Paul: Real Genius
The archetype of the Nerd crystallized in the 1980s via sex comedies like Revenge of the Nerds and Weird Science. This is a strange truth that perhaps goes underexamined given how important the idea of the Nerd (especially w/r/t the stories they told themselves about Nerdness) ended up being over the ensuing two decades.
Neither of those movies nor their broad cohort had any real interest in the emotional reality of being a smart weirdo like Real Genius did, though.
I loved this movie to an absurd degree as a tween, wearing out a taped-from-TV VHS of it, and its depiction of brilliant engineering students at a thinly-disguised Caltech is unlike any other '80s campus comedy's treatment of Nerds as a concept. Also, and significantly: it's largely still funny.
This isn't a review or a feature article or a piece of criticism, though. I just want to talk about Val Kilmer's performance as Chris Knight.
Top Gun hadn't happened yet, so he wasn't a star. He had star power, though, and brought it to bear in service of the absolutely insane idea—in 1985—of a serious nerd who was also credibly cool. His performance of the scruffily elfin, manic Chris Knight completely sold the idea of a brilliant physics student who fucks. He gets all the best lines in the script, and why wouldn't he? When Gretzky is on your team, you pass him the fucking puck.
Today, though, rewatching clips on YouTube and considering the performance, I was struck by the other side of the Chris Knight character, which is that he has actual, hard-earned principals underneath his hedonism and joi de vivre. I know it's a comedy and we're not really supposed to consider the aftermath, but this is a guy who commits multiple serious crimes in order to sabotage the development of his work as a weapon of war. Sure, it's partially out of simple revenge for having his breakthrough stolen by his slimy academic advisor, but I don't think he's lying when his answer to "What do you want?" is "World peace—but that's not important right now."
Too many nerds have lost their way. In particular, they have become comfortable with bootlicking in a way Chris Knight would not abide.