I caught Wedding Crashers a few nights ago with a few of my friends. The movie is quite good, approaching — but not quite attaining — Old School-level quality. I’m no Roger Ebert, however, so I’ll leave the movie criticism to him. I will relay one idea in the movie that was hammered home quite soundly a short time later and clearly reminded me why I’m excited to be leaving College Park soon.
For those of you who haven’t seen the movie, one of the main characters has a name to put Ron Burgundy to shame: Sack Lodge. Sack (just rolls off the tongue, doesn’t it?) is the jerk/bully character, athletic and hyper-competitive with a controlling streak — the kind of guy who’s clearly overcompensating for something. As the movie progresses, we see that this villain, for lack of a better word, epitomizes the stereotype of the arrogant, elite jerk who not only has to be better than everyone else, but has to display it at all times.
At this junction I should mention that the whole movie takes place in Maryland, most notably a manor on some unnamed island presumably somewhere in the Chesapeake Bay. It’s always nice to see our fair state represented on the silver screen, and indeed there was no surprise when the whole theater cheered as one character proudly proclaimed, “Crab cakes and football! That’s what Maryland does!” If the video scoreboard operators for Byrd Stadium don’t use that quote at least once per half of each game this year, I’ll be very disappointed. But that’s not the point.
As I sat and watched egotistical airheads such as Sack, it saddened me a bit to realize that during the past four years I have interacted with the same characters on a daily basis. Maybe some of them are from New Jersey or love baseball rather than football, but the major details are the same: testosterone-heavy idiots in their rugby-shirted, khaki-sporting sartorial splendor wandering downtown College Park as if they were packs of hyenas. They are harmless by themselves but, when they get together, the cackling never stops.
Why the venom toward this unfortunate stereotype? On the way back from the movie, a friend and I stopped by our very own College Park Wawa for a bite to eat. Apparently I’d committed a grave crime by wearing a Washington Nationals T-shirt, for as soon as I stepped through the door, the Alpha Hyena of one of the aforementioned packs tried to pick a fight with me. “This is Orioles territory!” he shouted, and then, just as if they were in a Stephen Sondheim production, his cronies began to chant “O-R-I-O-L-E-S” and spell out the words with their hands, á la “YMCA.” There may have been backup dancers, too; I wasn’t paying attention.
What struck me as I ordered my sandwich and proceeded to wait in line was that the leader looked and dressed almost exactly like Sack Lodge. Because I didn’t respond to their brilliant repartee (my hunger occupied far too much of my brain for me to expend precious energy to respond), they quickly moved on and began harassing other customers coming in the door. It was a repeat of what I’d seen an hour before in the movie, and I hoped they would receive a similar formulaic come-uppance to the characters they were channeling.
Wawa, while providing cheap and delicious food at all hours of the day, has always been one of my least favorite places in College Park because of the after-hours bar crowd it attracts. Ninety percent of the time it’s people such as myself, just looking for a bite to eat after a late evening. But sadly, every time I’ve been there after midnight (this particular incident was on a Monday night), there’s always someone or a group of people who embody the “ideals” of Sack Lodge. I’m saddened that once I move away, I’ll be forced to go to 7-11 for a late-night snack, but the fact that I won’t have to deal with the Sack Lodges of the world is more than enough compensation. Adios, suckers.
Abram Fox is an art history and archaeology graduate. He can be reached at abramfox@gmail.com.
