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| 9 | ->''"When in doubt, look intelligent!"'' |
| 10 | -->-- '''[[Radio/APrairieHomeCompanion Garrison Keillor]]''' |
| 11 | |
| 12 | The opposite of ObfuscatingStupidity: A stupid character pretends (or tries to pretend) they are really smart or otherwise good at something. The stupid characters will either enlist a smart character to feed them lines, or bluff their way through with [[SeeminglyProfoundFool seemingly profound statements]] ([[Series/SavedByTheBell "What is art? Are we Art? Is Art Art?"]]) and TechnoBabble. |
| 13 | |
| 14 | Tends to show up in characters who are so dumb, they don't even realize that DumbIsGood. Frequently involves the use of NerdGlasses or a LabcoatOfScienceAndMedicine. As with ObfuscatingStupidity, comedy frequently ensues from a stupid confusion or DoubleEntendre conversation. This often results in DelusionsOfEloquence. See also KnowNothingKnowItAll, for stupid characters who are absolutely convinced of their own genius. Often overlaps with DumberThanTheyLook. |
| 15 | |
| 16 | When done with pure romance in mind, the result is PlayingCyrano. |
| 17 | |
| 18 | Note: It is possible to feign greater intelligence than you have if you are smarter than the people you are trying to convince. |
| 19 | |
| 20 | Feigning intelligent behavior is often the main purpose of VideoGameAI, because PerfectPlayAI (a.k.a. actually intelligent and perfectly rational) is only [[RuleOfFun fun]] in very specific contexts. Compare ProfoundByPopSong and SmallNameBigEgo. |
| 21 | |
| 22 | ---- |
| 23 | !!Examples: |
| 24 | |
| 25 | [[foldercontrol]] |
| 26 | |
| 27 | [[folder:Anime & Manga]] |
| 28 | * ''Manga/NinjaNonsense'' has Onsokumaru, who pretends to be an expert ninja, despite obviously being one of the stupidest characters on the show. |
| 29 | * The main character in ''Manga/{{Mx0}}'' knows nothing about magic, but he's smart enough to fake being a genius in the field. |
| 30 | * Whisper from ''Anime/YokaiWatch'' is smart but acts like a know-it-all even when he isn't. He often uses a Yokai Wiki despite saying he knows everything about {{yokai}}. [[spoiler:It's later revealed that in the past, he was a Yo-kai whose inspiriting ability ''makes'' people feign intelligence. After leading UsefulNotes/IshidaMitsunari to his death by Inspiriting him, Whisper swore off from ever using his Inspiriting ability again.]] |
| 31 | * In ''Anime/OsomatsuSan'', Choromatsu combines this with {{Hypocrite}} by trying to appear as the OnlySaneMan when in reality, he's like his other brothers. |
| 32 | * ''Manga/Overlord2012'': |
| 33 | ** A major problem for Ainz is that his subordinates and his enemies believe him to be a godlike {{Chessmaster}} who's about five moves ahead of everyone else (especially by the ''actual'' EvilGenius Demiurge, who idolizes Ainz for not only following the course of action Demiurge would have taken but getting better results), when in fact Ainz has enormous magical power but very little planning ability, and despite his repeatedly explaining to his underlings he's not as smart as they think he is, they refuse to believe it (and in fact believe his modesty is all part of his plan). |
| 34 | ** Emperor Jircniv goes on a diplomatic visit to Nazarick, when he is quickly convinced that Ainz cannot be beaten through magic alone. After his visit, he's convinced Ainz is watching his every move, a theory seemingly confirmed just as he tries to negotiate with other countries to ally against Nazarick: Ainz shows up and demonstrates he can't be beaten even when WillfullyWeak, causing Jircniv to [[spoiler:make the Empire a vassal of Ainz then and there]]. In fact Ainz was there by coincidence, and while he ''was'' watching Jircniv it was to take notes on how a ruler should act. |
| 35 | ** Ainz is able to cast magic of the tenth tier and above. TheArchmage Fluder, who can only cast sixth-tier magic, begs to become Ainz' apprentice. Ainz was brought in as his YGGDRASSIL character and thus has no idea how magic works, so he settles for giving him books on magic and hoping he'll find something. Ainz is pretty intelligent, but he just isn't the nigh-omniscient EvilGenius he is taken for. Nazarick's [=NPCs=] and others often overinterpret Ainz's actions. |
| 36 | * ''Manga/SchoolZoneGirls'': Yokoe, a certifiable moron, holds out both of her fists and tells friend-of-a-friend Tsubaki that if she picks the correct one, she'll win a prize. The meek Tsubaki reluctantly picks one. Yokoe then opens both hands, revealing they're both empty. Yokoe declares sagely, "In life there are no right answers!" Tsubaki just looks like she's about to cry. |
| 37 | * Anya of ''Manga/SpyXFamily'' has been known to use her {{Telepathy}} for this by taking on an intellectual task, making sure that it can be seen by someone who knows the answer, reading their mind for it, and then implementing that answer herself. This was seen at the very start of the series when she does this with a crossword puzzle when Twilight comes to her orphanage and mentions that he needs an intelligent child for his purposes. While she is very clever and resourceful, she's also fairly BookDumb; it isn't long after Twilight adopts her that he starts to realize that she's not really as smart as the display made her look. |
| 38 | [[/folder]] |
| 39 | |
| 40 | [[folder:Fan Works]] |
| 41 | * ''Fanfic/AssassinsCreedRisingSun'': Washio Tsume attempts to convince Mitsuko that he's Chinese, rather than Japanese. Thing is, not only has he never ''met'' anyone from China, he knows absolutely nothing about politics... oh, and he can't read. |
| 42 | * Wheatley in ''Fanfic/BlueSkyWaffles'', reprising his role of desperately attempting to seem intelligent without actually being so. His success rate is... debatable, but has at the very least not improved much from ''VideoGame/Portal2''. |
| 43 | * ''Fanfic/ButIMadeItUp'': After realizing that the Cult he'd ''thought'' that he completely made up is actually real -- and really looking towards him as their leader -- Cid/Shadow acts as though he's already aware of anything they learn. As a result, this leaves him completely in the dark about a lot of details (like how to ''translate'' any of the coded documents the Shadow Garden keeps sending him). |
| 44 | * ''Fanfic/TheDarkLordsOfNerima'': When Ami visits an acupuncture clinic to learn more about it, Shampoo has Genma pretend to be Dr. Tofu; while Genma was hardly a master of the art, he knew enough about it to ''sound'' decently impressive. |
| 45 | * In ''Fanfic/EquestriaAHistoryRevealed'', the in-universe author and narrator, Loose Change, seems to be a shining example of this. It doesn't help that the fic is supposed to be her academic essay that she's submitting to her University, and any hopes of her maintaining academic professionalism and integrity are gone by Chapter 2. She still maintains that she's "smarter than the rest of those traditionalist historians", despite clear evidence that she's not. |
| 46 | * ''Fanfic/WithPearlAndRubyGlowing'' has a {{Downplayed}} case in Ratigan, who ''is'' rather smart... but not quite as clever as he and many other characters seem to think. His tendency to target geniuses has backfired upon him at least once, he rarely bothers with using a condom, and regularly does very impulsive things. This doesn't stop him from attempting to pass himself off as a genius, and it's possible that one of his main motivations for acting the way that he does is that on some level, he ''knows'' that he's not as brilliant as he pretends to be. |
| 47 | [[/folder]] |
| 48 | |
| 49 | [[folder:Films -- Live-Action]] |
| 50 | * ''Film/CasinoRoyale1967''. Jimmy Bond is jealous of his uncle Sir James Bond. To show he's even better, Jimmy pretends to play some Debussy (a passionate pursuit of Sir James) on the piano, only it's a recording that he has to hastily turn off when the piano keeps playing without him. |
| 51 | * ''Film/DodgeballATrueUnderdogStory'' has Ben Stiller's character attempt to impress a woman... by pretending to read the dictionary. |
| 52 | * Otto in ''Film/AFishCalledWanda'', who liberally quotes Nietzsche. Wanda manages to see through his pretensions by the midpoint of the movie. |
| 53 | -->'''Otto:''' Don't call me stupid.\ |
| 54 | '''Wanda:''' Oh, right! [[InsultToRocks To call you stupid would be an insult to stupid people!]] I've known sheep that could outwit you. I've worn dresses with higher IQ's. But you think you're an intellectual, don't you, ape?\ |
| 55 | '''Otto:''' Apes don't read philosophy.\ |
| 56 | '''Wanda:''' Yes they do, Otto. They just don't understand it. Now let me correct you on a couple of things, OK? Creator/{{Aristotle}} was not [[UsefulNotes/{{Belgium}} Belgian]]. The central message of UsefulNotes/{{Buddhism}} is not "Every man for himself." And UsefulNotes/TheLondonUnderground is not a [[LaResistance political movement]]. Those are all mistakes, [[KnowNothingKnowItAll Otto!]] I looked them up! |
| 57 | * This is the plot of the 1994 romantic comedy ''[[Film/IQ1994 I.Q.]]''. It helps that the romantic lead has no less than UsefulNotes/AlbertEinstein giving him advice on how to appear smarter. |
| 58 | * ''Film/KingsmanTheGoldenCircle'': Eggsy is quite intelligent on his own, but when he's called to [[MeetTheInLaws dinner with the in-laws]], the King and Queen of Sweden, he uses his [[GogglesDoSomethingUnusual augmented-reality glasses]] and a friend in MissionControl to inform his dinner conversation. Since the King only grills him on increasingly abstruse topics, from India's banking industry to Moorish revival architecture, without showing any expertise of his own, the King probably has it coming. |
| 59 | * In ''Film/MrMom'', Michael Keaton's character is renovating the house and pretending to know what he's doing to impress his wife's boss. Her boss asks him if he was going to do the renovations in "two-twenty" (referring to a standard voltage for electrical wiring). Keaton hesitates a moment and says, "Yeah, two-twenty... two-twenty-one. Whatever it takes!" This is, of course, a meaningless answer. |
| 60 | * Liz Hurley's character in TheFilmOfTheSeries of ''Film/MyFavoriteMartian'' is a [[TheBrainlessBeauty glamorous hard-hitting reporter... who is also a complete airhead]]. She only sounds smart because a scriptwriter feeds her lines through a hidden earpiece. |
| 61 | * Played straight for most of the remake of ''Film/ThePinkPanther2006''... mostly. As an example, after hearing a murder victim's last words were "Oh, it's you!", Clouseau orders all people in the city with the name "Yu" to be detained for interrogation. Naturally, he's saddled up with a Chinese woman rattling off in Chinese. After the interrogation, his partner asks if he can even understand Chinese. Clouseau acts all offended and replies something along the lines of "Do you think I would do all this if I didn't understand Chinese?" [[spoiler:Seeing as he's been Feigning Intelligence for most of the movie, his partner (and the audience) look unconvinced... until a flashback at the end of the movie reveals that not only did Clouseau actually understand what the woman was saying, she had also given them a vital clue.]] Clouseau doesn't pretend to be intelligent, he actually believes he's this massively skilled badass, though granted, when his beliefs betray him [[IMeantToDoThat he will try to play it off as on purpose.]] In the [[Franchise/ThePinkPanther original film series]], Creator/PeterSellers [[WordOfGod often commented]] that he played Clouseau as an extremely arrogant man who was nevertheless ''just'' clever enough to realize what a complete imbecile he really was. |
| 62 | * Romy and Michele in ''Film/RomyAndMichelesHighSchoolReunion'', who attempt to pass themselves off as the inventors of Post-it notes. It doesn't work out so well. |
| 63 | * Done as part of a GambitRoulette in the 2007 ''Film/{{St Trinians|2007}}''. It helps that they know some of the answers. |
| 64 | * An unintentional example in ''Film/Tremors2Aftershocks'', when the Graboids first mutate into Shriekers. For the first few scenes after they come into existence, they tear up several cars and the radio tower, convincing the protagonists that they achieved human-level intelligence and actually planned everything out to cut off their ability to travel and communicate with each other. Eventually, they find out that Shriekers navigate by infrared, and were simply biting anything they came across that was hot, [[TooDumbToLive whether it was actually food or not]]. |
| 65 | -->'''Grady:''' You mean they're acting so smart because they're so stupid? |
| 66 | [[/folder]] |
| 67 | |
| 68 | [[folder:Literature]] |
| 69 | * [[MasterOfDisguise Wayne]] pulls these on scientists in ''Literature/TheBandsOfMourning''. When on the site of [[spoiler:a crashed airplane]], technology that none of them has seen before, he disguises himself as a scientist and yells at the other scientists and guards that the whole thing will collapse using terms that he clearly made up. Since none of the other scientists want to admit that they don't know what he's talking about, they save face by agreeing and following his orders. |
| 70 | * The main character in ''Literature/TheDeathOfTheVazirMukhtar'' is [[MaliciousSlander sometimes accused]] of writing or at least editing the correspondence of General Ivan Paskevich, his in-law and sort-of superior in the Caucasus, so as to make him seem smarter. That is apparently untrue, although Paskevich might be considered a mild example of this trope nonetheless. |
| 71 | * ''Literature/{{Discworld}}'''s Fred Colon sometimes does this when talking with Nobby Nobbs. Nobby Nobbs has an unfortunate habit of asking innocent questions that point out how full of it Colon is. It's implied Nobby's the smarter of the two, but not by much. |
| 72 | * Used by Thomas in ''Literature/TheDresdenFiles'' to survive in his ''really'' messed-up family. While he plays ObfuscatingStupidity to the hilt for most of his relatives so they won't see him as a legitimate threat, his sister Lara saw through that. So he feigns intelligence ''only'' for her, making cryptic statements and hinting he has complex plans in motion, which holds her off while she tries to figure out what he's doing. Harry notes it's a good scheme, if there's enough paranoia. And in the White Court, paranoia comes '[[ParanoiaGambit bottled, on tap and in hot and cold running neuroses]]'. |
| 73 | * [[InvokedTrope Invoked]] by Literature/HerculePoirot as his standard method of ObfuscatingStupidity - he is boastful in order to make his opponents think he is feigning intelligence, when in fact he really ''is'' that smart. |
| 74 | * ''Literature/TheNumberOfTheBeast'' by Creator/RobertAHeinlein features a main character who not only passed himself off as an expert, but managed to get a degree by writing a paper that catered to all of the reviewers' prejudices and pet theories. Of course, he was actually doing this to prove a point instead of trying to fit in with educated society. |
| 75 | * ''Literature/TheHungerGames'': Effie Trinket is probably dumber than a jar of mayonnaise, but she certainly doesn't see it that way. At one point, Effie claims to be something of an expert in architecture. Portia only acknowledges this because the silence was getting too long. At one point she claims, "Everyone has their reservations, naturally. You being from the coal district. But I said, and this was very clever of me, I said, "[[InUniverseFactoidFailure Well, if you put enough pressure on coal it turns to pearls]]!" This gets a {{callback}} in ''Catching Fire'' by an amused Peeta when he actually finds a pearl. |
| 76 | * The novelization of ''Film/IronMan'' reveals a moderate case where the local boss of the Ten Rings, who ''is'' nonetheless portrayed as polished and educated, actually manages to intimidate Tony Stark by appearing to understand everything in his workshop... until he turns over the Jericho blueprints that he'd already been holding the right way up, and Tony realizes it's an act. |
| 77 | * In ''Literature/TheManWhoWasThursday'', an actor successfully impersonates a professor of philosophy by talking nonsense, which everyone assumes to be abstruse erudite knowledge since they can't understand it. |
| 78 | -->"Then he tried to blast my claims intellectually. I countered that by a very simple dodge. Whenever he said something that nobody but he could understand, I replied with something which I could not even understand myself." |
| 79 | * ''Literature/WinnieThePooh'': |
| 80 | ** Owl; when faced with a note that contains more than three words, none of which are his own name or "Thursday", he first tries to trick Rabbit into reading it for him, and then considers pushing Rabbit out of his tree rather than admit he's having problems. |
| 81 | ** Rabbit is another example of this trope, to a lesser extent. |
| 82 | [[/folder]] |
| 83 | |
| 84 | [[folder:Live-Action TV]] |
| 85 | * In the ''Series/TheBigBangTheory'' episode [[Recap/TheBigBangTheoryS3E10TheGorillaExperiment The Gorilla Experiment]], Penny wants to learn "a little physics" so she can talk to Leonard about work. Sheldon tries to teach her, but she doesn't quite get it. Later, she repeats what Sheldon taught her, word-for-word, as if from a script. After she finishes, she mentions that's all she knew, except that Fig Newton's were named after a town in Massachusetts, not Isaac Newton. |
| 86 | * In ''Series/BlackBooks'', Bernard attracts a girl by pretending to be a jazz pianist. Since he had Manny playing the chords [[MakesJustAsMuchSenseInContext from inside the piano with spoons]], Fran gets back at him when she expands Bernard's lie to falsely out him as a genius: |
| 87 | -->'''Bernard''': What did you say to Kate? She thinks I'm UsefulNotes/TheRenaissance. She'll think I've lied! I have to go along with all this reclusive genius stuff -- ''she's going to be very upset when she finds out I'm a reclusive wanker''. |
| 88 | * ''Series/CoryInTheHouse'': Newt is forced to do this when he develops a crush on a new girl at school who is a childhood genius and starts to worry that she might not like him if he wasn't as smart as her. |
| 89 | * ''Series/{{Deadwood}}'': The highly intelligent and eloquent Al Swearengen is somewhat BookDumb, at least in comparison to the erudite C.W. Merrick. When Merrick suggests advertising that the smallpox vaccine will be distributed ''gratis'', Al blusters. "I know what that word means. Prove that ''you'' do!" |
| 90 | * In ''Series/DoctorWho'', [[TheNthDoctor the Tenth Doctor stated to his younger incarnation]] that he wore his glasses not because he needed them, but because it made him look clever. Of course, the Doctor is very smart to begin with, but still. It has also been theorized that the Tenth Doctor, who frequently claims himself to be clever, is double-Feigning Intelligence-ObfuscatingStupidity, or something. (See the Poirot example above.) The Doctor has been getting into trouble by pretending to be more knowledgeable than he actually is since "The Aztecs" in 1964. |
| 91 | * ''Series/DrakeAndJosh'': Drake gets Josh to help him cheat on an academic game show to impress an [[NerdsAreSexy attractive genius]]. HilarityEnsues, leading to the good ol' BeYourself [[AnAesop Aesop]]... which, in this case, would mean, "I don't care about what's inside. I like you because you're cute." |
| 92 | * Donnie Steven in ''Series/EvenStevens'' is normally an airheaded DumbMuscle jock, but in one episode he decides to act smarter to impress people, and watches a video to this end that recommends [[SmartPeopleWearGlasses wearing nonprescription glasses]], shoehorning [[DelusionsOfEloquence stock "big words" that he doesn't understand]] into conversations and [[StrokeTheBeard stroking his chin a lot]] to make it look like he's thinking hard. Towards the end of the episode he meets a TV producer that Ren is trying very hard to impress and sees that she's wearing the same glasses as him and using the same techniques mentioned in the video (including using the same "big words" vocabulary list gratuitously). Donnie realizes that they are both playing the same "pretending to be smart" game and goes to warn Ren that the producer isn't as smart as she claims to be. |
| 93 | * In a ''Series/{{Friends}}'' episode, Joey memorized details about all the artwork in a gallery, then messed it up as he got left and right confused. And in another episode, whilst writing a letter to an adoption agency, he used an online thesaurus to increase his vocabulary, except he used it for almost every single word. "Big hearts" become "oversized aortic pumps" and so on. |
| 94 | ** He also bought an encyclopedia but could only afford the letter 'V'. He started a conversation about Vietnam, but was quickly lost when the topic morphed to the current situation with North Korea. |
| 95 | * Maxwell Smart from the ''Series/GetSmart'' series did this all the time, to everyone. He didn't always have someone to help him feign competence either, and on those occasions got found out quite quickly. |
| 96 | * ''Series/HomicideLifeOnTheStreet'': WickedPretentious white supremacist Gordon Pratt puts up the act of being an educated, intellectual genius. He frequently brings up obscure facts (which he gets wrong) and casually spurts out extremely racist statements while claiming they are backed up with scientific evidence. [[BreakTheHaughty Pembleton takes him down a peg by revealing that Pratt is actually a high school dropout who flunked every class]], and gives him a TheReasonYouSuckSpeech [[BreakTheHaughty about what a pathetic failure he is]]. |
| 97 | * In the ''Series/ICarly'' episode ''iQ'' Carly tries to convince a very intelligent boy she wants to date that she's very knowledgable, via the internet, studying real hard and eventually cheat sheets just to bluff her way through a day. |
| 98 | * Some of the challenges and punishments in ''Series/ImpracticalJokers'' will have one or more Jokers pretending to be experts in a particular field. Since the Jokers don't know jack about these fields, their attempts to behave otherwise end up being ridiculous and embarrassing (which is, of course, the whole point). |
| 99 | * ''Series/ItsAlwaysSunnyInPhiladelphia'': A RunningGag has Charlie trying to pass himself off as a legal expert by using academic-sounding phrases and random legal jargon he's apparently heard on television. |
| 100 | * ''Series/{{Jessie}}'': Jessie does this in the episode "What A Steal" to impress a guy at the Intellengincia meeting she takes Ravi to. |
| 101 | * Foggy Dewhurst from ''Series/LastOfTheSummerWine'' had more or less convinced himself that he knew everything. On one occasion, he convinced himself that he knew what a "Loxley Lozenge" was and simply needed to bring it to the front of his mind. He thought it was a cough drop. Turns out it was a very rare automobile. He then stubbornly tried to convince the others that "cough drop" was a code, and while they weren't fooled, he did manage to fool himself. |
| 102 | * Kelly Bundy from ''Series/MarriedWithChildren'' used the NerdGlasses/"profound" babble combo to impress a smart guy. |
| 103 | * ''Series/TheMaryTylerMooreShow'': Ted Baxter used to pull this one off with regularity -- one instance in particular stands out. |
| 104 | -->'''Ted's son:''' Mother, I ''abhor'' you!\ |
| 105 | '''Ted:''' Now son, I'll have none of that language in this house! |
| 106 | * "Aaaaaah, Bach!" In an early episode of ''Series/{{MASH}}'', Radar pursues an intellectually-inclined nurse with a handful of bluffs provided to him by Hawkeye and Trapper. Incidentally, the book ''[[http://www.ovalbooks.com/bluff/Music.html The Bluffer's Guide to Music]]'' recommends that exact phrase. |
| 107 | * The borderline mentally disabled Randy in ''Series/MyNameIsEarl'' seems to be really good at this, once befriending a bunch of business men, getting a job and earning a lot of money in less than a day with just the help of a second-hand suit. |
| 108 | * ''Series/TheOfficeUK'': In one episode, Brent is trying to impress the new intern with his knowledge, but the intern keeps referencing things he doesn't know anything about. Later, Brent will reappear and start spouting facts about the topic that he's obviously just memorized off the internet. Each time, however, the intern will transition into another topic Brent doesn't know about. |
| 109 | * As did Lisa Turtle in an episode of ''Series/SavedByTheBell'' (source of the "Art" quote). She is a bit smarter than most of the other characters in this trope, but still has a little too much air between the ears than is good for her. |
| 110 | * In the ''Series/ShakeItUp'' episode "Opposites Attracts It Up", [=CeCe=] starts dating a science nerd named James and forces Rocky to help her in {{Playing Cyrano}} to be more at his level. [=CeCe=] does this again in a later episode when she goes on a date with a blind guy who is also too smart for her and pretends to like whatever he likes. |
| 111 | * Marcus Henderson on ''Series/SmartGuy'' will occasionally do this if he's trying to impress some artsy, intellectual girl, which usually results in his [[ChildProdigy gifted brother TJ]] PlayingCyrano for him. In one case, the girl in question was also Feigning Intelligence and turned out to be as shallow as Marcus (Marcus had earlier botched some of TJ's advice during a date at an art museum, but the girl took everything he said at face value because she was as out of her depth as he was), and when the two learn that they were both faking it, they drop the act and go out on a normal date together. |
| 112 | * ''Series/TheSuiteLifeOfZackAndCody'': London hires Maddie to help her pull PlayingCyrano on a hot merit scholar, Trevor. The plan backfires when Maddie can't restrain herself from getting into a debate over politics with him, culminating in a SlapSlapKiss. Fortunately, London seems more confused than hurt. |
| 113 | * DoubleSubverted with [[spoiler:Eugene]] in ''Series/TheWalkingDead''. While not [[spoiler: a CDC researcher who can cure the virus]] as he claims to be for most of his first arc, he has nonetheless proven himself to be a JackOfAllTrades, a master of XanatosSpeedChess, and very, very good at solving potentially deadly lateral thinking puzzles. It seems increasingly clear that both before and after the ZombieApocalypse, the only thing keeping him from achieving true RenaissanceMan status has been a complete lack of unfeigned self-confidence. Well, that and some... [[LethalKlutz moderate coordination issues]]. |
| 114 | [[/folder]] |
| 115 | |
| 116 | [[folder:Professional Wrestling]] |
| 117 | * "[[MemeticMutation You see]], I come from a highly educated university. So when I come out here and speak to these white trash, I gotta dumb myself down." That said, Wrestling/ScottSteiner does seem to be fairly educated and knowledgeable, demonstrating understanding of many scientific theories and the ability to complete complicated mathematical equations even if his constant [[ArtisticLicenseGeography geographical failures]] and UsefulNotes/LogicalFallacies prove him nowhere near as intelligent as he make himself out to be. |
| 118 | [[/folder]] |
| 119 | |
| 120 | [[folder:Puppet Shows]] |
| 121 | * In ''Series/TheMuppetShow'', Sam the Eagle may constantly seek to bring some culture in the show, but considering he thinks [[Music/LudwigVanBeethoven Beethoven]] was a playwright, it's obvious he doesn't know the first thing about culture. |
| 122 | [[/folder]] |
| 123 | |
| 124 | [[folder:Radio]] |
| 125 | * ''Radio/OurMissBrooks'': In "Magazine Articles", Miss Brooks enlists Walter Denton to masquerade as her nonexistent fourteen year old quiz kid son. Miss Brooks had written an fictional article for "True Family Romance" magazine about her quiz kid son, and needed to prove the story was true in order to collect her payment. HilarityEnsues, especially as Mr. Conklin gets involved... |
| 126 | [[/folder]] |
| 127 | |
| 128 | [[folder:Tabletop Games]] |
| 129 | * ''TabletopGame/DungeonsAndDragons'': A high Charisma and lots of ranks in Bluff can make up for not having the right Knowledge skill or a high enough Intelligence in social settings. |
| 130 | * Any game of ''TabletopGame/{{Paranoia}}'' has to have multiple examples of this. And of course ''any'' example of this is [[MortonsFork a Commie Mutant Plot]]. Please report to your local termination booth or you will be terminated. |
| 131 | [[/folder]] |
| 132 | |
| 133 | [[folder:Theatre]] |
| 134 | * Elder Cunningham in ''Theatre/TheBookOfMormon''. He pretends to know a lot more about Mormonism than he really does, especially once he's sent on his mission with the [[TheFundamentalist much more devout Elder Price]]. But when that doesn't work, Cunningham isn't above a few in-universe {{Ass Pull}}s to help the people of Uganda connect more with the Mormon texts. [[spoiler:It's later revealed that Elder Cunningham also had to resort to this because he's never read a single word of the Book of Mormon, meaning he managed to feign intelligence through his entire upbringing. This is foreshadowed when Cunningham admits to Price that his biggest flaw is that he's a CompulsiveLiar.]][[invoked]] |
| 135 | [[/folder]] |
| 136 | |
| 137 | [[folder:Video Games]] |
| 138 | * At one point in ''VideoGame/{{Anachronox}}'', the party has to board a ship to a planet of scientists, and the passengers all have to prove they are up on the latest scientific discoveries. This is a problem for the very BookDumb Sly, who can't even spell the name of the planet the game is named after. He ends up having to fake speaking a made-up language so that his RobotBuddy (who downloaded a database on cutting edge research) can "translate" the correct answers for him. |
| 139 | * The player can become this in the original ''VideoGame/Fallout1'' and ''VideoGame/Fallout2'' by taking the Smooth Talker perk. Each level of the perk increases their effective intelligence attribute for the purposes of dialogue choices only. So in other words, the player does not actually become smarter, they just ''sound'' smarter than they actually are when they talk. |
| 140 | * ''VideoGame/FalloutNewVegas'': |
| 141 | ** A man named [[SmallNameBigEgo Fantastic]] convinces the local government that he can repair a nearby power plant. When asked if he's studied theoretical physics, he says "I have a theoretical degree in physics". No one who's ever met him has fallen for his act, and killing him in broad daylight won't anger anyone else in the room, or in the game for that matter. You can even blackmail him into paying you so that he can keep his job since he needs to support his drug addictions somehow. If you manage to bring the plant back to power in favor of the NCR, he can be found in Hoover Dam later on as the "Goddamn Dam God". |
| 142 | ** Similarly, there's Ricky in the beginning of the ''Honest Hearts'' DLC, who brags about how awesome he is. With sufficiently high skills, you can not only point out how his Pip-Boy is broke, but that he's obviously a drug addict and how the details of his stories are completely inaccurate (for example, having an "11mm SMG" and having killed "Deathjaws"). You can either get him to scram or blackmail him into carrying more of your stuff. |
| 143 | * ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyVIIRemake'': Beck, the leader of the street gang, Beck's Badasses, often uses big, fancy words to sound impressive, but he doesn't actually know what they mean. The only people he fools are his subordinates, who are even dumber than he is. |
| 144 | * Wheatley from ''VideoGame/Portal2''. Highlights include [[PercussiveMaintenance "using a manual override on this wall"]], playing classical music to convince [=GLaDOS=] of his intelligence, claiming to have read every book in existence and claiming the "ace of fours" is the best hand of cards, among several others. |
| 145 | * In ''VideoGame/StarControl3'', the K'tang species tries very hard to look powerful and intelligent. They fail miserably at the latter. |
| 146 | * Whisper from ''VideoGame/YokaiWatch'' [[EarlyInstallmentWeirdness wasn't completely like this at the start]][[note]]He would sometimes makes bad calls, but not as egregious as the future would have him do[[/note]] in the first game, but would eventually fell in line with the anime's depiction of him with ''Yo-kai Watch 2''. |
| 147 | [[/folder]] |
| 148 | |
| 149 | [[folder:Visual Novels]] |
| 150 | * In ''VisualNovel/TheEdenOfGrisaia'' Thanatos gives all the girls instructions to follow, some of them more obvious or helpful than others based on their abilities. Michiru, who has no abilities in particular, is told to meet up with a shady contract in a restaurant. Fittingly, she hides her ditziness with a more dignified front and goes through a long ChainOfDeals from buying 1000 yen worth of discarded cellphones and reselling the rare metals inside to multiple flights around the world throughout the day until she's completely lost. Throughout the entire thing she pretends to be clever and knowledgeable while following instructions from her phone, but by the time she gets to Indonesia she thinks she's in India and more or less gives up. |
| 151 | [[/folder]] |
| 152 | |
| 153 | [[folder:Web Animation]] |
| 154 | * ''WebAnimation/HomestarRunner'': In the WebAnimation/StrongBadEmail "stupid stuff", Strong Bad tries to win a bet with a viewer by getting Homestar to say something intelligent, even dressing him up with a lab coat, glasses, and a test tube. ("Check it out, Strong Bad, I look a-smart!" "You sure do, stupid.") However, Homestar managed to turn it around on him and get Strong Bad to say something stupid. |
| 155 | -->'''Homestar''':"The Grumblecakes will be ''mine!''" |
| 156 | * Simmons from ''WebAnimation/RedVsBlue'' is zigzagging with this trope. While he is the [[TheSmartGuy Unofficial Science Officer]] of the series and good with computers, he's also been stated to be less intelligent than he thinks he is and will abuse the fact that the people around him are either too lazy, stupid or insane to call him out on making stuff up. |
| 157 | -->'''Simmons:''' If you want me to multiply two big numbers in my head, that I can do.\ |
| 158 | '''Grif:''' What's thirty-two times fifty-six?[[note]]1792[[/note]]\ |
| 159 | '''Simmons:''' [[BlatantLies Thirty-one thousand, four-hundred fifty-two.]]\ |
| 160 | '''Sarge:''' ''(towards Simmons)'' Is that right?\ |
| 161 | '''Simmons:''' Yes. |
| 162 | [[/folder]] |
| 163 | |
| 164 | [[folder:Webcomics]] |
| 165 | * [[SubvertedTrope Subverted]] in ''Webcomic/BobAndGeorge'': Mega Man did this by making up a totally random and TechnoBabble-filled solution to the series' [[TimeyWimeyBall major time-line issues]], and, totally by accident, made a discovery worthy of a Nobel prize. He thought everybody else was just making fun of him. |
| 166 | * [[http://www.mezzacotta.net/archive.php?date=2012-07-31 This]] page of ''Webcomic/{{mezzacotta}}'' -- yes, even pseudorandomly generated speech bubbles mock this pseudorandom garbage. |
| 167 | * ''Webcomic/{{Misfile}}''. Debate continues on whether Rumisiel is genuinely admitting Feigning Intelligence or displaying ObfuscatingStupidity to maintain his [[TheStoner image]] in [[http://www.misfile.com/misfile/2008-05-16 this strip.]] |
| 168 | * ''Webcomic/{{xkcd}}'': |
| 169 | ** [[http://xkcd.com/451/ This comic]] indicates that there are some topics where you can get away with it. |
| 170 | ** [[http://www.xkcdb.com/?5414 This quote]] demonstrating what a politician trying to get away with knowing little outside of rehearsed "hot topics" can run into. |
| 171 | [[/folder]] |
| 172 | |
| 173 | [[folder:Web Video]] |
| 174 | * ''WebVideo/{{Stoogeposting}}'': In "The Three Stooges challenge God," Curly claims he's been going to church a lot, so Moe asks him to name all ten commandments. Curly's improvises an incredibly wrong answer, saying things like "the right to bear arms" ("That's what [[Creator/CharltonHeston Moses]] said!") and "tie your left shoe," but Moe doesn't know any better and can't call his bluff. |
| 175 | [[/folder]] |
| 176 | |
| 177 | [[folder:Western Animation]] |
| 178 | * ''WesternAnimation/AmericanDad'': In the episode "The Long Bomb," [[spoiler:arena football player Johnny Concussion fakes his own death and hatches a plot to steal his jersey back from the owner of the Bazooka Sharks after he was kicked from the team due to his numerous head injuries. He disguises himself as a goateed criminal mastermind who speaks eloquently, even though Johnny's normal speech has been noticeably slowed by his concussions]]. |
| 179 | * ''WesternAnimation/FamilyGuy'': |
| 180 | ** Peter Griffin becomes convinced he's a genius, but needless to say fails at acting the part. For example, he misapplies "shallow and pedantic," a phrase he heard two political pundits using, to criticize Lois's cooking. |
| 181 | ** Brian becomes this in the series' [[UnCancelled post-cancellation episodes (Season 4 to the present time),]] but in a far more [[KnowNothingKnowItAll insufferable way.]] While certainly very intelligent for an animal (seeing as how he can talk, walk on two legs, get a job, drive a car, etc.) and definitely has a lot more common sense than some of the human characters on the show (especially when compared to Peter), it's clear that Brian's nowhere near as intelligent/sophisticated as he likes to think he is. To elaborate: |
| 182 | *** He uses words he doesn't know the meaning of and/or acts like he knows something when he clearly doesn't. |
| 183 | *** Often claims that he reads things like "classic" literature but is almost never shown reading any kind of books. |
| 184 | *** Dates [[BrainlessBeauty Brainless Beauties]] to make himself feel more intelligent than he actually is. |
| 185 | *** He's just a general, all-around hypocrite (which he's often called out on, especially in later episodes). |
| 186 | * ''WesternAnimation/TheSimpsons'': Homer Simpson chooses to wear a pair of nerd glasses that were dropped in the toilet by Henry Kissinger. Unbeknownst to Homer, Mr. Burns then assumes he's an egghead and decides not to fire him during a round of job cuts. |
| 187 | [[/folder]] |
| 188 | |
| 189 | [[folder:Real Life]] |
| 190 | * One of the reasons thought to have contributed to the ancient Greek philosopher Creator/{{Socrates}}' execution was that he went around pissing off people in power (such as politicians, and, more drastically, religious figures) by asserting they were doing this. |
| 191 | * There are known garbage texts that can pass as "scientific" in nonsense-rich environments and really made it to the respective journals or conferences...including automatically generated ones. If you want to hunt impostor "scientists" in comfort using a robot decoy-duck--go ahead, it works. |
| 192 | ** ''Social Text'' published ''Transgressing the Boundaries: Toward a Transformative Hermeneutics of Quantum Gravity'' article (It claimed to be about using quantum theories of gravity to stick it to The Man) which turned out to be a parody made of statements specifically designed to be solipsist nonsense and logically disconnected claims. [[note]]They even managed to insult themselves further by rejecting an explanation text as not meeting their intellectual standards after publishing this mockery (it apparently didn't "Transgress the Boundaries" enough).[[/note]] [[http://www.physics.nyu.edu/faculty/sokal/ Papers by Alan Sokal]] has the full story, papers and a simple recipe how to bake such a cake at will. |
| 193 | ** WMSCI 2005 accepted an article ''Rooter: A Methodology for the Typical Unification of Access Points and Redundancy'', which is a pile of robot-generated garbage. Then guys went to that conference, held a "technical" session and with straight faces gave ''several more'' randomly generated garbage speeches. [[http://pdos.csail.mit.edu/scigen/ There's a story, papers, movie]] -- and [=SCIgen=] itself, released under GPL. |
| 194 | ** [[http://www.elsewhere.org/pomo/ Here]] you can get random Postmodernism texts online, and even permanent links [[note]]randseed-based, obviously[[/note]] to the particular essay, if you liked it. |
| 195 | * Any agenda-based statistics study. I.e., if they're paid to prove a causal link exists instead of determine if one does, they will use this. |
| 196 | * There is a psychological term for feigning intelligence. This is called [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Illusory_superiority illusory superiority]] and is a cognitive bias that makes people overestimate their positive qualities and abilities and underestimate their negative ones relative to others. |
| 197 | * The Dunning-Kruger Effect is when "people reach erroneous conclusions and make unfortunate choices but their incompetence robs them of the metacognitive ability to realize it", or as Cracked.com phrases it: "a shortcut in the brain that makes people suck at figuring out they suck." To test the Dunning-Kruger effect, two men named David Dunning and Justin Kruger ran a series of experiments and published the results in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology in December 1999. What they found was that [[UsefulNotes/CharlesDarwin “ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge.”]] Specifically they concluded: (1) Incompetent individuals tend to overestimate their own level of skill. (2) Incompetent individuals fail to recognize genuine skill in others. (3) Incompetent individuals fail to recognize the extremity of their inadequacy. (4) If they can be trained to substantially improve their own skill level, these individuals can recognize and acknowledge their own previous lack of skill. |
| 198 | * A Miss Teen USA contestant [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lj3iNxZ8Dww went viral]] after bungling a response to a political question by responding with a word salad of academic-sounding phrases while clearly having no idea what she was talking about. |
| 199 | * Sadly a reasonably common trait among Politicians the world over. After all, words are cheap and thus spent freely, and SesquipedalianLoquaciousness is fairly common in politic speech, as it's used to mask intentions behind flowery language. Of course, this usually backfires heavily when someone who understands the words they use into layman's terms. |
| 200 | * A frequent problem in job interviews. Candidates may want to make themselves look as good as possible, so they say they have experience with a technology or responsibility that they're actually not familiar with, or that they've read the company's website or certain trade publications when they really haven't. Seasoned interviewers know how to ask further questions and expose the candidate's true lack of knowledge, often leading to IveHeardOfThatWhatIsIt scenarios. Interviewers aren't necessarily always looking for the candidate who has extensive experience in every conceivable area of interest, but for the candidate who is honest about their strengths, weaknesses, and past experiences, and expresses a willingness to learn new things. This is one reason companies make hiring decisions based on face-to-face interviews at all: it's fairly easy to bullshit your qualifications on a resume or an employment application, and a lot harder to bullshit live and in real time when the interviewer can make note of your body language, cadence, and tone of voice. |
| 201 | [[/folder]] |
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