I get a lot of flack from my parents sometimes... and not always about the obvious subject. Most recently, any time I have discussion regarding The Avengers movie provokes the same response from my parents:
"I raised a bunch of geeks."
I'm sure they mean to say "geek" in a loving voice. Still, I can't help but sense a little of the stigma that usually accompanies that particular epithet. So I would like to take the opportunity to say now, loud and proud, that I AM a total geek. And I learned how to be a geek from my parents.
Parents who geek out have children who geek out.
I want to make it clear that my parents are MORE than enablers. It wasn't just all the trading cards, video games, and comic books they bought their children over years of Christmases and birthdays that prompted such deep-rooted nerdery. No, my parents are, themselves, pretty darn geeky, too.
Take my dad, for example. I grew up reading from his Dragonlance book collection. He's got the biggest collection of Godzilla movies I've ever seen. Oh, and a lot of the superhero movies and cartoons I enjoy? When they come out on DVD, I borrow them from HIM.
My mom's not as obvious a geek as my dad is. She almost never watches TV, has never touched a video game controller, and only played Magic: The Gathering once while my brother watched over her shoulder and told her exactly when (and how) to play Mana Short.
It's a really rare card. You've probably never heard of it.
That said, my mom's still pretty geeky about some things. She loves her some good showtunes - and I'm pretty sure, in terms of pure geekiness, "musical theater" ranks right up there with "Pokemon" and "calculus." I'm pretty sure you could call her a geek over her love for the Mormon Tabernacle Choir, too.
Oh, and she really likes The Wizard of Oz. Not the movie, mind you, because the movie gets it wrong - Dorothy's shoes are actually silver. She's got just about every book in the Oz series (that's right, The Wizard of Oz is part of a SERIES). While she doesn't engage in conversations about who would win in a fight between the Tin Man and the Scarecrow, I think that type of adoration for an obscure fantasy series qualifies as a "geek" trait.
Of course, none of this is meant to be a slight to my parents. I love them both, and I'm pretty sure that their taste in obscure genre works baffles me as much as my affection for stories about a vagabond samurai in feudal Japan who is also a rabbit confuses the HECK out of them. All's fair in love and geekery, I guess.
Well, that's it for today's blog post. I hope you all come back in a few days to catch my blow-by-blow analysis of the epic Scarecrow/Tin Man battle.
3 comments:
I'm curious, with your Mom's love for Oz, does she also have all the metaphors in The Wizard of Oz down? Can she recite how they related to the politics of the time? If so, that woman is my (super)hero.
xox
I got the Oz books free for my Kindle. I haven't read them yet, though. I think your pedigree just goes to show that practically anyone who is extremely interested in something and has been ridiculed at one time or another for it (or is even simply aware that someone else somewhere probably has been) can be labeled a geek or nerd. I really think it's no big deal, and most people proudly defend both their interests, and the labels themselves.
Love of Oz and show-tunes? How does she feel about Wicked?
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