August 30, 2004
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Acting vs. Nerdiness
Last night I joined 11 other Highrockers in going to see Hero on opening weekend. The best two sentences written about the movie are from James Bernadelli’s reelviews:
In this film, when characters are stabbed, they die but don’t bleed. It’s a conceit that has as much to do with maintaining the film’s strict adherence to color schemes as it does to avoiding copious gore.
The cinematography, swordplay, and thousands of arrows are impressive. Makes me want to skip Alien vs. Predator and jump straight into Qin Imperial Army vs. Saruman’s Orcish Hordes. But I also can’t help marveling at the acting. Maggie Chueng can — without seeming to move any facial muscles — cast a withering glance of bored disdain. And Tony Leung just radiates a haunted integrity. If I tried that, my friends would ask if I was constipated. Because dark and brooding is not my thing. (“I’m Batman.”)
Analyzing is my thing. And lately I’ve been thinking about, “what is a nerd?” (Some would say it’s anyone who tries to analyze that question.) And my conclusion is: it’s not the abundance of technical skills, but rather the deficiency of social skills. Especially in the area of reading and conveying information through facial gestures. So the opposite of a good actor would be a nerd.
The exception to this rule is Keanu Reeves. He coveys nothing besides “I’m confused, but I’m hot.” And yet he is not a nerd. Strange.
I think this is why there are more guy nerds than girl nerds. Girls are always saying to each other, “You look upset. Are you feeling ok?” While the same situation might lead a guy to ask, “Can you cut out of the funeral early to play ball?”
I wonder if self-awareness is an essential part of this definition. Because then you could come up with a cruel nerdity test: “Pick any four random people plus yourself. Do you know which one is the nerd? If you don’t, then it’s YOU!”
Al Gore is not a nerd because he invented the internet, haha. He is a nerd because during the campaign, 74% of the adjectives used to describe his speaking style were variations on “wooden.”
Comments (12)
I loved Hero! Maggie was Miss Hong Kong 2nd runner up years ago. Isn’t she gorgeous?! And Tony! He just never seems to age! What I wouldn’t give if I can live in a time like that where women can still fight without messing up a single hair on her head and the men still give their lives to protect their woman’s honor!
Maggie Cheung is a 100 perfect Asian woman!!!
Impressive how she can do complex flips in the air with an air of aristocratic boredom.
“haunted integrity” — what a brilliant description of broken sword!! did you come up with that yourself? poetic nerd
I would quibble:
nerd is a positive description. it means interest and curiosity in technology, innovation, cool new stuff
geek is I think the word for the negative, unredeeming stuff. or dweeb. or creepy guy? I’m a creep. I’m a weirdo. What the hell am I doing here? I don’t belong here!
I thought geek was the more positive description… someone seriously needs to standardize derogatory term usage =b
oh no! I’m totally a nerd because I lack poise.
Heh. That’s a great line: “Can you cut out of the funeral early to play ball?”
It’s up there with, “Dude, your grandmother is HOT!” or “You gonna eat that communion wafer?”
i’m in the ‘nerd = smart and geek = socially inept’ camp. i think phil’s a nerd, but not a geek, and phil calls me a nerd, and i think my social skills are pretty intact…i think.
Have you ever seen or known a physically attractive nerd? Physical attractiveness trumps nerdiness. I wonder if that is because people want to be associated with beautiful people, so the beautiful people get more social interaction practice.
Doesn’t MIT have a charm school? That’s a good way to reduce the nerdiness quotient.
Hey!
I am beautiful
No matter what they say
Words can’t bring me down
I am beautiful
In every single way
Yes words can’t bring me down
Ohh no
So don’t you bring me down today
I went to charm school at MIT and even have my diploma. The one-day program is not enough training, believe me. =)
my blockmates and i came up with a typology in college (oh so long ago):
nerds are the intellectually curious type – almost too much so for general social taste.
geeks are the socially awkward ones.
dorks are the ones with physical gaffes like snorting while laughing – they’re also the ones who think things that don’t make sense to the societally-conscious (taping glasses to fix them) make sense.
freaks are the seemingly normal on the surface but think strange/atypical thoughts below the surface.
finally, spazzes are those who randomly lose control – in a spastic type of way. you know what i mean.
That’s a great typology, and proves you’re a nerd.
The only problem is that people use geek and nerd interchangably, both with good and bad connotations, so I don’t know if it’s possible to impose your typology on them.
I also think there are more freaks in the world than non-freaks. But that could just be my friends.
haha.. i still have my charm school diploma somewhere from that one year where i ran into you there… along with the “popular science” article that featured it a few months later.. =P considering one of them was “flirting 101″ (or was it dating 101? i don’t remember now, except that it was the only class w/ a waiting line for each session) i think it was more to amuse bored MIT students during winter session than to actually teach very much etiquette… =P