In American media, especially cartoons, characters who are supposed to be intelligent often speak Received Pronunciation, even if they aren't explicitly supposed to be from England. This association of RP with smart people probably comes from the days where this was the accent associated with those who were wealthy enough to receive an education at all, and the more general idea that characters who speak RP are authority figures. UpperClassTwit would be a subversion or inversion of this trope, especially if the twit is English.

This doesn't apply to brainy RP-speaking characters who are in a setting where everyone is English unless it's obvious that only the smart characters speak with this accent and the others all have regional British accents (eg. Cockney, OopNorth, etc)[[note]]Interestingly, in modern Britain polls suggest that people associate the posher kinds of Edinburgh accent (think DavidTennant) with higher intelligence more than they do RP[[/note]]. The examples are in two groups, with one being characters who actually ARE stated to be from England within the story and the other being characters who are not, yet still have the Received Pronunciation accent.

Villainous examples are likely to be WickedCultured. However, while this can overlap with EvilBrit, it doesn't have to, as many examples include heroic smart characters. Compare and contrast FakeBrit, (that's where the actor playing a British character isn't actually British) and IAmVeryBritish (where Received Pronunciation is the only English accent in American media, and the characters in that trope don't necessarily have to be smart).

If the character is neither American or British he/she can be made to sound intelligent without being given the above dialect, [[TheQueensLatin but many writers and dramatists simply don't bother]].
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!!Examples where the character IS English:
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[[folder: Literature ]]

* Mentioned by DaveBarry, where he says a person with a British accent could be presenting ''Series/HawaiiFiveO'' and Americans would think them extremely enlightening.

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[[folder: Live Action TV ]]

* Rupert Giles from ''Series/BuffyTheVampireSlayer''.
** Curiously, when a spell makes him behave like a surly teen, he speaks in a working class accent. In an earlier episode, he relates how, as a youth, he rebelled against his upbringing and fell in with 'the worst crowd that would have me' - so which accent was the put-on is up for debate.
* Doctor Bashir from ''Series/StarTrekDeepSpaceNine''. Mostly notable in the episode where we meet his parents (at the same time as revealing his intelligence was augmented), who do not share his flavour of British accent at all.

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[[folder: Western Animation ]]

* T.N. Honey from ''StrawberryShortcake'' (she basically speaks only in stereotypical English phrases)
* In a singalong host segment of ''WesternAnimation/TheBeatles'' cartoon, Ringo makes a joke about it:
-->'''Paul:''' Don't you know the King's English?
-->'''Ringo:''' I know the Queen is!

!!Examples where the character's origin is not stated/is stated as not being from England

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[[folder: Anime And Manga ]]

* Arguably, the dub version of Sailor Mercury from SailorMoon is given an accent that is at least slightly English. Luna also would fit in the dub since she's an intelligent MentorMascot who does a lot of strategy planning for the "Scouts" and is generally portrayed as more intelligent than Artemis.

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[[folder: Film (Animated) ]]

* Scar from ''TheLionKing'' (also doubles as EvilBrit).
* ScoobyDoo in ''[[Film/ScoobyDooMonstersUnleashed Monsters Unleashed]]''.
* Dr. Cockroach, Ph.D. in ''MonstersVsAliens''.

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[[folder: Film (Live Action) ]]

* The Brain Gremlin in ''Gremlins2TheNewBatch''.
* The ''Film/{{X-Men}}'' franchise is a mixed example. Professor Charles Xavier either speaks with an RP (first three movies) or is an actual Brit (''Film/XMenFirstClass'').
** Patrick Stewart is also an actual Brit.

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[[folder: Literature ]]

* In the ''Literature/WarriorCats'' series, the last three audiobooks in the ''The New Prophecy'' series are read by Nanette Savard, an American actress. The narration and most of the characters are read with an American accent - except, for whatever reason, the [[TheMedic medicine cats]], who are read with a British accent. They're regular Clan cats, born and lived with their Clanmates all their lives, and just chose a different job - [[FridgeLogic so where did the accent come from]]? Are they born with it and for some reason all cats with this accent take the medicine cat's job? Or does healing cats suddenly give you a different accent somehow?

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[[folder: Live Action TV ]]

* Notable subversion/playing around of this trope is Charlize Theron's character from ''Series/ArrestedDevelopment''. Her English accent is (according to the narrator) the reason that people don't figure out that she's [[spoiler: mentally retarded]]. Of course, Theron isn't even English (she's South African, but is a naturalized American), which is of course lampshaded in the show.
* [[Series/BattlestarGalacticaReimagined Gaius Baltar]] speaks with an RP accent. Later in the series, it's revealed that he changed it from his family's native accent (which is portrayed as a rural, working-class English accent) to fit in on Caprica; what pushes it into this trope is that Caprican citizens are otherwise represented as varying kinds of North American.
* Roose Bolton in ''Series/GameOfThrones'' is a clean-shaven SoftSpokenSadist speaking RP in a sea of [[BadassBeard bearded]] LargeHam [[OopNorth northmen with northern accents]], which sets him apart from all the other Stark bannermen.

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[[folder: Video Games ]]

* In ''XenobladeChronicles'', the HigherTechSpecies High Entia all speak the queen's English, in contrast to the main characters' middle- and working class accents that are typical of Homs. Reyn even lampshades it upon first meeting one, remarking on her 'posh accent' ([[FridgeLogic how he would even know it's a posh accent when none of his own species speaks it is another matter]]).

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[[folder: Western Animation ]]

* Mr. Longface Caterpillar from ''StrawberryShortcake''.
* The Bookworm from the ''Huggabunch''.
* Actual Factual from ''TheBerenstainBears''.
* Mr. Chips the computer from ''SchoolhouseRock''.
* In ''TheAdventuresOfSonicTheHedgehog'', when Grounder gets a genius chip, his usual SimpletonVoice changes to Received Pronunciation.
* Wile E. Coyote from ''WesternAnimation/LooneyTunes'', in the cartoons where he has a voice.
* Arguably, Stewie from ''FamilyGuy''. There's some controversy as to whether his accent is supposed to be British or Bostonian Brahmin (e.g., Charles Emerson Winchester III from ''{{MASH}}'', Thurston Howell III from ''GilligansIsland'').
** [[WordOfGod One episode has him explicitly stating that he has a British accent.]]
* Puzzlemint from ''MyLittlePony'' (the G3 series).
* Mr. Hal Gibson from ''SuperRobotMonkeyTeamHyperforceGo''.
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