Triumph of the Nerds (and Dweebs)

Call it the real revenge of the nerds. Some of this year’s most popular movies have featured extraordinarily attractive women falling inexplicably for male characters who are dweebs, nerds, schlubs, dolts--in other word’s, life’s also-rans.

So in “The Waterboy,” barely functional Adam Sandler lands babe-of-the-moment Fairuza Balk. In “There’s Something About Mary,” zipper-impaired Ben Stiller somehow becomes the object of affection of beautiful, intelligent Cameron Diaz.

It’s even happening in animation. In both “Antz” and “A Bug’s Life,” loser male insects suddenly become winners and capture the heart of the colonies’ princesses. What’s happening here?

Author Neal Gabler thinks that audiences can relate to this new breed of less-than-heroic stars because--to be honest--they’re more like us.

“‘Actors more closely approximate who we are, and many of us feel that we are approximating our vision of actors,” says Gabler, author of the recently published “Life the Movie: How Entertainment Conquered Reality.”

“Ben Stiller, for one, makes us feel that if we were a movie star this is what we’d be like as if we could actually make the transition.”

In fairy tales of old, the ugly duckling turns into a swan. In the new male Cinderella stories, the ugly duckling not only gets to bed down with the swan, but it’s the best sex she’s ever had. Barbra Streisand made a career out of the former story line, but when she tried to repeat her formula for success with “The Mirror Has Two Faces” (1996), she got panned for not having grown up and learned her lesson.

Woody Allen practically invented the latter scenario, but age too caught up with him. Significantly, where no actress has taken up Streisand’s mantle, Allen appears to have spawned legions of actors ready to prove that looks don’t mean a thing--if you’re a man.

Ever eager to level the sexual playing field for their teenage boy audience, the filmmakers behind “Waterboy” and “Something About Mary” have ingenuously added a new kink to the package they offer their abnormally gorgeous leading ladies. The homely hero can be dumb, too.

Once upon a time, intelligence was the great galvanizing sexual force in Woody Allen films. However, in Allen’s latest, “Celebrity,” the mentor may be taking a clue from his proteges, as we are given no explanation why Melanie Griffith, Winona Ryder, Famke Janssen and Charlize Theron would be throwing themselves at Kenneth Branagh, who offers us a dead-on impersonation of Allen, tics, stutter and all. The usually presentable Branagh is photographed pudgy and decked out in signature Woody Allen plaids and corduroy and, arguably, the very worst haircut of his career.

And, as with all dweebs, he seems to inhabit another decade entirely: When out of revenge his jilted girlfriend (Janssen) destroys the only copy of his just-finished novel, we have to wonder, did the Branagh-Allen character not save it on hard-drive, or is he completely unfamiliar with that new invention called the computer?

In this dumb-is-dumber-and-better world, Sandler reigns over an ever-expanding universe. After playing an abrasive rich brat in “Billy Madison” (1995) and an abrasive pro golfer in “Happy Gilmore” (1996), the former “Saturday Night Live” comic finally scored big at the box office this year by radically softening his screen persona in “The Wedding Singer” and “The Waterboy.”

Where Sandler only began to resemble a human being in “Madison” and “Gilmore,” he is Mr. Sensitivity from the get-go of his two recent films. As part of the make-over, the actor eschewed the more body-conscious T-shirt and jeans of his earlier films for the strictly dweeb attire of ill-fitting pastel polyester in the new films. (Again, it’s that out-of-another-decade “Austin Powers” thing.)

Just as telling, the roles of his nasty rivals in the 1998 films have been assigned to more physically attractive actors, making Sandler’s personal triumph over them all the sweeter. There to certify that victory is the trophy girlfriend, who is credited with having seen through the false facade of the dweeb’s persona to perceive who he really is: a nice guy.

In “Very Bad Things,” not-so-lovable lug Jon Favreau is engaged to marry Diaz (never mind that things go terribly wrong on the way to the wedding). In interviews, Favreau has said that he’s as surprised as anyone by this beauty-and-the-beast phenomenon. “Cameron Diaz is probably the most coveted woman out there and I got to walk down the aisle with her. If that’s not the American dream, I don’t know what is.”

For her part Diaz has come to the defense of her dweeb in “There’s Something About Mary.” In an interview in Premiere she said of Stiller’s character: “He’s kind of geeky but he’s got a lot of good qualities.” So why shouldn’t she--or any other red-blooded American girl, for that matter--throw aside handsome Green Bay Packer quarterback Bret Favre to end the movie in the arms of Stiller?

Ready or not, there’s more where this came from. Mike Myers, who “shagged” actress-model Elizabeth Hurley in “Austin Powers,” will return next year in the sequel with “Boogie Nights” beauty Heather Graham.

Producer Robert Simonds, maker of all four Sandler movies, has recently turned his attention on turning “SNL” alum Norm MacDonald into a star. The first Simonds-MacDonald project, “Dirty Work” (1998), was a bust. But with careful retooling, the usually caustic MacDonald could also transmogrify into something kinder, gentler, dumber, sexier. In the upcoming “Pittsburgh,” he’s also been given a beautiful love interest, Sarah Silverman.

“Norm is very sweet in this film,” says Scott Alexander, who with Larry Karaszewski, has written and directed “Pittsburgh.” (Alexander and Karaszewski wrote “Ed Wood” and “The People vs. Larry Flynt.”) “In Pittsburgh, the guys are doing some strange and not bright things, but they’ve got good hearts.”

“Most of Bob Simonds’ movies play up these commoner guys with low IQs who are just trying to do the right thing,” Karaszewski says. The films are something of a throwback, he notes, to a school of ‘40s comedies from Universal. “They’ve got a lot of ugly guys running around--Abbott and Costello, Olsen and Johnson. These were not attractive guys.”

The difference today is, where those “ugly guys running around” comedies used to play to a marginalized audience, films like “Waterboy” and “There’s Something About Mary” are huge box-office hits.

Also, they come at a time when films starring men who define what a movie star looks like--or, at least, used to look like--are floundering. Meet Brad Pitt.

“Brad Pitt has become this beautiful passive object,” Gabler says. “He has not managed his career in such a way to get that male audience.” (Translation: He should be doing high action and/or low comedy instead of “Meet Joe Black” and “Seven Years in Tibet.”)

All of this puts male actors of a certain classic physicality at an odd disadvantage. “I have an abhorrence of being this good-looking movie star,” says Aaron Eckart, who, after playing a good-looking cad in last year’s “In the Company of Men,” gained 30 pounds to play a decent, if naive, husband in another Neil LaBute film, “Your Friends and Neighbors.”

“Today, for men, there’s a lot more jobs out there for character actors than good-looking ones,” says Suzanne Goddard-Smythe, a Hollywood casting director. “And that’s across the board--for movies, TV and commercials.”