March 13, 2025: Spring Breaking at the Movies: Revenge of the Nerds II: Nerds in Paradise

[With oneson in college and another about to be, Spring Break is a lot more than just aconcept or a professional reality for this AmericanStudier. So this week I’llAmericanStudy a handful of cinematic portrayals of Spring Break, leading up to someweekend reflections on being a college Dad!]

OnAmerican anti-intellectualism, and the worse and better ways to challenge it.

As I notedin this post on myfriend Aaron Lecklider’s great book Inventing the Egghead: The Battle overBrainpower in American Culture (2013), published exactly 50 yearsafter Richard Hofstadter’s influential Anti-Intellectualism in American Life (1963),the precise origins of anti-intellectual attitudes and narratives in Americansociety are a bit unclear and contested. But whether those national narrativesare foundational (as Hofstadter argues) or more the product of Cold Waranxieties (as Lecklider does), I would say that there can be no argument at allthat by the end of the 20th and beginning of the 21stcentury these anti-intellectual threads have become dominant ones in ourcultural pattern. And, more exactly and crucially, that the development anddeepening of those narratives throughout the 50 years or so betweenHofstadter’s book and the 2016 election helped bring usto the presidency of Donald Trump, a culmination of these anti-intellectualtrends as of so many of the worst and most divisive impulses of Americanpolitics and culture.

Whichbrings us, obviously, to the Revenge of the Nerds film series. Beginningwith the 1984 original film, and featuring three sequels over the next decade(including 1987’s Spring Break-set Revengeof the Nerds II: Nerds in Paradise, the ostensible focus of this postbut, like yesterday’s subject From Justinto Kelly, not a film that needs an entire blog post on its own terms Iassure you), the nerdy protagonists of this series challenged the Reagan era’sdeepening anti-intellectual sentiments, triumphing time and again over theirpopular jock adversaries. The first film has in recent years received a gooddeal of justified criticism for the fact that its triumphant sex scene wouldactually have to beclassified as a rape scene (nerdy hero Lewis has sex with his crushwhile pretending to be her boyfriend), among quite a few other problematicmoments. And in truth, those specific problems illustrate a morefundamental issue with all the Revengefilms: their mostly unlikable heroes don’t triumph through meaningful use oftheir intelligence, but rather through things like sexual deception andviolence (in Nerds in Paradise theclimactic victory involves a tank and a punch). The message seems generally tobe that nerds can be just as awful as the rest of society.

Fortunately,the Revenge of the Nerds films werenot the only 1980s cinematic challenge to anti-intellectualism. The heroes of1985’s cultclassic film Real Genius are alsonerds, brilliant and eccentric students at the fictional Pacific TechnicalUniversity [SPOILERS in what follows, although the undeniable pleasures of Real Genius aren’t inits plot surprises]. These nerds likewise find themselves pitted against Reaganera tropes, this time Cold War militarization and the use of science andtechnology for dastardly and destructive ends (aided and abetted by theirvillainous ProfessorJerry Hathaway, William Atherton’s second deliciouslyevil character in two years). But in this case the heroes’ climactictriumph is entirely due to their intellectual prowess, which they use to outwitHathaway and his military allies and to turn weapons of mass destruction into,well, popcorn. Scoreone for a more thoughtful and inspiring American intellectualism!

LastSpring Break film tomorrow,

Ben

PS. Whatdo you think? Responses to this film or other Spring Break texts you’d share?