Revenge of the Norm

The last representation of a Black male I've seen in a popular film is that of Lamar Latrell (played by Larry B. Scott) in Revenge of the Nerds. Lamar is a very different type of character than those discussed in the readings, but is still relegated into the category of roles given to black people, the comic foil whose only true purpose is to help the White man.

Revenge of the Nerds concerns a group of geeky college freshman who are kicked out of their dorm by a testosterone-crazed fraternity, and in an attempt to both become "cool" and to seek retribution, they start their own fraternity house, and do things like take naked pictures of their rivals’ girlfriends. Lamar Latrell is the only Black character in this motley crew of displaced losers, and he’s also the only gay character. This characteristic seemed to supersede any racial identity for the writers, as Lamar embodies the gayest stereotypes in popular culture, culminating in a fellow nerd designing a javelin specifically to accommodate Lamar’s "limp-wristed" throwing technique. (Probably the only time in movie history the "gay wrist" stereotype has been used to win a sporting event.) Yet even though Lamar is predominantly a gay character, he still is represented as the majority of Black characters are in popular films. Lamar's entire aim in the film, essentially, is to help White protagonists Gilbert and Lewis achieve their various goals. Ironically, what these characters are searching for is an identity not entirely predicated on their previous categorization as "nerds." Though they sort of succeed at this (I guess having people applaud your nerdliness is good enough for the Tri-Lambs), Lamar is still never developed beyond the gay Black kid. Mr. Latrell is seemingly the only Black student enrolled at the university. He dresses in a flamboyant style, and his sexuality is represented as being of the promiscuous type (as Black women are often depicted), but also, being the only gay character besides his various bedroom-partners, there is a sense of Otherness to it. There actually are some minor Black characters—the heads of the Lambda Lambda Lambda fraternity organization that the nerds join—but their only purpose is to help our protagonists in a time of need. So though Lamar Latrell is different from the Black characters discussed in our readings in terms of sexuality, him and the few other Black characters in Revenge of the Nerds are still only given screen time as long as they are assisting White characters in ensuring the supremacy of what they feel should be the dominant social norm.