Tuesday, November 23, 2010

Some particularly egregious nerd face can be found in the fourth season of Six Feet Under, episode nine "Grinding the Corn."

My friend created the idea of nerd face when referring to Big Bang Theory - the current time's foremost purveyor of the phenomenon - basically treating television (or film, I suppose) nerds with the most stereotypical brush possible - they don't know how to dress themselves, they have glasses, they're socially awkward and can't function in society, they collect action figures, they love Star Wars and Lord of the Rings.

In this episode, the death of the week is a comic book store employee, who dies while trying to reach on top of a series of shelves for a rare comic, only to have the shelves fall on him, crushing him to death. His friends who set up his funeral are shown as total outcasts - weirdly explaining the origin story of superhero Blue Tornado when it comes out to Nate and David, and later ineptly breaking in to steal the issue the deceased wants buried with him, folding immediately when the more masculine Nate and Rico threaten them. At the funeral itself, it's a room full of carbon copies of the two characters, glasses, t-shirt with strange reference on them, who are subject to mockery by David for their alleged inability to fit into society.

Anyway - you get the idea - sure, all of these things exist, but isn't it time we got some actually well developed nerd characters who might like Lord of the Rings and or superheros but aren't total freaks

It's just one episode, but someone needs to call it out when it appears, on behalf of the Anti-Nerd Defamation League, or somesuch.

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