PhoncipleBone
Banned
As a kid growing up in the 80s, and a brainy/nerdy kid at that, Real Genius was a film that I always found funny and appreciated. But, as I got older and watched it more, I started picking up on many things the film's jokes and characterizations that were wonderful.
Each year I watch it, I pick up on more stuff.
This article from Tor.com is a great (spoiler filled) summary of many of the things that made the film great.
There is a lot more in the article about why the movie still holds up as a film about geeks and nerds, but also one of the more honest portrayals of college life with finals and social life.
Top it all off with Val Kilmer in his most lovable smart ass role, and you have one of my favorite films.
The movie is up for free on Crackle right now as well, at least according to Google.
Also, there are so many wonderful bits of dialogue in this film.
"Have you ever seen a body like this before in your life!?"
"She happens to be my daughter."
"Well...then I guess you have."
"I noticed that you stopped stuttering."
"I've been giving myself electric shock treatments."
"Up the voltage."
"I hope you haven't tried to tidy the place up. All my filth is organized alphabetically. For instance, this is under "H" for "TOY.""
"What is it?"
"It's a penis stretcher? Want to try it?"
"NO!"
Each year I watch it, I pick up on more stuff.
This article from Tor.com is a great (spoiler filled) summary of many of the things that made the film great.
It's interesting to me that Revenge of the Nerds, while still full up of the nostalgia that the 80s lends us, is lately being repositioned in the zeitgeist. What was viewed for many years as a bit of harmless fun that waved the banner for nerds everywhere is finally being called out for exactly what it is; an Us vs Them revenge fest that never lets go of racism or misogyny, and damages the image of geek culture more than it applauds for it. That shouldn't be surprising—RotN was always just a frat house comedy with a thin nerdy gloss applied to it. And that's fine with me, because that was never my go-to movie for feeling the geeky solidarity.
No, my friends. That movie was Real Genius.
For one, the movie is better at portraying geeks in ways that don't just melt down to old tropes of pocket protectors and bow ties and awkwardness. It communicates that having an outrageous IQ can be isolating, but doesn't make all smart people out to be socially undeveloped shut-ins. It also shows us how being driven toward answers can blind even the most optimistic, well-meaning folks into making terrible mistakes. And it communicates what it's like to study for finals more realistically than any film I've ever seen, which is an accomplishment and a half.
The film doesn't showcase as many women as we might hope for (and the Pacific Tech campus is also blindingly white overall, though Chris' friend Ikagami is present and happily avoids most of your average Asian stereotypes aside from smartness), but the way it treats the majority of those women is impressive, particularly for this era in filmmaking... no doubt largely due to the movie's female director, Martha Coolidge. There are few instances of pure objectification just for the sake of it in Real Genius; even though the co-ed party shows plenty of girls in swimsuits, the shots that reveal them are often at a distance, never lingering. While Knight is blunt in his sexual overtures to women, the ones he encounters are more than capable of tackling his advances and throwing them back in his face when he's not up to snuff. His directness gives him no power, which is extremely important because it indicates that not every woman is automatically going to swoon over that kind of come-on. (Which, in turn, suggests that women are real, unique individuals with different preferences.) And when they aren't interested, Chris is never entitled or angry about it—he simply moves on.
I really can't talk about women in this film without focusing up on Jordan Cochran. While she does occupy a typically female place in the plot (Mitch's love interest), her portrayal by Michelle Meyrink is nothing short of revelatory when it comes to broadening the variety of women that we should expect in fiction. To start, Jordan is not a conventionally attractive girl, certainly not in a California/feature film sense. She has a weird haircut and a child-like cadence to her voice, and she's not particularly fashionable. It's also entirely possible for this character to read somewhere on the autistic spectrum, though by way of a Hollywoodified lens; she is uncertain of common boundaries (visiting Mitch in the bathroom and being perturbed by his inability to pee in front of her), she has severe insomnia (it's suggested that she drove her roommate to a nervous breakdown by never ever sleeping), she misunderstands the social cues of others (she frequently assumes the ends of Mitch's sentences incorrectly), and her idea of what constitutes an everyday activity would hardly pass for your average citizen (Mitch finds her sanding her dorm room floor late one night and she uses the beautician party as an excuse to test a rebreather she designed herself). It's not the fact that she might be on the spectrum itself that's remarkable, but the fact that the film never suggests that Jordan should be viewed differently because of it. It doesn't make her ”special" in a manic pixie dream way, but it doesn't make her pitiable either. She's simply who she is, and that person is still portrayed as desirable and engaging and brilliant
There is a lot more in the article about why the movie still holds up as a film about geeks and nerds, but also one of the more honest portrayals of college life with finals and social life.
Top it all off with Val Kilmer in his most lovable smart ass role, and you have one of my favorite films.
The movie is up for free on Crackle right now as well, at least according to Google.
Also, there are so many wonderful bits of dialogue in this film.
"Have you ever seen a body like this before in your life!?"
"She happens to be my daughter."
"Well...then I guess you have."
"I noticed that you stopped stuttering."
"I've been giving myself electric shock treatments."
"Up the voltage."
"I hope you haven't tried to tidy the place up. All my filth is organized alphabetically. For instance, this is under "H" for "TOY.""
"What is it?"
"It's a penis stretcher? Want to try it?"
"NO!"