Rape and Louis Skolnick

I watched Revenge of the Nerds for probably the 100th time in my life the other day. If you’ve never seen this movie than much of this post will not make sense. Still I’ll try to describe the scene that caused me to stir. The main villain is Stan Gable played masterfully by Ted McGinley. Stan is wearing a Darth Vader costume complete with mask and cape. His girlfriend is the very 80’s hot Betty wearing her cheerleader garb.

The setting for this scene is the inter-fraternity games, kind of a carnival atmosphere with drunk college kids. Louis, the film’s main protagonist, takes note of the costume his adversary is wearing and dons a similar Vader suit. Long story short, Louis convinces Betty that he is Stan Gable. In fact he convinces her to the point of getting her to sleep with him (with the mask on, I guess). Now the movie is not specific as to the nature of the sex. I won’t get into the Bill Clinton debate of what defines sex, but Louis clearly satisfied Betty manually, orally or with full-blown penetration.

My first thought was that even with a mask on (which I guess would make oral an even more impressive feat), how could Betty not tell that she was with Louis and not Stan? I’m assuming that she had already been intimate with Ted many times. From the look of the film Ted is athletic and muscular while Louis is doughy and deconditioned. I’ve never conducted a formal survey, but I think that most people know their lover’s body very well. Body type aside, they at least will recognize their “style” of sex; their touch and proclivities.

Proceeding with the “It’s just a movie” mindset, a more troubling set of questions arise. Questions like, “Hey, didn’t Louis technically just rape Betty?”. I’m not an attorney, but growing up I remember that if a guy sleeps with someone and the woman is drunk, the act is construed as rape because the woman is not able to consent to sex due to her inebriation. I wonder what the law says about tricking a woman into thinking you’re her mate, bringing her to orgasm and then revealing that you’re just some random slob.

I realize the fact that Betty came bares no relation to the actual act of rape. If this ever happened in reality, I doubt the woman involved would just say, “Aww shucks! You got me Louis!”. I’m a bit surprised that advocacy groups haven’t petitioned to have this scene removed from further releases on DVD, etc. Not to mention the bevy of stereotypes, particularly racial, that are represented in this film. Ahh, racism and rape jokes… is that what people are referencing when they talk about “the good old days”?