How An Rated-R Film Tricked The World Into Loving Sci-Fi Nerds

By Joshua Tyler
| Printed 5 seconds in the past

The 12 months is 2004, and audiences are shopping for tickets to have fun on the expense of a boy named Napoleon within the film Napoleon Dynamite. The movie turns into a field workplace hit, and nobody minds that its protagonist is pitiable. He’s a nerd, a part of a cultural group everybody feels snug subjecting to ridicule. Nobody wished to be a nerd like Napoleon, and that was the purpose. 

The 12 months is 2006, and being a geek is so cool {that a} mannequin named Olivia Munn begins portraying herself as a nerd. It might or could not have been true, but it surely works, and diving into the world of nerds helps make her well-known. Munn builds a whole profession out of being a fascinating dweeb, and shortly, the world is crammed with engaging celebrities claiming geek standing.

Fashionable readers could have a tough time imagining a world by which geeks and nerds weren’t accepted, however that was the norm till 2005, when one film modified all the things folks thought of them. 

The 40-12 months Previous Virgin was that inciting film, and that is the story of the way it tricked the world into pondering there’s nothing flawed with nerds. You haven’t been brainwashed, you’ve been screenswashed.

When Nerds Have been The Illness And Punching Was The Treatment

Earlier than we get to the early 2000s and The 40-12 months-Previous Virgin, make a journey again in time with me to the discharge of the film Back to the Future. Arriving in 1985, the movie incorporates a prototypical nerd character named George McFly.

When the film begins, George McFly is an grownup nerd, and in consequence, the film assumes he’s additionally a complete loser. By the point Again to the Future ends, his character arc is accomplished solely when he provides up his nerd tendencies and begins appearing just like the sort of cool, assured man who punches assholes within the face and performs tennis on the weekend. 

Altering George McFly from a nerd right into a tennis-playing software is, in a way, the complete purpose for Marty McFly’s journey. As a result of, in spite of everything, who’d desire a nerd for a father? No thanks. Get that man a doubles companion.

It labored as a result of this was the ideology eighties audiences have been most snug with. Nobody paused their VCR and requested, “Hey, what’s flawed with being a nerd?”

The most effective instance of America’s pre-2005 anti-nerd bias is present in probably the most well-known nerd of all time: Invoice Gates.

Lengthy earlier than Elon, Invoice Gates was well-known for being a geek, and in addition well-known for being uniquely hated. He was often criticized for overly aggressive enterprise practices and being evasive when confronted with authorities scrutiny. The view of most of the people within the 80s and 90s, when it got here to Invoice Gates, was that he was a creep who spent manner an excessive amount of time studying books and stole all the things he’d completed. He was additionally seen because the prototypical fashionable illustration of a nerd.

Gates was as soon as so hated that it grew to become unsafe for him to exit in public. It culminated in 1998 when, whereas strolling down the road, he was attacked and hit with a pie within the face by a French activist, Noel Godin. The act was seen as a protest in opposition to Invoice’s monopolistic practices, and the general public didn’t precisely really feel unhealthy for Invoice when it occurred. Most felt he had it coming.

Whereas he’s nonetheless unpopular in some circles, most now view him favorably. Gates has change into Geek Jesus, a brilliant sensible savior touring the world dishing out vaccines to sick youngsters.

The Steve Urkel Impact

Not all nerds have been hated in that pre-2005 world. Hated or not, none of them have been revered. Few figures embodied this type of anti-nerd bigotry higher than Steve Urkel.

Steve Urkel was some of the fashionable characters in tv historical past. Within the early Nineties, folks quoted him, dressed as him for Halloween, and acquired hundreds of speaking Steve Urkel dolls. 

As performed by Jaleel White on the sitcom Household Issues, Steve Urkel was liked particularly as a result of folks loved mocking him. Laughing at Steve made viewers really feel higher about themselves as a result of a minimum of they weren’t like him. 

In one of many later Household Issues seasons, Steve develops a magic formula referred to as “cool juice” that transforms him right into a much less clever, extra suave model of himself referred to as Stefan. When it occurred, the viewers didn’t bemoan the lack of their beloved nerd. As a substitute, followers celebrated Steve’s victory over his nerdiness. Within the context of the present, Stefan is rewarded for his coolness by getting the lady whose coronary heart nerdy Steve Urkel had been attempting and failing to win all alongside.

The most well-liked, long-running gag on Household Issues revolved round Carl Winslow throwing Steve Urkel out of his home. He tosses him out as a result of Steve is an annoying nerd. It was humorous each time it occurred as a result of Carl was all the time proper. Steve was annoying, and like all nerds, he had it coming. 

The Early Foundations Of Nerd Acceptance

The inspiration for full nerd acceptance was laid in 1999 when companies appeared up and seen that nerdy issues have been turning into exceptionally worthwhile. 

Strains wrapped across the block for The Phantom Menace. Star Wars toys have been flying off cabinets, and so they weren’t being offered to youngsters. The Matrix was the shock hit of the last decade, and the grownup males in line for it appeared like they’d fallen out of a Volkswagon bus on its technique to a completely single conference.

The geeks who opened their wallets for these 1999 money cows didn’t acquire acceptance by rote of their numbers. For those who have been certainly one of many bespectacled Star Wars followers who slept outdoors a movie show that 12 months, there’s likelihood a carload of frat boys drove previous, rolled down their home windows, caught out their backsides, and shouted, “Nerds!” at you and your fellow line campers. 

The native information was additionally current at these Jedi campouts. Their intention was to cowl the huge reputation of geek sci-fi properties with a strongly slanted “hey, take a look at these loopy weirdos!” angle. Making enjoyable of nerds received them rankings.

These large firms that seen the revenue potential constructed up inside these line-standers spent the subsequent few years greenlighting extra geek-friendly tasks. Slowly, as films like The Matrix gained extra widespread acceptance, the cultural stigma in opposition to geekery started to melt. It didn’t dissolve. 

The Final Gasp of a Nerd-Hating Tradition

When launched in 2004, Napoleon Dynamite, for all its uniqueness, was the final gasp of a nerd-hating tradition. The character was fashionable in the identical manner Steve Urkel was fashionable. Audiences liked laughing at him, however nobody was thinking about laughing with him. 

With out the built-in unfavorable emotions American tradition had about nerds, it might not have been OK to chuckle in any respect. As a substitute, the viewers might need felt sorry for Napoleon, who lives a horrible and unhappy life deserving of pity, not scorn.

Napoleon Dynamite’s a nerd, so nobody cared. That left the 2004 viewers members shopping for tickets to his film, free to chuckle at him. 

Judd Apatow Makes Freaks And Geeks A Precedence

The world modified in 2005. By 2006 American tradition was geek tradition, a spot the place it might shock nobody to listen to the captain of the soccer workforce speaking about his newly bought lightsaber. 

What occurred between Napoleon Dynamite in 2004 and the rise of the aforementioned Olivia Munn in 2006 wasn’t natural. Individuals didn’t change their minds about nerds as a result of they abruptly realized they need to be nicer to them. The world modified its thoughts about geeks as a result of it was tricked into loving them by a singular piece of leisure referred to as The 40-12 months Previous Virgin. 

Launched in 2005, The 40-12 months Previous Virgin was the primary film directed by comedian-turned-filmmaker Judd Apatow. In 1999, he’d beforehand tried to make a TV sequence across the thought of lovable and sympathetic nerds. The present was referred to as Freaks & Geeks, and it was critically acclaimed. These rave opinions didn’t matter. Audiences have been so turned off by the idea that the sequence was canceled after airing solely a handful of episodes.

Judd Apatow didn’t quit. He discovered a brand new technique to ship his pro-geek message when he later teamed up with comedic actor Steve Carell and, with him, satisfied Hollywood to greenlight an R-rated comedy referred to as The 40-12 months Previous Virgin.

“I considered it as Freaks and Geeks 20 years later if certainly one of them by no means had intercourse,” he instructed GQ. “That was my secret thought as I made the film.”

He’d discovered essential classes from his previous failures. This time Judd took a much less apparent method to sympathetic geekiness. He did it with a trick, a trick that remodeled nerd-hating viewers into full-on nerd lovers.

Andy Stitzer is the film’s primary character, and he’s precisely what the film’s title says he’s. He additionally has an enormous assortment of classic motion figures and is aware of just a few magic tips. He could not put on glasses, however Andy’s not solely a 40-year-old virgin, he’s additionally a 40-year-old nerd.

Within the minds of these shopping for tickets to see it, The 40-12 months Previous Virgin was purported to be one other piece of nerd abuse comedy within the type of Napoleon Dynamite. That trick is the supply of the film’s screenwashing success. The 40-12 months-Previous Virgin is designed to look as if it’s mocking Andy whereas quietly making the viewers root for him. Then, once they least count on it, they fall in love with him. 

The Apatow comedy’s title sells the thought of promised geek mockery, and the film’s trailers solely additional relayed this notion by specializing in The 40-12 months Previous Virgin’s lead character making a idiot of himself whereas getting his chest waxed. The movie’s advertising and marketing correctly prevented something too heartfelt.

A chest-waxing chuckle on the expense of Andy Stitzer isn’t all of the film is and wasn’t one thing it may have been. The movie’s chief nerd is performed by Steve Carell, an actor incapable of being unlikable. That’s precisely what Judd Apatow wished.

How The 40-12 months Previous Virgin Hypnotized The World

Audiences walked into The 40-12 months Previous Virgin able to chuckle at Steve Carell’s Andy Stitzer. By the point they walked out, they have been laughing with him. 

Within the minds of viewers, Andy grew to become the sort of man you’d like to be associates with, the sort of man you’d prefer to see date your daughter. He grew to become that particular person not as a result of he modified however since you did. He doesn’t cease constructing scale reproduction fashions or staying up late enjoying tuba. Andy Stitzer is identical nerd on the finish that he was initially, besides with a brand new confidence constructed up by realizing folks care about him.

Andy’s journey shouldn’t be certainly one of abandoning his nerdiness to change into another person. He doesn’t change into Stefan Stitzer to get the lady. Andy’s arc in The 40-12 months Previous Virgin is accomplished when he learns to just accept himself as he’s, after which surrounds himself with individuals who love him, geekiness and all.

The 40-12 months Previous Virgin was an enormous hit. The film opened at primary and stayed there for 2 weeks. It remained within the high two for 5 weeks. Those that noticed it went again with their associates. Those that didn’t see it probably heard the information media speaking about it and noticed lovable Steve Carell on the market, entrance and heart, because the film’s prototypical nerd.

The film went on to spawn a complete technology of Judd Apatow-related films, like Knocked Up and Forgetting Sarah Marshall. Steve Urkel was not the nerd picture in folks’s heads. Judd Apatow’s film and Steve Carell’s heat, pleasant character took root there as an alternative.

It doesn’t matter whether or not you’ve seen the movie. The film’s success created an enormous cultural shift by reprogramming the brains of the individuals who noticed it. These folks then took that programming with them and unfold it to others. The nerd positivity The 40-12 months Previous Virgin designed unfold by American tradition like a thoughts virus, carried to new, impressionable brains by speak exhibits and different items of company leisure dashing to duplicate that success. The leisure media battled one another to be on the reducing fringe of what Judd Apatow had now satisfied them was a brand new pattern.

Possibly your first indoctrination was watching Superbad or a documentary on the hazards of bullying. It doesn’t matter the place you bought the concept nerds weren’t so unhealthy; it was The 40-12 months Previous Virgin that put it in your head.

The Origins Of Andy Stitzer

None of it might have occurred if Apatow hadn’t served as a producer on a earlier R-rated comedy referred to as Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy. Steve Carell has a supporting function in that movie. He steals each scene he exhibits up in. 

Judd Apatow was so impressed he instructed Steve to name him, if he ever had an thought for one thing he wished to do. Steve Carell did. He’d provide you with a personality to make use of in sketches with the legendary Second Metropolis Improv group and instructed Apatow about it. Carell instructed GQ: “It was a few man enjoying poker along with his associates, and so they have been all telling actually soiled intercourse tales, and slowly, you notice that he’s a virgin, and his tales make no sense.”

That sketch would finally change into one of many funniest and finest scenes within the film, however as Apatow and Carell fleshed out the idea, they realized they wished to do one thing greater than an inexpensive sketch. They wished folks to grasp their geeky virgin as an actual particular person.

Apatow instructed GQ: “We discovered from our analysis after we learn a number of blogs on the web from virgins that they’re all simply good, shy folks, and so they weren’t odd. There wasn’t any large joke to it.”

They took the identical method with Andy’s associates who, in a normal film about an ungainly virgin might need mocked him or bullied him. However Judd Apatow tells Leisure Journal: “At first look, these guys embody each unhealthy, misogynistic perspective towards girls…however deep down, they’re candy guys with the perfect of intentions who cowl up their very own terror with horrible theories on girls.”

The film by no means tries to cover Andy’s quirks. Apatow says, “Andy has turned his vitality—a long time of pent-up sexual vitality—into his different pursuits. So he’s amassed a relatively giant assortment of motion figures and video video games. He’s not precisely a hermit, however he’s an introvert who retains to himself amidst his assortment of stuff.”

Andy is an effective, form, lovable particular person and in addition a legitimately introverted, card-carrying geek who retains his motion figures classic and is aware of an assortment of magic tips. He’s the sort of man you’d have met on the San Diego Comedian Con, within the early days earlier than attending grew to become acceptably cool.

Making Andy sympathetic could have been Apatow’s intention, however the studio funding his movie was nonetheless caught in a mindset that had them pondering of nerds as lower than human.  After solely 5 days of filming, Univeral Photos received chilly ft and tried to kill the film.

Possibly they’d seen Napoleon Dynamite too many occasions and weren’t able to take off their nerd-hatred coloured glasses, however Common determined Steve Carell’s character appeared like a serial killer and wished nothing to do with it. Apatow and his workforce calmed them down, permitting the film to renew filming. 

The Present State Of Nerds

Being a geek is now stylish. Nerds have gained such broad acceptance that a lot of our world has been realigned to guard them. Anti-bullying campaigns are the usual in public faculties, and social media is crammed with super-attractive celebrities telling tales about how they have been abused and bullied in highschool earlier than they received sizzling. 

Tales of previous nerd struggling make the tellers extra fashionable, or they wouldn’t share them. Take the time to analyze, and also you’ll probably discover most of them aren’t true. 

It doesn’t matter. When a lovely would-be star declares themselves a nerd, it’s seen as advertising and marketing transfer. Complete YouTube empires have been constructed off that straightforward premise. It might not final without end, however in 2025 issues have by no means been higher for the phrase nerd.

Elon Musk Owes It All To Steve Carell

If popular culture’s view on nerds earlier than 2005 was embodied by Steve Urkel, then in a post-2005 world, it’s best embodied by Tony Stark. Stark is the neatest and quirkiest character within the Marvel Universe. Like the numerous different fictional and real-life nerds who got here earlier than him, Tony talks too quick as a result of his mouth can’t sustain with the concepts in his head. 

Tony’s each bit the nerd Steve Urkel is, besides he’s good-looking, wealthy, and may get any girl he desires with out assistance from cool juice to unleash his internal Stefan. And, after all, Tony Stark solely wears glasses when doing so will give him superpowers or make him look superior.

If pre-2005’s real-world nerd consultant is finest embodied by Invoice Gates, then in a post-Apatow world, he’s been changed by Elon Musk. 

The place Gates repulsed everybody who encountered him, Elon Musk is the toast of the social media and the podcasting world. Elon’s infamous for the variety of stunning girls he juggles, and he’s the sort of movie star most Hollywood stars solely dream of being.

There’s little question about it: Elon Musk is a nerd. He talks too quick, slurs his phrases, performs video video games, geeks out about house, and has the posture of a middle-aged author. But, everybody desires to be him. In the event that they don’t, it’s solely as a result of they’re jealous.

Issues have modified, and nerds, a minimum of the handsome or wealthy ones, have Judd Apatow’s suave screenswashing in The 40-12 months-Previous Virgin to thank for it. Relating to the much less bodily lucky nerds on the market, perhaps issues are as unhealthy as ever. Besides now they’ve misplaced their id to the likes of hunky Henry Cavill (who loves nerdy video games and constructing computer systems).

If Henry Cavill is now a nerd, then I suppose we’ll must provide you with a brand new phrase for the poor, introverted, fats child nonetheless dwelling in his mom’s basement and hoping to fulfill a supermodel who received’t count on him to seem like Superman. Sorry child, it’s in all probability not going to occur. Right here’s to the losers, every body.

---