The 80s And the Cool Weirdo

There have been a lot of cinematic weirdos and geeks across the ages but the 80s had a special flare for disguising them as cool guys. Revenge of the Nerds cemented for the public what wasn't cool - pocket protectors, caring about grades, being a weenie. But then how do we explain a musician spending all his time with an eccentric scientist, or the best friend constantly searching for a high in dry suburbia?

Or anything about Lloyd Dobler?

By defining "nerd" so clearly, Revenge left the public imagination wide open for all the other geeks to slip under the radar. And sure, Mitch Taylor of Real Genius might belong at CalTech, but he's fine to idolize, because he's into babes. A lot of the strangest behavior was masked with similar feints of heterosexuality and masculinity, but ultimately, Ducky and Bender were beloved because they were mistfits.

In some ways, this could purely be a result of nostalgia. Anyone seeing Back to the Future as a kid would think idolize Marty McFly and might not realize until years later how ostracized he would be in high school. Then again, the onset of high school films in the 80s heightened the in-out group dynamics and social anxieties of its teen characters to such an extent that the underdog is clearly the character one is supposed to relate to. Marty is both the audience surrogate and a total dweeb. His fear of becoming even more dweebish in the face of his father's Revenge of the Nerds persona doesn't negate his social awkwardness, weird slang, and puffy vests.

The social hierarchy of high school in the 80s might have been all-consuming at the time, but plenty of writers and filmmakers were on the side of the downtrodden - the popular kids didn't truly get their day until the 90s. How do you see these characters? Do you have a favorite cool weirdo?

I'm hosting Back to the Future with lecture and Q&A this Thursday at A Baked Joint in DC.

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