I found my connection to Benji in his references to life as a nerd. A Star Wars fan. A Dungeons and Dragons player. Benji is a huge dork, and I, too, am a huge dork.
I love every reference to Star Wars. Greedo is such an obscure character, and I love how he pops up in class discussions so casually. We talked about the various Greedos, and how they symbolize different things, and I'm just so shocked that my hours of elementary school research into the Star Wars universe are helping me in English class.
From what I remember, Greedo was supposed to be a bounty hunter. He could turn invisible. He got shot by Han Solo in a passing scene and was never really shown again, which was a bummer. It's interesting how a character like that is Benji's connection to Star Wars, by virtue of Greedo being a not necessarily white character that was kinda cool. At the same time, Greedo isn't one of the black characters like Lando Calrissian who isn't exactly a model outstanding character as Benji points out.
I feel like Benji's connection to Greedo is indicative of his current social status. He doesn't exactly fit in with his peers, just playing the game to fit in. He's not always the first on a trend and his background is different. He's also not totally white person like, due to his upbringing and a lot of the struggles he's had to go through. He's almost a totally separate party, a green, spiky, bulbous-eyed creature with a weird voice that falls victim to Harrison Ford always shooting first but drawing second.
I'm appreciating Benji's DnD references because recently Nick has gotten my friends and I to start playing. It's really complicated, but as long as it helps me in English to better put myself in Benji's shoes, I'll stick to it. Dungeons and Dragons epitomizes nerd stereotypes. As Benji puts it at some point, it's used to "perpetuate virginity" and I guess that's holding up for my friends. I should go out more.
I didn't know anything about Greedo before I read this post (outside of what Benji tells us), so I now feel as though I can more fully appreciate the parallels Benji draws. Benji's nerdiness reminds me of Jason Taylor's dorkiness in Black Swan Green, and it's interesting that though their situations are very different, the social consequences of liking nerdy things remain the same. This universal reaction makes me wonder how nerdy things become nerdy; who decided that DnD is nerdier than crazy eights?
ReplyDeleteWhitehead takes a pretty complicated tone toward Benji's (and, no doubt, his own) "dorkiness" when reconstructing this summer. He presents Benji's deep familiarity with Star Wars, his playing of D&D, his love of science fiction and monster/horror movies as major social liabilities at the time, but he also drops references to Greedo as pretty complex metaphors in the *present* time of the narrative--that is, adult "Ben" sees in Greedo a good way to express ideas about memory and revision and how both versions can be true at the same time. He doesn't seem embarrassed NOW, in other words. Looking back, he's able to "embrace the paradox" that is a hardcore D&D nerd who's also trekking to hip record stores in the Village to score obscure import 7inches. Both aspects have gone into forming the guy who's now telling the story.
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