Geekdom (or Why Sex is Scarier than Chainsaws)

It occurred to me today, as I stood in a line for two hours in 30 degree weather in order to buy two tickets for the 300th performance of "Evil Dead, the Musical!" and the after-show party, that I am a geek. It's a difficult reality to avoid when you are standing in a ticket line with people who are feverishly passionate about musical zombie dismemberment via prosthetic chainsaw.

I could try to present the case that my interest in "Evil Dead: The Musical!" is highly academic and that I am, therefore, not a geek. I could argue the play is incredibly clever, and that I am intrigued by the way that it uses dialogue, music and choreography to lampoon every other musical that has ever been written. I could pontificate about how innovative and technical the show is, and about how I appreciate the physical and musical demands of the roles. I could even add that some of the most intelligent people I know have seen the show and loved it. All true. But it doesn't change the fact that I am really pretty geeky about it.

It ain't easy, being geeky, even for a moderate like me. I classify myself as a "moderate" on the basis that I never dress up in costume (with the exception of a series of Halloween parties in my younger days and one teenaged viewing of The Rocky Horror Picture Show.) I do not collect action figures, nor do I write fan fiction. There are many iconic cult obsessions to which I am completely immune: Star Trek, Dungeons and Dragons, Plan 9 from Outer Space, Twin Peaks, Harold and Kumar go to White Castle, anything with a video game console, Hannah Montana and Star Wars. (Note: All right, all right, before you rip my head off, I was a fan of the first two Star Wars films, particularly "The Empire Strikes Back." Who wasn't? But surely you must have noticed the Lucas/dollar inverse ratio; the more money that Lucas has, the crappier his films get. He can't even leave the first two good ones alone; he has digitized and sanitized them to death.)

My first brush with real geekdom came in university when I became mildly obsessed with the TV show "The X-Files." My friend Cathryn and I were so enamoured of the show and so anxious to learn the exciting conclusion to a gripping two-part episode that we decided to attend a meeting of the university's "X-Files Club." (I am not kidding.) Somehow the club had gotten a copy of the episode two days before it was scheduled to air, and we could go to the meeting and watch it without commercials. Bliss! But the viewing came with a high price; the organizers of the club did not want to let us simply watch the videos - instead they became obsessed with recruiting Cathryn and I, their "new members," for their X-Files club pub crawls, T-shirt and cap design and bake sales. Needless to say, we did not attend other meetings and only watched the X-Files in our dorm after that. We were not geeky enough for that group.

Perhaps in some ways it is harder to be a moderate geek. Let's say you are really into Star Trek, so you go to conventions and club meetings and, as a result, find yourself surrounded with people who agree with you, and who you have that passion in common with. The moderate geek doesn't have the inclination (or time, or money) to pursue an interest to that level, so they will occasionally try to half-heartedly defend their interest to their colleagues in their staff lunchrooms: "No really! I know it sounds silly, but "Buffy the Vampire Slayer really is a fantastic show!" Or take today's "Evil Dead: The Musical!" ticket line. Most of the people there seemed to have arrived in large groups; I arrived on my own. I didn't have the requisite black t-shirt with a horror movie/death metal logo, the black fingernails, tattoos or piercings - in my white cotton skirt and tank top I stuck out like a sore thumb. It was a friendly, patient, jovial group of people, all laughing and socializing, and they probably thought I was aloof as I hid behind my copy of "The Painted Veil," out of shyness. And because I hadn't arrived early enough (like the real fans did) I missed the line cutoff for the 300th performance tickets.

But you shouldn't feel badly for me - I embrace my pseudo-geekiness and nobody really bugs me about it. Who we should all feel sorry for are arguably the newest "geeks" out there - the "Sex and the City" fans, or "chic-geeks." These are the people who dressed up in their highest fashion duds and sashayed out to the earliest showings of the long-anticipated film. (Note: I'm not being critical; I tried to do just this last Tuesday night (well, in my rather boring duds, but nonetheless.) Unfortunately, when I arrived to buy tickets they were all sold out. Just like today, I didn't make it there in time as a true, better-than-moderate fan would have.) Women have been flocking in droves to, and enjoying this movie, but we should feel sorry for them because something scary is happening.

When I went online to read about viewer response to "Sex and the City," I was surprised at what I found on the Internet Movie Database page about the film. First of all, it had a "user rating" of 4.9/10, which seemed to be very low to me considering the positive response the movie has had. But I was far more shocked by the comments that were being posted on the film's message board. Here's a sampling of what can be found there; I have not altered any part of the comments including spelling and grammar:

"Ok lets see what feminism has given us:abortion-thanks to this we have few future workers to replace the elderly,divorce-ok i understand sometimes divorce is neccasary ie abusive relationships but honestly you cant say it's with all of them and so many single parent families is it any wonder we got social problems these day? no i'm not sexist and not old fashioned i do believe women should get the right to vote and work etc but this is a step too far into a liberal uncontrolled direction."

You will notice that the above post is not actually about the MOVIE. It's not edited; that was the post in its entirety. I particularly enjoy the inpeneterable reasoning as to why "we got social problems these day." Here's one that is commenting on the fact that "Sex and the City" was outperformed by the children's movie "Kung-Fu Panda" this weekend at the box office:

"These 4 Ho's Beaten By A Panda How fitting. p.s. Guys if you want to keep your self respect don't let your wife/gf make you go see this. If she threatens to hold back sex just hire a prostitute, it is more self respecting than viewing this."

It's wonderful to get advice from someone who is clearly so schooled in the methods of respect, isn't it? I wonder how many Steven Seagal direct-to-video movies his "wife/gf" has sat through? This next one is one of my personal favourites, mostly because of the "signature" line at the end:

"In my day is was called being a slut, whore, etc. Now it's sexually empowered, thanks for the memo SATC fans.

~If you love Jesus Christ and are 100% proud of it, copy this and make it your signature!~ "

Now, it's important to note that I didn't have to look far for these comments - they were but a few of many that were posted TODAY. Since the movie opened last week there have been 70 pages of comments posted on the board, and many of them are incredibly negative and, in some cases, hateful. And they're not about the movie - they're about the people who are going to see the movie. The fans. The geeks. And the rhetoric here is downright dangerous; the implication is that the people who go to see the film espouse the views that are contained within it. If people are making judgements about the views and/or morality of "Sex and the City" audience simply by the fact that they have purchased a ticket to the film, what should we say about the "Silence of the Lambs" or the "Saw" audiences?

As someone who hasn't seen the fim, I not entirely sure why the movie is touching this nerve, but I've got some ideas. I suppose one could argue that people simply feel that it is a film that is based on a TV series that ran its course, that it is full of plot problems and that it is poorly acted. But that doesn't explain the tenor of the comments above, nor does it explain the absence of such comments on the "Dukes of Hazzard" message board which has all of the above problems and wasn't even based on a good TV show (incidentally, the Dukes of Hazzard message board only has three pages of comments.)Maybe it is because this is a movie made for women and, for some reason, people get weird about women being geeks - lining up, dressing up in the requisite costume (of course, the costumes here are high fashion) and going to see a movie they relate to and that they enjoy. A movie that examines male and female relationships with a critical eye and that women watch (for the most part) not with their partners, but with each other. Hmm.

I don't know. I haven't even seen the movie yet. All I can say is that if I am going to be a geek, moderate or not, it seems that I will receive a lot less abuse from outsiders if the object of my interest involves chainsaws and dismemberment instead of Prada and friendships and discussions of female sexuality. Now, isn't that interesting?

A

P.S. What, you want less social commentary and more geekitude? Seriously then, go see "Evil Dead, The Musical." It's so darn good.