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-underlying-evil-behind-revenge-of-the-nerds/587685/30 "2011-07-03T22:56:27Z")
> [@Ura-Maru](#): > > Oops. > > Ok. He’s the SECOND least threatening person on the planet. > > The bitch of it is, I even had that imdb page open already, to check the release date . . . > > – > Did Rick Moranis did have sex with the geeky receptionist in _ **Ghostbusters** _, though.. Someone possessed by an ancient sumarian dog-demon in no position to give consent. If I’m remembering correctly, Rick Moranis’s character had sex with Dana in Ghostbusters while they both were possessed (Always thought that he should have turned out to be Oscar’s father in GB2). He was dating Annie Potts, the geeky receptionist, in GB2 - but no possession involved in that case ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [July 3, 2011, 11:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-underlying-evil-behind-revenge-of-the-nerds/587685/31 "2011-07-03T23:21:10Z")
Both of the ancient edritch demon dog-spirits could probably be considered rapists, though. ---
**Author:** ![Andy\_L](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/c67d28/32.png) [@Andy\_L](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Andy_L)\ **Post date:** [July 3, 2011, 11:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-underlying-evil-behind-revenge-of-the-nerds/587685/32 "2011-07-03T23:25:38Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > Both of the ancient edritch demon dog-spirits could probably be considered rapists, though. Yeah. ---
**Author:** ![Ranchoth](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ranchoth/32/1066_2.png) [@Ranchoth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ranchoth)\ **Post date:** [July 4, 2011, 12:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-underlying-evil-behind-revenge-of-the-nerds/587685/33 "2011-07-04T00:03:11Z")
> [@Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](#): > > How so? In my estimate, _Real Genius_ comes off as one of the best teen/geek movies of the 'Eighties; \*\*[…]\*\*I guess you can argue that the characters act unethically in the sense that once they discover that they have been deceived about the purpose of the laser project (which is curiously staffed by only undergraduate students, and only Knight and Taylor seem to have an actual clue about the program) they sabotage it That’s my angle, really—“Oh no! Washington’s going to get away to [kill](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fNYLZQ8l1eI) [people](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/7b/Osama_bin_Laden_making_a_video_at_his_compound_in_Pakistan.jpg) untouchably from [the sky](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Atomics_MQ-1_Predator)! And who knows [what else](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LlOi6Gl25Lg)they might [use it for!](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beam-powered_propulsion)” :smack: Yeah, I know, it was a different time, years of hindsight, more idealistic mindset to begin with, just a movie, etc. But still, it could be seen as not painting the heroes in the best light for the ages—like if it’d been made in the 60s, and they decided to sabotage a [synthetic fiber](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kevlar) project, because they realized that The Man was going to use it to make bulletproof body armor, and then there’d be nothing to stop them from keeping down the people and the revolution! The villains, Hathaway chief among them, were assholes, schemers, embezzlers, and, in the case of the CIA guys, probably murderers. But they might not have been _wrong_. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [July 4, 2011, 3:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-underlying-evil-behind-revenge-of-the-nerds/587685/34 "2011-07-04T03:48:58Z")
When someone is paying you to develop a weapon, _but not telling you that you’re developing a weapon_, it’s a pretty safe bet that they don’t have the best of intentions for its use. ---
**Author:** ![Isamu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/7c8e57/32.png) [@Isamu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Isamu)\ **Post date:** [July 4, 2011, 4:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-underlying-evil-behind-revenge-of-the-nerds/587685/35 "2011-07-04T04:11:47Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > I think your girlfriend can reasonably assume you would consent to a blowjob if you were aware of what was happening. But the girl in the movie wouldn’t have consented to have sex with Lewis if she had been aware of what was happening. But rape is not about the beliefs/intentions of the instigator. Otherwise a rapist could claim “I thought she wanted it” and get away with it. ---
**Author:** ![msmith537](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d9b06d/32.png) [@msmith537](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/msmith537)\ **Post date:** [July 4, 2011, 4:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-underlying-evil-behind-revenge-of-the-nerds/587685/36 "2011-07-04T04:19:19Z")
> [@joebuck20](#): > > When I was going to school, in the late 90s, the University never would have allowed alcohol related games on campus (too great a potential for a lawsuit, I would imagine). But off campus, most of the time they just looked the other way. I went to a college with a strong Greek culture in the early 90s. There was plenty of shit the University didn’t “allow”. Kegs. Unregistered parties during the week (defined as more than x people in a room with alchohol). Beer games (especially Beruit). After hours parties. Drugs. Hazing. Underage drinking. Everyone did all of that stuff all the time. College was basically like a cross between Animal House and a Bret Easton Ellis novel. Although my general sense is that for the past 30 years, everything gets a little more strict and a little lamer. In the 80s, you could have kegs in the middle of the quad. My freshman year was the last year fraternities could legally serve out of kegs (after that it was buying cases of beer by the pallet). > [@antonio107](#): > > So, in seven years (and counting) of university, … Maybe you should be watching Van Wilder and Tommy Boy instead of RotN.😉 Anyhow, you people are taking RotN way too seriously. Or maybe not seriously enough for a film that is a metephor for descrimination against homosexuals and minorities. ---
**Author:** ![antonio107](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/7ea924/32.png) [@antonio107](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/antonio107)\ **Post date:** [July 4, 2011, 4:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-underlying-evil-behind-revenge-of-the-nerds/587685/37 "2011-07-04T04:50:26Z")
> [@msmith537](#): > > Maybe you should be watching Van Wilder and Tommy Boy instead of RotN.😉 Hey now! I got the letters after my name to prove it was time well wasted! 😛 ---
**Author:** ![joebuck20](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/74df32/32.png) [@joebuck20](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/joebuck20)\ **Post date:** [July 4, 2011, 4:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-underlying-evil-behind-revenge-of-the-nerds/587685/38 "2011-07-04T04:51:07Z")
> [@msmith537](#): > > Beer games (especially Beruit). After hours parties. Drugs. Hazing. Underage drinking. Everyone did all of that stuff all the time. We had a lot of that stuff at my college too, but if you were on campus most of it took place behind closed doors, and you had to keep it kind of quiet, lest some straight arrow RA come poking around. There’s a big difference between that and throwing a big ass kegger in the middle of campus in broad daylight with games and the higher ups in attendance. And I went to a college that had a reputation in my state of being a party school. Off campus, though, I’d say my school (or rather least its student body) earned its reputation. 😉 ---
**Author:** ![digs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/digs/32/14889_2.png) [@digs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/digs)\ **Post date:** [July 4, 2011, 4:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-underlying-evil-behind-revenge-of-the-nerds/587685/39 "2011-07-04T04:58:43Z")
> [@DigitalC](#): > > My girlfriend giving me a BJ while i’m asleep is also legally rape but i don’t see how anyone can call it that when the victim is happy about it. And does the girlfriend know you’re casually mentioning it to thousands of strangers on the internet? Ok, now that you’ve told her: Was her first reaction completely positive? Reeeeeally? :dubious: ---
**Author:** ![JohnT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnt/32/15048_2.png) [@JohnT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JohnT)\ **Post date:** [July 4, 2011, 4:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-underlying-evil-behind-revenge-of-the-nerds/587685/40 "2011-07-04T04:59:55Z")
When it was on the other night, we missed the rape scene but did catch it when all the brothers came on strong and proud against whitey, complete with menacing ghetto stances and funk music in the background. Was John Goodman the only one in this movie who had a noteworthy acting career afterwards? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-underlying-evil-behind-revenge-of-the-nerds/587685.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-underlying-evil-behind-revenge-of-the-nerds/587685.md?page=3)