A short time ago, I was flicking around the TV and came across an old favorite of mine, Revenge of the Nerds. This staple film, made in 1984, was the building block of Friday night cinema for most of the people in my brother's generation, and those fortunate enough to have older siblings and parents that didn't really care if their child was watching funny pornography. Needless to say, it shaped the experiences and attitudes that many of us had when we reached our college years. In the film, two things stood out to me.


#1. Betty Childs, girlfriend of Adams College starting quarterback and head-Alpha Stan Gable, was raped by the Nerd co-leader, Louis Skolnick. He pulled off this sexual molestation by donning the Darth Vader-like mask of rival Gable and following Childs into the Fun House. The recently spurned Childs was excited by the apparent change of mind that ‘Gable’ had and lead him by the hand into the Moon Walk. As the two people lay down on the air-filled moon-floor, Childs asked her boyfriend to remove his mask. Skolnick, silent the entire time since entering the Fun House, shook his head to say no. Childs read this as a ‘kinky’ move and proceeded to let Skolnick have sex with her.


The entire encounter, that on the Silver Screen played out as clever and just, was actually the pre-meditated act of a pervert and misogynist. Skolnick overheard Betty Childs remark to her boyfriend that working in the Kissing Booth had made her ‘horny’. She suggested that they slip away together and make love. Stan Gable, always the jock before the man, declined her advances by saying, “Betty... you’re like a goat.” As Childs slipped away, Skolnick devised a plan. He stole Gable’s mask and followed Childs into the Fun House.


In the Fun House, Skolnick, although a physics phenom and wizard with a Roland synthesizer, committed several felonies, including stalking, false imprisonment, criminal trespass, and rape. In the film Revenge of the Nerds, Skolnick is portrayed as a hero, someone to look up to. One would think that these traits would only be found in the lowest of the low, but not in this case.

Now, the movie leads us to believe that Skolnick only engaged in oral sex with Ms. Childs, and that no actual intercourse occured. Even if this was the case, I think it was a rape morally, even if it would not be punishable under law. Most state laws say that if a woman submits under the belief that she is having sex with her husband, and that belief is induced by some form of trickery, then the sex is rape. The only reason that wouldn't apply in "Revenge of the Nerds" is that Betty thought Louis was her boyfriend, not husband. Close enough for moral disapproval, in my book.


#2. Betty Childs, seconds removed from a rapturous love making session, finds out that the true identity of the person who just ravaged her body was not her longtime and trusted boyfriend, Stan Gable, but Nerd-stalker Louis Skolnick. Childs let this new information set in for exactly one second before excusing Skolnick’s obvious act of rape because his love-making style was of a high quality. Apparently, if Skolnick would have done a below average job of bringing sexual pleasure to Ms. Childs, then this horrendous act would have never been allowed to go on unreported. Perhaps Ms. Childs was paralyzed by the negative stigma that rape victims feel, as if the act was her fault. Maybe by not reporting it, Childs may have been attempting to deny the very existence of the rape-act. These are questions that we may never learn the truth about.


The appalling outcome is that Skolnick is rewarded for his unforgivable actions by luring Childs away from a popular and stable relationship with Stan Gable to one built on a foundation of deceit and assault. Clearly suffering from the Florence Nightingale effect, Childs formed a trauma-based attachment to her attacker to mask the pain she felt inside. By committing herself to Skolnick, Childs and her now-crushed self confidence made the false assumption that Skolnick loved her, since he was the only man that she had known that was kind to her. The reality is that rape-shame concealed all positive memories that occurred prior to the molestation, effectively wiping out her connection to Stan Gable. Her tragic transformation from campus princess to sex crime victim was made complete when later on, at the Homecoming football rally, she left Stan by saying, “I’m in love with a nerd.”


Was she really in love, or was Skolnick’s sexual assault so devastating and complete that Childs, or at least the Childs that Gable knew and loved, was dead, and only a spent, physical shell remained for Skolnick to ravage again and again in Revenge of the Nerds II: Nerds in Paradise?


One other parting question that came up about the movie, because I really don't want to get into the pantyraid, because that's just a litany of filth and lawlessness that transcends most XXX movies in terms of misogyny, or the sexual act that occurs between Lewis, Gilbert and a sheep while they were pledging for the frat.


Fredrick W. Palowaski (a.k.a "The Ogre") may have killed two men in the movie. The first he dropped head-first from a second story balcony after seeing the nerds for the first time. He then throws a man through a window from about 8-10 feet up about 15 minutes later. Why wasn't he arrested? Were the Adams football players truly above the law?? If so they must have been one hell of a football team. If guys from Nebraska, Florida State and Miami, traditional football powers, can get arrested, it tells me that Adams football is definitely a powerhouse. Were they a division 1-A school? D-3?? Do you think any of them went pro??