Freaks and Geeks

all heard a million times about nerds and geeks but do we actually know the meaning of those words? Leonid Fridman evokes his thoughts about America’s wrong ideology when referring to people who are fervent in achieving academic success. The author utilizes definition, comparison and contrast, and synecdoche in America Needs Its Nerds as rhetorical devices to rectify society’s view of nerds and geeks. Fridman includes the real definition of the word geek to make understandable how America is…

world. In the first section of the article, Fridman establishes that the terminology people in America use to refer to the intellectually curious is derogatory. Fridman references Webster’s New World Dictionary, providing a definition for the term “geek.” This reference demonstrates how disrespected intellectuals are treated in America. These derogatory terms are not just insulting to intellectual people, they are also damaging the way we see those intellectuals and place them in society. As…

misdirected society into one that upholds “nerds” so that the country can be successful in its competition with foreign countries that already have that mindset. Furthermore, Fridman elaborates on the problem by demonstrating the derogative origin of “geek” and its unjust application to the “intellectually curious and academically serious” (line 3). He then showcases how deep-rooted the corrupted anti-intellectualism within American society by juxtaposing a Harvard graduate and elementary…

Award-winning author and feminist Ursula K. Le Guin delivered a rhetorically complex speech to the Mills College graduating class of 1983, comprised almost entirely of women. Her speech came at a challenging time for women, as second-wave feminism began to dissolve into a myriad of disagreeing factions. The title of the speech, the “Left-Handed Commencement Address,” is a reference to her book The Left Hand of Darkness, which follows an androgynous race of space aliens. This foreshadows the…

You find yourself surrounded by a horde of flesh-eating zombies. You only have time to save one of two people, one a snob, the other a nerd. You know that each have their strengths and weaknesses. So who do you pick and trust with your life? Both snobs and nerds are generally chastised by society. Snobs are hated for their ‘’I think I am better than you attitude’’, and nerds are hated for their inability to relate with ‘’normal people’’. I am of the persuasion that being a nerd is a better…

contract to his museum for another three years. He allotted Annie and her mother $150 weekly salary, which was exorbitant for that period. As an adult Jones became the top bearded lady in the United States and acted as the spokes person for Barnum’s “freaks”, a word she tried to abolish from the business. Annie not only showcased a long luxurious beard but, the hair on her head was estimated to be over six feet long as well. Annie also expanded her talents as well, as she was not content to…

When I was younger, I considered “weird” the greatest compliment anyone could receive. The word's connotation may seem negative to some, but I believed it emulated only positive attributes. I believed being weird meant being different, unique, and even exciting. I considered "weirdness" one of my greatest qualities, and this self-proclaimed title defined who I was. I was weird, and I was proud. That is, until middle school – also known as the leading cause of pre-pubescent girl’s…

Introduction Geek culture is an arguably deviant subculture that originated from the term "geek," which was originally a pejorative term for a highly intellectual outcast. Nowadays geek culture refers to the subculture that surrounds activities such as collecting and reading comic books, participating in role-playing games such as Dungeons and Dragons, dressing up as an animal or superhero, boys enjoying the children’s television show “My Little Pony," and even just being…

the film’s purpose rather than portraying the experience of disability. For that matter, representations of people with disabilities are often displayed in contrast to the ‘normal’ bodies in the film. This paper explores representations in the films Freaks (1932), The Elephant Man (1980), and The Theory of Everything (2014) to show how these films depict dis/abilty as reflected in the recurring narrative and representational devices of fear, pity, and admiration, which, in turn, reveal certain…

Tod Browning’s Freaks flings itself in-between the different categories of Terror, Horror, and Revulsion, sometimes splicing and mutating the different categories into indefinable, unrecognizable, terms. Browning’s aim for his film is not to clear anything up, using the themes of: us vs. them, good and evil, humans and monsters, etc. to create understanding or enlighten people; and it certainly is not a film promoting the message, “Freaks! They’re just like us!” His intentions, rather, is to…