Negative/Positive Representations

Negative Representation: This picture is hinting toward the life of a nerd, and is taken from an episode of the TV comedy ‘South Park’. The man is an expert player of an online computer game, and throughout the episode it is perceived to be his life. He looks to be around 40-years-old, has lost his hair, has a casual beard and has some spots. He is very fat and doesn’t seem to care about his appearance anywhere near as much as the game that he is playing. He is wearing a protective strap on his right hand as he has a common injury associated with over clicking on the computer mouse. His apartment is littered with clothing and looks generally messy. There are empty energy drink cans on his desk, and he is also using a pillow on his chair to rest his head on. This could be because knows he is going to in that position all day and wants to be comfortable. 

Positive Representation: This is an image taken from ‘The Big Bang Theory’, and it shows how nerds can indeed excel socially and obtain girlfriends. The general conception of nerds is that they are not good socially, especially around females, but the character Leonard from the hit comedy has no such problems. Leonard wears superhero shirts, wears glasses and possesses a comb over haircut, but he still manages to attract a girl who is deemed to be extremely attractive by himself and other people. It shows that people can look like nerds or/and like nerdy things such as computer games and comic books and still excel socially. 

Negative Representation: This is another image from ‘The Big Bang Theory’, and Leonard and Sheldon have just been bullied through having their trouser taken. Nerds are known to lack physicality and be the victims of bullying, and this picture is evidence of that. Obviously this is not always the case, but the idea is represented in this picture. The characters are both wearing typically nerdy clothing. Sheldon is wearing one of his many superhero shirts, has unfashionable shoes and is wearing his socks half way up his shins.

Positive Representation: This image is taken from the film ‘Napoleon Dynamite’, where Napoleon is performing a dance in front of one hundred people as part of a school election campaign. It is perceived that nerds lack confidence and avoid situations where the main focus is on them, but this image is evidence that shows that this is not always true. Napoleon is still dressed as a nerd though, as he is wearing his usual large and round glasses with his shirt is tucked into his waist-high trousers.

Negative Representation: This is a picture of Maurice Moss from the popular British comedy ‘The IT Crowd’. The program follows two nerds and their department manager who work for a hugely glamorous business solving IT related issue from the basement. Moss is wearing the typical nerd clothing. He clearly lacks a sense of style, wearing a smart checked shirt, a dull tie, and glasses. He is working on what looks like some kind of computer hard drive, the likes of which he is also surrounded by. He is also surrounded by old computers and other various pieces of complicated technology. Moss is a shy character that lacks vital social skills, making it hard for him to communicate with the workers upstairs who are considered to be ‘normal’. The fact that Moss and his co-worker Roy work in the basement of a hugely tall building is clear evidence of the lack of respect that the other people in the business have for them. The other workers have the opportunity to look out over the city of London from their workstations and have the luxury of daylight. Moss is the perfect fit for the common perception of a nerd; poor dress sense, poor social skills, overwhelming interest in technology, play with computers in the darkness all day.

This is an image from the film ‘Benchwarmers’. The story of the film is that of a typical underdog story, where nerds form a baseball team and take on all the best teams from around their area. The teams they play against happen to contain their former high school bullies, and so they get revenge over them through winning. They win the tournament, and it shows that the belief that all nerd are bad at sport is wrong. They are bad at the beginning, but once they get practice and the opportunity to play, they become unstoppable. Through this achievement, the nerds gain more friends and become respected and popular. In this picture, the characters are wearing baseball uniforms instead of their typical nerd wear. In fact, they look like ordinary people in this photo. They are on a baseball field, which isn’t nerdy at all, and they are celebrating one of their many wins as a team. The character on the right, Gus, isn’t actually a nerd, as he is a keen baseball player. He helps the nerds come to terms with the game and gives them hints as to what to do. This shows that nerds can blend in and become friends with sporty people, and that not everyone finds them to be weird or strange people. 

Presentation

Collective Media Identity

I have started to look at and study the representation of 'nerds' in today's media, and also the perception of the stereotype from when it started in the 1950's. I looked at a variety of different texts from TV and Film where nerds are portrayed in different ways. I examined clips from 'The Big Bang Theory' and 'The IT Crowd' to analyse the behavior of the people viewed as nerds, and why they might be viewed in this way. I found that the characters in the 'The Big Bang Theory' enjoyed things like comic books and Star Trek toys. They are also extremely intelligent and lack basic social skills. All these things come together to contribute to their social standing; which doesn't seem to be very high. They are often mocked and referred to as 'geeks', due to their intelligence and enjoyments. They wear superhero-themed T-shirts and regularly visit their local comic book store. One of the characters cannot speak to women, while another character lives with his mother at the age of 30. The characters in 'The IT Crowd' are quite similar as they possess a great knowledge of computers. They work in the basement of a massive company below all the attractive people who work on the upper floors of the building, where no one pays attention to them or appreciates them.

I also looked at the modern nerd-based films 'Benchwarmers' and 'Napoleon Dynamite'. The characters in 'Benchwarmers' are portrayed to be bad at sports, and are damaged by the bullying they suffered in their previous school days where they were teased and pick on due to their different sources of enjoyment and entertainment. The whole film is based on them starting up a baseball team to beat their former bullies' teams to give hope to all the young nerds growing up. One of the characters is too scared to step outside of his house, due to his fear of sunlight, while another always wear a helmet and wears his trouser way above his waist. 'Napoleon Dynamite' is a very random film, but the representation remains the same. Napoleon and his brother Kip are two classic nerds that wear glasses, have no sense of style and struggle in terms of social standing. Kip chats with strangers who he labels "babes" all day, while Napoleon possesses two friends and gets bullied at high school.

I also looked at an older nerd film named 'Revenge of the Nerds' (1984), where the idea is very similar. I studied the film to see if i could identify any differences in how the nerds were portrayed in this film, as oppose to the more recent films such as 'Benchwarmers' and 'Napoleon Dynamite'. They were all portrayed in the same light, apart from the fact that intelligence about the latest technology didn't come into the stereotype as much. This is due to the fact that computers weren't as advanced as they are today, and so a characteristic of today's nerd is that they play console or computer games 24/7. I identified the turning point of people's perception of nerds to be the introduction of modern technology, such as advanced computer games and games consoles.