Is Eagle vs. Shark the new Napoleon Dynamite? Yes but with cute New Zealand accents and a nerd sex scene involving animal costumes. But it’s more than that. Like Dynamite, Eagle is incredibly subtle propaganda created by a sinister geek conspiracy out to brainwash America into a near-catatonic state of pro-nerd complacency.
This will not be the last pro-geek flick inflicted on the American public as the wonks gear up for world conquest. The signs are everywhere. Kids are increasingly being seduced by nerd musical phenomena like emo, math rock and pronk. Tech companies now boast of the efficacy of their “geek squads.” The Japanese versions of the Mac/PC ads are bombing because in Japan, myopic mouth-breathers are regarded as living gods. And as the Japanese live exactly 12.5 years into the future, we should take heed.
We have mocked the poindexters, brainiacs, Einsteins and milquetoasts for decades. But soon they’ll be our leaders. Did you really think Bill Gates was gonna let the likes of George W. run the world forever? It’ll be like that episode of The Simpsons where Lisa, the comics guy and the stuttering geek-scientist take over Springfield—and turn it into living hell for anybody not suffering from Asperger’s.
So let’s laugh while we can. And there’s much to chuckle at in Eagle vs. Shark’s loser-packed ride through the suburbs of sad.
As in Napoleon Dynamite, Eagle’s nerds are depicted as not only socially awkward but also educationally subnormal. This is inaccurate and insulting and very funny. “I used to be a nerd,” the hero admits, shortly after showing the heroine his rubbish home-made candles and introducing her to a retarded hacker chum whose antiquated computer is crippled with porn pop-ups.
In reality, of course, nerds are super computer-literate, have all the best jobs and the latest toys and create all the great art. But what the hey. This is a minstrel show designed to distract the rest of us from the scary fact that these freaks are taking over.
Following the template established by 1984’s seminal Revenge of the Nerds, modern nerd movies present their heroes as nonthreatening underdogs. Sure we laugh at them—but we also laugh with them. When Napoleon Dynamite wins over the entire school with his hot body-popping routine, we cheer. When the normals (always depicted as cruel, shallow and vain) are humiliated, we cheer again. Hey, can anyone spell “emotional manipulation”?
It’s not like this pro-nerd propaganda is being answered. I’ve yet to see any posters showing an archetypal spotty geek with buck teeth and thick-lensed poindexter specs held together with a band-aid over the legend: “Behold your future ruler.”
Even in movies with no obvious pro-geek agenda, high-SAT-scoring social inadequates are invariably portrayed as earnest, loveable and even cuddly good guys—while normals are caricatured as heartless cheerleaders and asshole jocks.
The only possible conclusion one can draw is that Hollywood is at the center of a vast nerd conspiracy. We are being softened up with harmless, charming, unchallenging nerd underdog imagery. Come the day our new talk-in-very-loud-voices-while-unable-to-make-eye-contact masters take over, we’ll just chuckle.
And when Dungeons and Dragons becomes the centerpiece of the new national curriculum; and a calculus bee replaces the Super Bowl; and kids with fewer than five writing implements in the pocket protector of their chosen-by-their-mom polyester shirt are deemed “losers” and are taunted by their owlishly bespectacled classmates; and sex not involving furry animal costumes is officially declared “obscene”; then and only then will America wake up from its pro-brainiac brainwashing.
And by then, it’ll be too late. The nerd nightmare will have begun.