I woke up this morning to the news that actor Robert Carradine had passed away. As I get older, I think I’m getting used to celebrities from my youth passing away, but this one reminded me of a lesson I learned as a kid… Nerds are actually the heroes of the story. Not just in the movie, but in real life as well.
If you’re not familiar… Robert Carradine starred in the movie ‘Revenge of the Nerds’ playing a character named Lewis, who became the President of an all nerd college fraternity. While it seems that everyone treats them poorly, their true nemesis were the jocks of another fraternity that relentlessly belittle them. Lewis and his friend Gilbert instill a sense of pride in his fellow nerds and they fight back to get revenge and respect. Fast forward to the end, the nerds are victorious, Lewis gets the girl, and it turns out almost everyone reveals they consider themselves a nerd, though they’ve managed to hide it well over the years.
When this movie first came out, it did me no favours as a young man. Here’s this movie about nerds, and the lead nerd and I share the name of Lewis. Like the character in the movie, I was (and still am) a nerd, and I was also bullied by ‘the cool kids’. However, once the movie became popular I realized something… people loved this movie where the nerds win. They were cheering for the nerds, and they wanted them to win. People started to embrace their nerdiness. The nerds were the heroes! This was a game changer for me, and I embraced it.
While the movie isn’t politically correct in today’s society, I feel the lesson still is… Hollywood wants the Nerds to win because in reality, society wants the Nerds to win… and it turns out, most of us are really nerds.
Nerds of the world, unite!
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