
I'm sure you can think of many examples of movies about a character who, for one reason or another, thinks of himself or herself as completely hopeless in the dating area but is eventually able to change their point of view of themself and get the girl/guy. They may be socially inept, heavy or just not particularly gorgeous, or of course, a nerd. Often the story is about a girl who's supposed to be completely unnoticeable but, because it's Hollywood, is played by such a beautiful actress we can see she's a knockout even before she gets her makeover and loses the glasses in the second half of the film. Almost always the character has to change and gain confidence before they can impress the love interest. It seems to me like these kind of movies are meant to give the nerds, outcasts, and ugly ducklings some assurance that there is hope for them to find love after all, yet the reason
why rarely extends much beyond "If you just be yourself, someone will love you for who you are."
But
Superbad is something a little different, because this film actually illustrates how the dorks, nerds, and dweebs may be essentially different from the popular high school kids in ways that give them legitimate reasons not to just give up. It actually points out why in the world a girl could choose the math geek who eats lunch alone every day
over the attention-spoiled football jock, even if it's not an explicit motivation affecting how the events play out. Rather than just showing why nobody should have to be the person they aren't, it shows why nobody should even
want to be the kind of person that's so often the most liked.
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