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freddyfreebat · 4 years

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Jack Dylan Grazer Discovers Who He Is in Luca Guadagnino's “We Are Who We Are”

After supporting roles in the It and Shazam!, the young actor shifts gears with his turn as a capricious army brat in the Call Me By Your Name director's new HBO series.

by Iana Murray / Photography by Nik Antonio — September 14, 2020

A few years ago, Jack Dylan Grazer took a trip to the movie theater. He was in Toronto and it was one of his days off from filming Shazam!, the DC comedy in which he plays the shape-shifting hero’s foster brother. He decided to watch Call Me By Your Name, and he immediately fell for it. Grazer took note of the director’s name that appeared in the credits—Luca Guadagnino—and turned to his mother.

“I want to work with him,” he told her. With eerie prescience, she assured him: “You will.”

Whether Grazer, now 17, has a knack for manifestation, or it was all just happenstance, his wish came true in the form of We Are Who We Are, Guadagnino’s coming of age drama which follows a group of army brats living on an American military base in Italy. Thematically, the show is something of a spiritual successor to Call Me By Your Name: Grazer plays Fraser, a tempestuous 14-year-old with a pair of headphones constantly plugged in his ears. He’s the new arrival at the base with his mothers (Chloë Sevigny and Alice Braga), and quickly forms a deep bond with his neighbour, Caitlin (Jordan Kristine Seamon), as they both wrestle with their sexuality and identity in the midst of domestic troubles and teenage debauchery.

“He’s an enigma to himself,” Grazer says of his character. “He doesn’t really understand a lot of the things he does but he’s so forthright so he convinces himself that he knows everything. He feels like other people don’t deserve his intelligence. But he’s also very volatile and aggressive at times, and not because he’s coming from an angry place but because he’s constantly questioning who he is.”

If Fraser is just beginning his coming of age when we first meet him, Grazer is inching closer to the end. Starring in enormous blockbusters including IT, he became the Loser Club’s resident hypochondriac at age 12 and a superhero’s sidekick by 15. His films have grossed a combined total of over $1.5 billion. Suddenly the stakes are multiplied tenfold during what are ostensibly, and horrifyingly, the most awkward years of your life. Every misstep is now being monitored, examined through a microscope of millions. (See: His 3.8 million fans on Instagram, to say nothing of the countless stan accounts.) Child fame is a disarming transaction like that: a stable career and all the other perks of being a celebrity, but at the cost of normalcy. That unalleviating pressure forces a kid to mature fast.

Grazer is acutely aware of this fact, admitting outright that he’s “not a normal person.” But he wouldn’t have it any other way.

“I became 70 when I was 7!” he laughs. “I don’t know if I really had much of a childhood. But I didn’t want to. I wanted to grow up really fast.”

Nevertheless, he’s still 17. When we meet over Zoom, his shoulder length curls are damp and disheveled (he just got out of the shower), his black painted fingernails contrast with his brightly-lit, white bedroom as he rests his face on his hand. It’s a Saturday morning and he looks tired: It’s his first week back at school, which has traded classrooms for hours of video calls reminiscent of the one we’re currently on. “It feels like the days are shorter because the teachers don’t want to torture their students by keeping them on a computer for six hours a day,” he tells me. “You do miss the social aspect of being at school.”

If you were to judge Grazer by what’s out there on the internet, you’d expect an anarchic and relentless bundle of energy. A quick YouTube search brings up results like “jack dylan grazer being a drama queen” and “jack dylan grazer being chaotic in interviews for 4 and a half minutes straight.” He trolled a YouTube gamer on Instagram Live. His TikToks are inscrutable.

But here, he’s incredibly earnest, as he excitedly talks about his skateboarding hobby (a skill he picked up after auditioning for Mid90s) and his attempts to learn the flute (“I need to learn how to read sheet music, but it’s like reading Hebrew!”). He’s calm and thoughtful, as if this project we’re discussing requires a shift in sensibility.

For Grazer, acting had always simply been fun. While other kids might take up a sport or get hooked on video games, he performed in musical theater with the Adderley School because he “just wanted to play.” His roles so far have been reflective of his carefree approach to the job: Up until now, he’s portrayed best friends with biting one-liners, or the younger version of the protagonist in a flashback. IT is a prime example of both. In the horror franchise, Grazer plays a neurotic germaphobe running from a fear-eating clown, but in reality, the film felt like “summer camp.” Both films never felt like work; he just learned his lines and got to hang out on extravagant sets with his best friends. Likewise, school amounted to being pulled off set by a teacher in between takes to cram in the mandatory hours.

But with We Are Who We Are, he steps into his first leading role, one that required him to convey longing and confusion through Elio-like physicality and subtext. It’s abnormal to talk about the show as a turning point for an actor who isn’t even a legal adult yet, but Grazer explains that the show required him to radically change his approach to acting. He spent six months in Italy (“It felt like I was in Call Me By Your Name.”) and built up the character beyond what was on the page in collaboration with Guadagnino. “His philosophy is that we know our characters better than anyone else—even the writers—because we are the characters essentially,” he explains.

In many ways, Grazer absorbed that philosophy entirely. He describes the experience less as a performance and more like a “rebirth”—perhaps even an attempt at method acting. Over those months in Italy, the distinctions between actor and character gradually became indistinguishable. “I had no other choice but to act and surrender to Fraser entirely and throw Jack Dylan Grazer out the window,” he says. “I would go out and get a coffee as Fraser and walk like Fraser. That was just me trying to get into [character], but then I slipped at some point and just became Fraser.”

One day on set, he looked at himself in the mirror, and the hardened kid standing there with a bleach-blond dye job and oversized shorts was unrecognizable to him. He could only see Fraser. While talking about his character, he seems to unintentionally switch pronouns, from “he” to “I”, as if the two still remain one and the same.

The process was so transformative that it forced him to re-evaluate himself entirely. “I never really struggled with identity before,” Grazer tells me. “But I think the show opened up my eyes to question myself. Being Fraser forced me to question what I wanted and what I stood for and what I believed in. At some points, the show bled into reality.”

When asked how he has changed, he takes a pause and a pensive swivel in his armchair, unsure of how to answer. “I think I was more ignorant before I did the show,” he says, and he leaves it at that.

Coming of agers are a particularly well-trodden genre, but there’s a naturalistic, raw energy to We Are Who We Are that is distinctive from what we’ve seen before. Each character quietly struggles with their own problems and growing pains—for Fraser, it’s his sexuality. Caught in a fraught relationship with his lesbian mother and an infatuation with another man, his story doesn’t tick off the familiar beats. His personal discovery is instead internal and intimate. "I think every single person born as a boy has this guard. It’s this guard that they don’t even realize they have, where they’re initially like, ‘Being gay? I could never.’ But we’re all born as humans who are attracted to whatever we’re attracted to," he says. "I think that’s how Fraser interprets it as well. Yes, he’s reserved and nervous about it in the beginning because he’s unlocking this new idea for himself. He’s figuring it out, and that’s what you see in the show: him coming to terms with this idea."

As our conversation winds to a close, I ask him if Martin Scorsese ever visited the set—his daughter, Francesca, plays the confident cool girl of the show’s teen cohort—and his eyes widen. “That was actually a really stressful day,” he divulges. Still, he revels in the memory, speaking so fast it’s like someone has put him on 2.5x speed as he shows off his impersonation of Guadagnino. The director was so nervous about Scorsese’s presence that production halted that day.

“Luca was like, ‘I cannot do this today because Martin Scorsese is on my set. I don’t know what to do, this is not good for me. I will have a panic attack before the day ends,’” Grazer says in his best Italian accent. “It’s like if you’re a painter and Van Gogh shows up.”

Admittedly, Grazer is also a self-proclaimed superfan of the Wolf of Wall Street director, and afterwards, he got to spend several days with his idol, as they went on lavish restaurant outings in Italy and talked about anything and everything.

He takes a second to compose himself. A giddy, Cheshire cat smile spreads across his face. The kid in him comes flooding back.

“...Oh my god!” he yells. “I met Martin Scorsese!”

#jack dylan grazer #fraser wilson #we are who we are #eddie kaspbrak #it chapter two #freddy freeman #shazam!#wawwa #luca guadagnino #hbo #hbo max #sky atlantic #interview #gq #wawwa press

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starkiddreamcasting · 3 years

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Starkid Legally Blonde: the Musical

Omigod you guys! It’s the Starkid deamcast for Legally Blonde the Musical! I was pretty happy to get this request considering this was another musical my high school has done (I was Aaron/Guard/Ensemble). I struggled to pick an Elle Woods, and in the end my pick was a little out of the box but I think was the best choice. The rest fell into place pretty easily and made for a wonderful dreamcast.

1. Alle-Faye Monka as Elle Woods 2. Brian Rosenthal as Emmett Forest 3. Jaime Lyn Beatty as Paulette 4. Joe Walker as Professor Callahan 5. Curt Mega as Warner Huntington III 6. Britney Coleman as Vivienne Kensington 7. Denise Donovan as Brooke Wyndham 8. Alex Paul as Margot 9. Mariah Rose Faith as Serena 10. Janaya Mahealani Jones as Pilar 11. Nico Ager as Nikos/Padamadan/Ensemble 12. Will Branner as Carlos/Lowell/Ensemble 13. Tyler Brunsman as Ensemble 14. Jamie Burns as Mom/Whitney/Ensemble 15. Bryce Charles as Lelani/Ensemble 16. Brant Cox as Ensemble 17. Angela Giarratana as Chutney/Kate/Ensemble 18. Ali Gordon as Stenographer/Ensemble 19. Davis Hamilton as Aaron/Guard/Ensemble 20. Brian Holden as Pforzheimer/Ensemble 21. Lauren Lopez as District Attorney/Ensemble 22. Jon Matteson as Ensemble 23. Joey Richter as Kyle/Dewey/Grandmaster Chad/Ensemble 24. Dylan Saunders as Dad/Winthrop/Ensemble 25. Rachael Soglin as Enid/Ensemble 26. James Tolbert as Ensemble 29. Virginia Vass as Judge/Store Manager/Ensemble 30. Kim Whalen as Ensemble

Swings: Clark Baxtresser, Corey Dorris, Meredith Stepien, Tiffany Williams

Understudies: Will Branner (Warner Huntington III), Jamie Burns (Paulette, Vivienne Kensington), Bryce Charles (Elle Woods, Pilar), Ali Gordon (Brooke Wyndham, Margot, Serena), Davis Hamilton (Emmett Forest), Brian Holden (Warner Huntington III), Lauren Lopez (Brooke Wyndham), Alex Paul (Elle Woods), Joey Richter (Emmett Forest, Professor Callahan), Dylan Saunders (Professor Callahan), Meredith Stepien (Vivienne Kensington, Serena), Virginia Vass (Paulette), Tiffany Williams (Margot, Pilar)

Make sure to leave any show suggestions or any questions on my casting choices so I can explain them.

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papermoonloveslucy · 7 years

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LUCY, THE CO-ED

S3;E6 ~ October 19, 1970

Directed by Jack Baker ~ Written by Fred S. Fox and Seaman Jacobs

Synopsis

Harry's old flame Gloria (Marilyn Maxwell) is in town to help produce a musical for their college alumni. They resurrect a show Harry wrote in 1928 and cast Lucy, Kim, and Craig in supporting roles.

Regular Cast

Lucille Ball (Lucy Carter / 'Ginger'), Gale Gordon (Harrison Otis Carter / 'Crazy Hips'), Desi Arnaz Jr. (Craig Carter / 'The Dead End Kid'), Lucie Arnaz (Kim Carter / 'Honey Beasley')

Guest Cast

Marilyn Maxwell (Gloria Pendleton / 'Nurse') was a singer who started out her career as an MGM contract player. She appeared in four films with Lucille Ball between 1943 and 1963. It was rumored the Maxwell and Bob Hope were romantically linked, despite both being married to others. Maxwell died of a heart attack at the age of 50 in 1972.

Robert Alda ('Dean Butler') originated the role of Sky Masterson in Broadway’s Guys and Dolls, winning the 1951 Tony Award. He is the father of Alan Alda of “M*A*S*H” fame. He made one appearance on the “The Lucy Show,” and this is the second of his three episodes of “Here’s Lucy” and the only one where he plays a character instead of himself. Alda died in 1986.

Cecil Gold ('Cecil', orange sweater, center) previously danced in “Lucy and the Generation Gap” (S2;E12) also directed by Jack Baker. This is his final series appearance.

Kevin Edwards ('Norman', blue sweater, right) was previously seen in “Lucy, the Conclusion Jumper” (S1;E5) and was an uncredited ballet dancer in Streisand’s Funny Girl (1968). This is his final series appearance.

Jim Bates ('Clarence', red sweater left) appeared as an uncredited extra in such films as Singin' in the Rain (1950) and Easter Parade (1948). He previously appeared with Gale Gordon on a 1963 episode of “Dennis the Menace.” Bates will appear in one more episode of “Here's Lucy” in 1972, his final screen appearance.

Although given character names in the final credits, none of the three boy co-eds have their names spoken in the dialogue.

The Co-Ed Singers include:

Mickie Pollak (black hair) was assistant choreographer to Jack Baker on “Lucy and Liberace” (S2;E16). This is her only screen appearance.

Judy Van Wormer (blonde hair) would become the assistant choreographer on the Steven Spielberg film 1941 (1979). She was also assistant choreographer for a 1970 episode of “Jimmy Durante presents The Lemmon Sisters.” This is one of only two screen appearances for Van Wormer.

Lisa Pharren (red hair) gave up performing after only three appearances on screen and became a Hollywood make-up artist eventually earning three Emmy nominations for her work.

Unlike the 3 male Co-Eds, the girls have no spoken dialogue, and therefore are not assigned character names in the final credits.

Other ‘Bullwinkle students’ are played by uncredited background performers.

On the series DVD this episode is introduced by Jim Bates (Clarence) who later became a choreographer on the show. Bates shares the DVD intro with Anita Mann, assistant choreographer on this and many other “Here's Lucy” episodes.

The evening this episode was first broadcast, Lucille Ball made her fourth and final appearance on “The Carol Burnett Show.” Also appearing was Mel Torme, who made several appearances on “The Lucy Show” as Mel Tinker. Carol Burnett would star in one more episode of “Here's Lucy” in 1971.

Harry sarcastically says to Lucy, “Thank you, Dear Abby.” “Dear Abby” is an advice column founded in 1956 by Pauline Phillips under the pen name "Abigail Van Buren" and carried on today by her daughter, Jeanne Phillips, who now owns the legal rights to the pen name.

Gloria calls Harry ‘Windy’, his college nickname. Windy was also the nickname given to Winfield Cheever by his nephew (Frankie Avalon) on “Lucy and the Starmaker” (S6;E4). In “Lucy and Wally Cox” (S2;E21) Harry's old buddy Moose Manley says that Harry's college nickname was ‘Blubber’.

Lucy reminds Harry that he got over his infatuation with Dorothy Lamour so he'll get over Gloria Pendleton. Dorothy Lamour (1914-96) was an actress and singer best remembered for appearing in the Road to... movies starring Bing Crosby and Bob Hope.

Harry and Gloria are producing a musical show for the alumni of Bullwinkle State University. It was written by Harry during his senior year there in 1928. Previous episodes have stated that Harry both performed and wrote shows while in college. The title of his musical is...

It's Always Do-Wacka-Do at Bullwinkle U!

As the curtain goes up on the front of steps of Bullwinkle U, the orchestra plays “You Gotta be a Football Hero (To Get Along with the Beautiful Girls)” written by Al Sherman, Buddy Fields and Al Lewis in 1933. It is one of the most widely recorded and performed football anthems of all time.

As Ginger (Lucy) enters, the boys (Gold, Edwards, and Bates) sing “Ain't She Sweet” written in 1927 by Milton Ager and Jack Yellin.

When Crazy Hips (Harry) enters in his football uniform the girls (Van Wormer, Pharren, and Pollak) sing “Baby Face” written in 1926 by Harry Akst and Benny Davis.

The students all sing “Buckle Down Bullwinkle” to the tune of “Buckle Down Winsockie” a song written for the film Best Foot Forward (1943) which starred Lucille Ball. Perhaps not so coincidentally, Marilyn Maxwell played the role originated by Lucille Ball in the 1954 television re-make of Best Foot Forward, which stayed closer to the 1941 Broadway show than the Lucille Ball film, where Lucy essentially played herself.

Crazy Hips says that “Marion the librarian keeps intercepting my passes.” Marion the librarian was a character in the 1957 Broadway musical The Music Man, which was filmed in 1962 (above) with Shirley Jones as Marion. Both stage and screen versions starred Robert Preston in the title role who would go on to play Beau in Mame (1974) opposite Lucille Ball.

One of the pennants decorating the dorm room says Princeton, which is coincidentally where Lucille Ball made her legitimate stage debut at McCarter Theatre in 1937 with the play Hey Diddle Diddle. It moved to Washington DC, but closed before Broadway due to the illness of leading man Conway Tearle. Regular Lucy director Herbert Kenwith also directed Lucy in Princeton in 1947's Dream Girl by Elmer Rice.

To cover up for the girls hidden in the closet, Crazy Hips tells a ‘nosy’ Dean Butler that he uses perfume: Lucky Lindy No. 5. ‘Lucky Lindy’ was the nickname of Charles A. Lindbergh (1902-74), an aviator who made the first solo transatlantic flight and the first non-stop flight between North America and mainland Europe. The addition of ‘No. 5′ is a bow to Chanel No. 5, the first perfume launched by designer Coco Chanel in 1921. It is still sold today.

Ginger, Honey, Dead End, Crazy Hips, and the Dean (Robert Alda) sing “Collegiate” written in 1925 by Nat Bonx and Moe Jaffe.

Bullwinkle University wins the big football game against North Keokuk. Although Keokuk is in Iowa, North Keokuk is a town located in Oklahoma.

The musical ends with “Varsity Drag,” a song written by Lew Brown and B.G. DeSylva for Good News, which was seen on Broadway in 1927 and on screen in 1947 when it was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Song.

“You Gotta be a Football Hero (To Get Along with the Beautiful Girls)” was sung by Craig in “Lucy and Carol Burnett” (S1;E17) to raise money for the school gym. The red and white pom-poms on the dorm room wall were used by the cheerleaders in that episode. Red and white are the colors of Angeles High School, Kim and Craig's alumnus.

Craig wears a raccoon coat, a typical fashion statement of the 1920s. One was also worn by Fred Mertz in “Lucy Has Her Eyes Examined” (ILL SE;E11).

The dorm room is decorated with an art deco poster of Sarah Bernhardt by Alphonse Mucha (1897) that was previously seen on the wall of the knife thrower The Great Pierre (Paul Winchell) in “Lucy, the Cement Worker” (S2;E10).

The dorm room also features a pink phonograph that was seen in both “Lucy and the Generation Gap” (S2;E12, left) and in the Navajo hogan in “Lucy and the Indian Chief” (S2;E3, center).

On the wall of the dorm room is a pennant for Tait. The pennant was also seen on the wall of Jerry and Sherman's bedroom in “Lucy and Her Electric Mattress” (TLS S1;E12) in 1962. This is a reference to the fictional Tait University in the musical Good News, which was seen on Broadway in 1927 and on screen in 1947.

Good News also featured the song “Varsity Drag,” which Vivian Vance performed in “Lucy Has Her Eyes Examined” (ILL S3;E11).

Who Are You? Oddly, Robert Alda has a principal role of the Dean in the musical but has no corresponding 'real life' character. Perhaps the character was cut from the opening scenes for time? It is possible that Alda was playing himself again.

“Lucy, the Co-Ed” rates 4 Paper Hearts out of 5

This musical comedy episode is not quite as good as “Lucy and the Generation Gap” but still a lot of fun for its high camp style. Oddly, Gloria Maxwell is underused in the musical sequence and Robert Alda is absent from the set-up scene.

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dweemeister · 7 years

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Revenge of the Nerds (1984)

Here is a confession: my only prior viewing history about college comedies includes a grand total of three films that I have seen in their entirety. Those films are Legally Blonde (2001), Monsters University (2013), and 22 Jump Street (2014). The “Slobs v. Snobs” comedic subgenre is also a weakness of mine, as their plots test my patience for both slobs and snobs. Combine these two, and you have a movie beyond my experience, but one that I found entertaining and wittier than expected – despite deep concerns by the rampant comedic misogyny that became more explicit in the 1980s that also appears. Jeff Kanew directed Revenge of the Nerds: the third and final episode of this prequel trilogy as it chronicles the final stages of the Clone Wars, Anakin Skywalker’s transformation into Darth Vader, the devastation of the Jedi Order, and the dissolution of the Galactic Republic for the Galactic Empire.

Apologies. That’s the wrong movie. Gosh, I can’t wait for Star Wars fans to hound me this December.

Armed with thick-rimmed glasses and pocket protectors, best friends and nerds Lewis Skolnick (Robert Carradine) and Gilbert Lowe (Anthony Edwards) are entering Adams College as computer science majors. Soon after they have moved into their dorm room, the boys – along with the other nerds inhabiting that building – are forced out by the college football team and must stay in the gymnasium. Tensions between the nerds and the football team increase to the point where Stan Gable (Ted McGinley) – the school’s starting quarterback and head of the Alpha Beta fraternity (which many of the football players are members of) – denies the nerds’ application to create a fraternity and their requests for remedial justice against Alpha Beta harassment. The nerds will then seek sanction from black fraternity Lambda Lambda Lambda (the frat president is played by Bernie Casey) – imagine if a blaxploitation movie dropped into a raunchy, largely white college comedy for several scenes – and will eventually receive their fraternity commission. The Tri-Lambs and Alpha Beta essentially go to war for the rest of the film. Nerdy sorority Omega Mu allies with the Tri-Lambs; sorority Pi Delta Pi assists the Alpha Betas.

Other Tri-Lamb members include Poindexter (Timothy Busfield), Wormser (Andrew Cassese), Booger (Curtis Armstrong), Lamar (Larry B. Scott), and Takashi (Brian Tochi). Notable Alpha Betas include Burke (Matt Salinger) and Ogre (Donald Gibb); notable Pi Delta Pis include Betty Childs (Julie Montgomery) and Judy (Michelle Meyrink). John Goodman is the football coach and James Cromwell is Lewis’ father, who drives his son and Gilbert to Adams.

If the nerds and jocks in this film weren’t as exaggerated as they are, this might be the subject of a documentary given the United States’ reflexive, masturbatory obsession for American football where the football players can do whatever, whenever they want. There is nothing groundbreaking about the depiction of the nerds and the jocks in Revenge of the Nerds, but what is remarkable about how Steve Zacharias and Jeff Buhai’s screenplay develops the nerds is that it betrays its only message: accepting others for who they are, that difference in interests and appearance is to be celebrated, and that tolerance and compassion for others is to be valued over a person’s external superficialities. The film’s sympathetic approach to the nerds in the film’s opening half is commendable; the abuse they suffer allows us to laugh – in joy, sometimes in confusion – when they are being themselves. But for near-identical reasons I find The Breakfast Club (1985) to be hypocritical, Revenge of the Nerds breaks its central idea and makes a mockery of it several times. Most everything that is shown about the Alpha Beta and Pi Delta Pi members is irredeemable – hazing based on humiliation, superiority complexes, excessive alcohol and drug consumption, and an obsession with physical and sexual prowess as a means to organize the fraternity/sorority hierarchy. The basis of the nerds’ revenge is not staying true to who they are, although they use their brainpower to figure out how their scheme will work. By the film’s conclusion, the nerds’ personalities become identical to the jocks’ – actively seeking out to humiliate their opponents, treating women as sexual playthings, and valuing their hedonism over everything else. I imagine Lewis’ father to be heartbroken if he heard about this; but given the rules set forth in Revenge of the Nerds, maybe not.

This is a comedy – a college comedy, some might emphasize – meant to entertain and skewer the jocks and their girlfriends for their behavior. But comedy is often double-edged, as it is here, and I could not bring myself to laugh as the nerds began to emulate. Maybe I do not know enough about comedies, but I tend to think the best comedies that attempt a message (that excludes pure farce, like 1980′s Airplane!) should hold steady to what they are trying to espouse as there is a moral responsibility that exists in that space. Message comedies often subscribe to a rule usually associated with journalism: to comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable. As the nerds become relentless in their revenge, the film resorts to racial stereotypes and misogyny as supporting plot devices. For all the hilarious pratfalls of the combat between the Tri-Lambs and Alpha Beta and the end-of-film festival’s events, these depictions overshadow Revenge of the Nerds’ intents.

According to British film critic Robert Ager, a DVD commentary interview including actor Curtis Armstrong had him claim that, in this film, “nerd” can stand in for any group of people being oppressed. What Armstrong and Ager fail to note, however, is that this statement is less applicable for Revenge of the Nerds’ black and Asian characters and rooted in decades of Hollywood history.

Larry B. Scott’s Lamar is obviously gay, presenting himself as an aberration to the rigidly heterosexual jocks. But Lamar is employed as comic relief in times when the Tri-Lambs wherever the film needs him to be. The queer black male is a stock character from blaxploitation – a subgenre of exploitation film which catered to African-American audiences and emerged in the early 1970s; blaxploitation films have been acclaimed by some as portraying more empowered black characters, but have also been criticized for reinforcing damaging stereotypes. Lamar’s queerness, if we are to look at him with a blaxploitation lens, is decontextualized by Revenge of the Nerds, as the stock queer black male – as seen in Shaft (1972) and Blacula (1972) – is usually employed to challenge black masculine norms (it can be comical or otherwise), that there is more than one way to be “authentically” masculine as a black man. Lamar is indeed a nerd, but what he could represent – as a black queer man – is erased, though I will admit that the performance he gives near the film’s end is one of the most positive depictions of a gay rapper I have seen. Additionally, the depiction of the Lambda Lambda Lambda administration – recall that it is a black fraternity – is of stoic men whose appearances are bookended by the expected funk music and cultural insensitivities by the largely white kids trying to form a Tri-Lamb chapter at Adams.

The filmmakers never even try with Japanese student Takashi (Brian Tochi), rendering him overly polite to those insulting and assaulting him, mixing up or simply dropping L’s and R’s in his speech, and being completely dense to everything surrounding him. We have been here too many fucking times before. If the filmmakers’ intentions were to expose the follies of these stereotypes by replicating them and showcasing their absurdities, the final product has too many mixed messages for me to take such a claim seriously. From Revenge of the Nerds’ nerd-jock dichotomy with nothing in between, the nerds’ adoption of the jocks’ behavior, and their portrayal of black and Asian characters, this almost drowns out the numerous clever verbal and sight gags there are.

And this is not even beginning to touch upon how this film treats its women characters. From the panty raid scene to the nerds’ installation of a camera to watch females undress in the supposed privacy of their bathrooms (a young elementary school-age kid is depicted watching these scenes and enjoying them) and bedrooms to a rape-by-deception/false identity (because as long as the fornicating is mind-blowing, the sex is totally okay, and the girl will fall for your dick, right?), there is nothing salvageable about how Revenge of the Nerds treats its women. Rape is a punchline and that – call me a prude all you want – is indefensible (Revenge of the Nerds would not be the first or last film to do this).

Made with money 20th Century Fox earned with Return of the Jedi (1983), Revenge of the Nerds spawned three sequels – the later two being television movies – despite the fact Fox executives were expecting a modest box office intake (and thus left the production alone without much administrative interference). The film was shot on the campus of the University of Arizona, located in Tucson. The young cast – though some were certainly no longer the usual age for an undergraduate student – had a brilliant time shooting the movie, despite their initial reservations about playing such obvious nerds or loathsome jocks and cheerleaders. A Greek life-like atmosphere surrounded the set, and the stars found themselves partying with the university’s students when shooting was completed for the day.

Without the film’s surprisingly thoughtful portrayal of the nerds in the opening third of the film, the score that appears below might otherwise have been much lower. Without some pretty shocking or dirty lines from Lewis, Gilbert, and especially Goober, I might have liked this film a lot less than I do now (yes, this review has been scathing, but there are elements I appreciated). Yet all of that racially insensitive writing and misogyny is something that this film could all too easily could have gone without.

My rating: 5/10

^ Based on my personal imdb rating. My interpretation of that ratings system can be found here.

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