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"Our great democracies still tend to think that a stupid man is more likely to be honest than a clever man."
—Bertrand Russell
"Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know."
—Ernest Hemingway
Smart People are Mean, Dumb People are Nice. Geniuses are psychotic and high-strung, but idiots are nice and sweet because ignorance is bliss. In comedy pairs, the genius will always smack around the idiot.
The smart character will be mean because he is arrogant and literally doesn't suffer fools gladly. In more sympathetic portrayals, the smart character is good underneath, but made cynical and bitter by his keen intellect, which allows him to see that the world sucks. Conversely, the dumb character has no reason to be continuously happy, other than to provide a foil for the smart character, to show that being all smart all the time makes you unlikeable, miserable or both, and why would you choose to be that way if ignorance is bliss?
This trope both stems from and causes anti-intellectualism , although not solely. There are some schools of philosophy (namely Utilitarianism) which claim that stupid people are easier to keep content, because they have a lower capacity for happiness - which means that, on the flip side, intelligent people can be happier in absolute terms but probably won't be, because reality never quite lives up to their expectations.
This trope can also be applied to intelligence itself, with the Book Dumb hero's street smarts and practical experience being shown as superior to academics who's knowledge is dusty, dry and doesn't work in the real world, another tenent of anti-intellectualism.
Another closely related trope that shares this name is that any character, paired up or not, of below-average intelligence is most likely going to be good no matter whose side they start out on.
This trope subverted by the Genius Bruiser, and more conventionally down-to-earth or humble smart guys and Mentors.
Villains often assume it; after all, any smart character would look out for number 1, just as the villain does. Anything else is childish and old-fashioned. This can be a serious mistake. Especially when they try to explain to The Hero that it would be so much more sensible to do the wrong thing this time.
Sometimes a Justified Trope, in that there are plenty of perfectly sweet people who aren't so bright and plenty of highly intelligent people who are condescending jerkasses, and people who go to far to avoid this trope could veer too far in the other direction, portraying everyone who isn't bright as mean and stupid. There is a distinction, however, between portraying a sweet, somewhat simple minded person who helps the hero greatly, and portaying everyone dumb this way, while smart people are evil.
May be caused by the You Suck effect, since Viewers Are Morons; also closely related to Book Dumb. Not to be confused with Good Is Dumb. This can extend to intellectual pursuits, leading to Straw Vulcan, Science Is Bad or even Science Is Wrong.
Examples
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Anime
- Gourry Gabriev from Slayers is definitely not the sharpest knife in the drawer (a fact alluded to on numerous occasions) yet he comes off as just about the most easygoing, honest and unobtrusive member of the permanent cast (virtually every other protagonist has some sort of major character flaw).
- A recurring theme in Kinnikuman. Many of Suguru's opponents, prior to their Heel Face Turn, are shown to be genuinely more intelligent than him. They also have plenty of techniques that they have spent time developing, whereas Suguru initially won with nothing short of dumb luck. For example, he won his first wrestling match simply because his opponent laughed so much at his ugly face that he broke his back. The final Big Bad is the ultimate embodiment of this trope, with Kinnikuman Super Phoenix being empowered by the God of Intelligence.
- Son Goku from Dragon Ball. It gives you a clue if naive Goku who doesn't even know the difference between boys and girls can ride on Kinto'un; a cloud which only allows those pure of heart to ride, and Bulma, quite possibly the smartest female on the planet can't.
- To quote Goku:
Goku (to Frieza): "I'd rather be a brainless beast than a heartless monster like you."
- Monkey D. Luffy of One Piece is pretty dumb but certainly is one of the most fun-loving and nicest characters you'll ever meet. The smartest characters are either greedy and selfish (and this is just a description of those in his crew), manipulative, sadistic, homicidal, and schematically vile. And that's not even mentioning Sir Crocodile and Eneru.
- Baccano!'s Firo Prochainezo deliberately invokes this in the Light Novels when he assures Ennis that she can trust him because "[he's] stupid, and that's all there is to it." Additionally, Isaac and Miria are probably the nicest characters in the series. They are also inarguably the dumbest.
- Nai from Karneval qualifies, but considering that he was originally cute little animal, it can be justified; he looks rather young as well. It's to the point that he doesn't understand what blood is, but he's slowly learning more about the world, and is basically Dumb Is Cute.
Comic Books
- Subverted during Mark Waid's run on Fantastic Four, in which Reed Richards is shown to be a decent, compassionate, loving family man — and then immediately embraced in Civil War, which depicts Reed as a detached, emotionless bastard who holds lesser intellects in contempt and is perfectly willing to stuff supposed friends into an extradimensional concentration camp.
- He's back to being good again,
- Jeremy from the Adventures of Barry Ween by Judd Winick, while not a complete idiot, does have a tendency to eat things he really shouldn't eat, gets himself into trouble that Barry has to bail him out of more than a few times, swears constantly especially when it's least appropriate, and definitely isn't Barry's intellectual equal (though to be fair, nobody is). However, he's consistently shown to have a stronger moral compass than Barry himself, and acts as Barry's Morality Pet and conscience. He's also called out Barry on some of his more callous actions. It's heavily implied that Jeremy's friendship is one of the only things keeping Barry sane and keeping him from becoming a full blown Mad Scientist.
Film
- Rocky Balboa from Rocky
- Averted later on the series, when he became a mentor figure, to the point where one reviewer commented that he was the only boxer to become smarter the more he got punched in the head.
- Very common in most Abbott And Costello movies, shows and routines. Abbott is clever, mean and sly and Costello is usually dumb and happy or at least naive and happy-go-lucky.
- Charlie from Land of the Dead
- Forrest Gump, in the film of the same name (he's a touch more sarcastic in the books).
- This is a pretty common trope in many films, especially Oscar Bait. Intelligent and rational people are seen as emotionally unfulfilled, neglectful of their family and friends, mean, or corrupt, and contrasted with a simple-minded, often mentally-delayed character with a heart of gold (Rain Man, I Am Sam, etc.). Parodied effectively in Tropic Thunder with Tugg Speedman's "Simple Jack" role.
- Being There (and the Chance The Gardener character type in general), both the original novella and the film version, is something of a subversion of this that ironically predates the above. Chance is a good-hearted fool, but he affects intelligent-but-unhappy people only because they think he's intelligent, and his concrete statements are thus interpreted as grand metaphors.
- Mongo from Blazing Saddles.
- In the cartoon movie The Emperors New Groove, Yzma is the evil mad scientist, while her assistant, Kronk, is stupid and thus good at heart.
- Arguably, Kronk acts as something of a subversion of this trope, in that he's actually fairly bright, simply naïve. He's shown to be a highly proficient chef, able to identify rare birds without rerefence, and to speak fluent, um, Squirrel, so it appears that he may simply apply his abilities in a more constructive fashion than the cynical Yzma, rather than being particularly unintelligent. The message here is more along the lines of "Positive is Good" than "Dumb is Good".
- Zangief from Street Fighter: The Movie was portrayed as too dumb to be evil.
- Rock And Roll High School is about the struggle between an authoritarian, rock and roll-hating, principal who complains that students aren't learning in gym class with a Ramones-loving, rabble-rousing, Book Dumb student who leads the rest of the school (including one teacher) to trash the school, then blow it up with explosives. This is portrayed as an unequivocally good thing to do. The main character's best friend, however, is supposedly a genius who works on nuclear physics in her spare time
- Toad, the harmonica-playing street performer in the Super Mario Bros movie, despite being turned into a Goomba.
- Stan Laurel in Laurel And Hardy is usually shown as happier and nicer than Ollie, as well as dumber not that Ollie was massively smart either. Notably, in A Chump At Oxford, becoming smart turns Stan into a jerk. Funnily enough in real life Stan Laurel was an intelligent "ideas man" and Ollie was more easy going and not as clever as Stan (but considerably cleverer the he portrayed himself in films).
- The Adam Sandler movie Little Nicky has the main character being the dumbest son of Satan borne out of a fling with an angel while his other brothers Adrian and Cassius are both smarter and stronger respectively.
- Harvey addresses this:
Elwood P. Dowd: Years ago my mother used to say to me, she'd say, "In this world, Elwood, you must be"— she always called me Elwood— "In this world, Elwood, you must be oh so smart or oh so pleasant." Well, for years I was smart. I recommend pleasant. You may quote me.
Literature
- Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead looks like it's doing this at first, except that, if you look closely, you'll see that Rosencrantz (who makes animal noises to pass the time) is actually smarter in a few ways.
- In The Sound and the Fury, the Compson brothers (who narrate different blocks of the story) consist of Benjy, who is sweet but severely severely handicapped, Quentin, who is intelligent but got some seriously taboo desires and ends up Driven To Suicide, and Jason, a Jerk Ass. Benjy comes off as by far the most likable of the three.
- John Steinbeck's Of Mice And Men sets this up: Lenny is the childlike of the pairing, while smarter Curly is an intelligent villain. Slim describes the concept directly, some way through the book.
- Inverted in the first of Larry Niven's Magic Goes Away stories. The hero is a wise, intelligent sorcerer who happens to call himself "Warlock"; the villain is a barbarian with a magic sword.
- Subverted throughout A Series Of Unfortunate Events: it is stated outright that "well-read people are less likely to be evil". The villains are Book Dumb at best and often shown to be complete philistines who prefer the maudlin, sentimental writing of Edgar Guest to great works like Moby Dick. Olaf is shown to be unable to spell "poison". Two characters who seem to be evil masterminds identify eagles as mammals.
- Fezzik from The Princess Bride, although Inigo turns good, too. In fact, one could argue that Vizzini is the stupid one.
- In both the film and the book, neither Inigo nor Fezzik are particularly bright. Only the film version of Vizzini comes off as an idiot, though — the book Vizzini is legitimately portrayed as a twisted genius.
- Blaggut, the illiterate, less-than-bright searat in The Bellmaker, the only vermin in the series to survive a Heel Face Turn. He's initially paired with the captain from his ship, who obeys the usual Always Chaotic Evil role of vermin, but eventually kills him when the captain murders the abbey's Badger Mother.
- The Discworld novels will occasionally feature a stupid, more sympathetic villain (Banjo of Hogfather, Lemon of Soul Music, and Mr. Tulip of The Truth all leap to mind) who gets a more favourable end, but this is more to show how easily stupid people can be led astray. The heroes are usually quite intelligent.
- In Harry Potter, Ron is frequently shown to not be the brightest of the bunch but is also Harry's best friend. Also, to certain extent, Harry himself, who always does the most idiotic and suicidal possible action to solve each and every plot throughout the books.
- Ron is often unfortunately portrayed as the cliched "red-headed comic side-kick" in the movies, which is a trope in itself of "Acceptable Targets."
- The characters in Harry Potter are placed into different dormitories depending on their qualities. Gryffindor, which is portrayed as the "Lawful Good" dorm in the series and houses most of the main characters, accepts the brave and loyal - qualities associated with emotion. On the other hand, Slytherin accepts characters who are cold, calculating, calculating, cunning, and ambitious; naturally, this dorm is the demonized both in-series and out, home to The Rival and his lackeys, was home to the Big Bad and most of his mooks, and several other genuinely nasty characters. Even the good characters who lived in Slytherin were jerkasses on some level or had questionable motives. Note that Slytherin only accepts the cunning smart guys; the not-so-ambitious geniuses go to Ravenclaw, which doesn't get very much mention compared to the rest of the houses.
- As explained in the books, House Ravenclaw was for sharp minds, while Slytherin was for pureblood wizards; Gryffindor was for "doers of great deeds." (Hufflepuff, meanwhile, was for everyone else). Naturally, Hermione was originally marked for Ravenclaw, but was selected for Gryffindor due to her adventuresome streak. Slytherin had a long history of sinister wizards, due to his inherent racism and bigotry against Muggles— as evidenced by house-founder Salazar Slytherin himself leaving Hogwarts in protest over its decision to admit Muggle-born wizards (which formed the plot of Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets).
- In Flowers for Algernon protagonist Charlie Gordon is a mentally challenged man mocked by most of the people he knows for being retarded. Then he participates in an experiment that makes him a genius, except he's still alienated because most of the people in this world are now half his IQ, so he can't relate to them. Plus, they're scared/frustrated/jealous of his superior brains. The difference is that when he was retarded, he didn't realize when people were making fun of him, so he was able to be naive and happy. Then when the experiment fails and Charlie regresses to an IQ in the 70's, he becomes happy again and people start liking him out of him out of pity.
- It's shown that hey also protect him from others abusing him.
- Caramon Majere, of the Dragonlance series, is perhaps best described as a lovable oaf: Friendly, outgoing, not exactly bright but everyone likes him. Raistlin Majere, on the other hand, is a Deadpan Snarker who spends more time with his spellbooks and his bitterness, recognized as a magical and intellectual genius who spends most of his time ordering Caramon around. And this is before Raistlin undergoes his Start of Darkness!
Live Action TV
- In the Farscape episode "My Three Crichtons", the hyper-evolved and super-intelligent version of Crichton is the least compassionate.
- Malcolm In The Middle explicitly explored this in one episode, with stupid older brother Reese teaching Malcolm how to "turn off his brain" by singing commercial jingles to himself all the time so that boy genius Malcolm would be happier, kinder, and more relaxed. It works until Malcolm finds himself in a situation where he needs to think quickly and he abandons his blissful ignorance to return to his intellectual, cynical, Jerkass persona.
- The original page quote was a "No one likes the smartest kid in the class" line from The West Wing. Regardless, Aaron Sorkin does not so much subvert the trope as reject it, shoot it, string it upside down from a lamp post and spit on it. Much of Seasons Three and Four witness President Bartlet and his staff rejecting anti-intellectualism and extolling the virtues of education and intelligence. It's a measure of what we normally see on TV that "extolling the virtues of education and intelligence" actually makes the show unique.
- The characters may have subconsciously believed in this trope though: Sam and Josh both seem to have some switch in their heads that flips and turns them from harried geniuses to immature, extraordinarily stupid, lovable goofballs whenever they're not dealing with political crises—as though they're afraid acting serious too much will make them lose their idealism.
- Toby is possibly the ultimate definition of "Doesn't suffer fools gladly."
- Played with in Doctor Who, in which The Hero is one of the smartest beings in the universe, while there are many instances in which his less intelligent companions are disgusted by his methods.
- In particular, his seventh and tenth incarnations both have a nasty reputation for manipulating companions and civilians alike; the only differences between the two of them is that the seventh (who's a lot better at it) will usually have a better reason for his manipulations.
- The episode of The King Of Queens "Educatin' Doug". Carrie enrolls herself and Doug in an English night class (which Doug isn't too thrilled about) when she thinks they're becoming TV-addicted idiots. Carrie does quite well in the class, but Doug struggles, resorting to beat the information he needs out of Spence, who is also in the class. At first Carrie is angry when she finds this out, but eventually learns that she shouldn't have forced Doug into the endeavor. In addition to Dumb Is Good, the Aesop here would also seem to be "Leave well enough alone".
- Kamen Rider has a few examples.
- Kamen Rider Ryuki has a quite anti-intellectual vibe to it. The title hero, Kido Shinji, is an impulsive and idealistic fool and wants to protect everybody (even the evil Kamen Riders who are trying to kill him). The other heroes are a barroom brawler (Akiyama Ren), a tea shop waitress (Kanzaki Yui) and a fortune teller (Tezuka Miyuki). In contrast, many of the villains are educated types. The Big Bad is Well Intentioned Extremist Kanzaki Shirou. His colleague Kagawa Hideyuki is a sleazy Straw Vulcan. Kitaoka Shuuichi is an Amoral Attorney. And college students Shibaura Jun and Toujou Satoru are both Ax Crazy assholes.
- In The Unusuals, there's a repeat offender named Marvin who's so stupid he commits crimes wearing a necklace with his name on it in huge gold letters, but he's portrayed as not such a bad guy because he's just too stupid to be malicious.
- In one episode of the 1990s Outer Limits, Doogie Howser plays a man whose mental retardation renders him immune to Id-unleashing parasites.
- Kieth has problems in Like Family when he moves to a place where people don't have this attitude.
Tabletop Games
- A major tenet of Imperial dogma in Warhammer 40000. "Thought Begets Heresy; Heresy Begets Retribution" and "Only the Awkward Question; Only the Foolish Ask Twice" are two common quotes in the fluff.
Video Games
Web Comics
- Of the four main heroes of 8-Bit Theater, three are self-serving rogues just shy (maybe) of actual villains themselves. One of their latest group activities was to enter a town and murder a number of its citizens so that the rest would pay them protection money. The only character who could conceivably be called a hero (maybe) is the one stupid enough to (usually) not realize that his teammates are incapable of altruism and really don't care. However, it should be noted that he is sometimes shown to be a Genius Ditz and two of the other members aren't really that smart either.
- Dr Mc Ninja claims that this story arc's lesson is that those of this trope are preferable to the evil-geniuses.
- Nodwick goes both ways: Piffany seems to have severe problems with understanding what goes around her but is practically a living saint. On the flip side, Yeagar isn't much better but is the only party member to be actively malicious. Artax and Nodwick, the two most clear-headed thinkers in the party (in that order) are both Deadpan Snarkers to various degrees, but Artax is considerably more callous than Nodwick. Thus, the dumbest and the smartest person in the party are the nicest, with the two in the middle picking up the 'nasty' slack (although Nodwick has an extremely caustic tongue, particularly in regards to Yeagar and Artax's antics). And Yeagar and Artax are the ones slapping Nodwick around. Repeatedly. While Piffany isn't looking.
- Thog of Order Of The Stick is a subversion/deconstruction, particularly in this strip, whose title is Stupid Isn't Always Cute. This doesn't stop most fans being sympathetic towards him nonetheless. (Not that it's hard to be sympathetic in comparison to Thog's usual company).
- Elan, however, is a straight example.
- Especialy when you consider his smart Evil Twin.
- But, along with this is also subverted by other characters all the time, since Stupid Good and Dumb Fighter are major D&D stereotypes. Roy has unusually high Wisdom for a fighter and serves as the group leader, and, although he does seem to have trouble suffering fools, usually comes across as happy. On the enemy side we also get to see Xykon, who comes across as fairly stupid (although the arguement can and has been made he just doesn't care, and it's impossible to say that he sin't at least crafty).
- In The Last Days Of Foxhound, the biggest jerks in the comic tend also to be the smartest (excepting perhaps Raven) — Otacon is the best example in that he is the series' perhaps only genuinely good person, and also a complete Ditz.
- This is parodied in Happy But Dead. When Tito, Gear and Colin die, Colin and Gear go to Hell. Once there, they learn that Tito made it into Heaven despite doing just as much bad stuff as they did. However, as he was considered to stupid to fully understand what he was doing was wrong, he automatically gets a free pass to Heaven.
Web Original
- Subverted in Dr Horribles Sing Along Blog; The Good Captain is big and dumb and a completely insensitive jerk, while the titular Doctor Horrible has his good points despite his Morally Ambiguous Doctorate. On the other hand, though, he does actually seem to look down on the masses, so it's also half played straight — smart and dumb are both jerks.
- This ideal is actually promoted by Captain Hammer himself in the comics, with him stating that smart kids or anyone that doesn't immediately fit mainstream's perception of normal should all be throw into jail. The audience of course is expected to know that he's just spouting bullshit.
Western Animation
- Even though he can be said to be less of a Jerkass than Mandark, the titular character of Dexters Laboratory is still fairly high-strung, seems to have problems in regards to thinking ahead, and can be said to be fairly arrogant. In contrast, his older sister Dee Dee is usually much more cheerful and laid back, despite being something of a CloudCuckooLander.
- Then again, she is a very destructive person who obliviously trashes his laboratory on a regular basis.
- Inverted on, of all places, Aqua Teen Hunger Force. While the genius characters aside from Frylock certainly aren't nice or sympathetic by any means being the kind of show this is the most malicious characters are also the stupidest. The few nice characters tend to be more intelligent than most of the cast.
- Ren And Stimpy
- Pinky And The Brain
- Depending on your point of view, it can be debated whether or not Pinky is the "dumb" one...
- There is an episode early on in the series where the Brain makes Pinky intelligent and, finding out that an intelligent Pinky is actually smarter than him, comes to realize he is the reason they always fail (proved mathematically no less) and reduces his own intelligence. I'm sure you can guess how it ends, but the wonderful subversion is that Pinky is still happy, energetic, and full of "Narf" when he is intelligent while the Brain, though he does suddenly find rather silly things funny all of a sudden, retains his unhappy personality (albeit less mean, but that might just be becuase his usual course of abuse towards Pinky is rooted in witty recriminations).
- The Grim Adventures Of Billy And Mandy does this with Billy in early seasons. For better or worse, later seasons take away the "good" part as he's still stupid and also a spoiled, violent Jerkass.
- Gunter the chimpanzee from the episode of Futurama "Mars University". When he wears the bowler hat that Professor Farnsworth invented that makes him super-intelligent, he's a snobbish know-it-all, especially towards Fry. Later, when Gunter's hat gets broken and thus only gives him average intelligence, he finds that he's much happier that way and decides to attend business school, much to Farnsworth's ire.
- The Spongebob Squarepants episode "Patrick Smartpants" has The Ditz Patrick accidentally become smart, then quickly turn into an Insufferable Genius who eventually becomes miserable because he can no longer relate to his dumb friend Spongebob. So he becomes an idiot again and is ecstatic. This is presented as an unequivocally good thing.
- Just about any character played by Bill Fagerbakke seems to epitomize this trope.
- Though he's still pretty nasty, Megatron's rather dim lackey in Transformers Armada, Demolishor, is probably the 'nicest' one out of the Decepticons.
- In fact, in the sequel Transformers Energon he has moral dilemmas and temporarily fights for the good guys. Subverted, somewhat, in that after he rejoins the Decepticons and gets reformatted he becomes even stupider.
- The Simpsons episode "HOMR", in which the normally stupid Homer gets a crayon dislodged from his brain, making him incredibly smart. However, he quickly loses his friends due to his intelligence. Then Lisa tells him the sad "truth": As intelligence goes up, happiness goes down. Smart Homer sees only one recourse — re-insert the crayon through his nose...
- Then again, Homer is both dumb and a Jerk Ass, so Dumbness and Goodness aren't always related.
Machinima
- Red Vs Blue. None of the characters are incredibly smart, but Caboose, who is dumb as they come, is definitely the happiest of the bunch, as was once commented on by Church.
Church: Goddamn man, I would love to live in your world for like ten minutes.
Caboose: Yeah. I have a really good time.
Church: Yeah it seems like it. I don't think I'd get anything done, but I don't think I'd care.
Real Life
- The English word "nice" is derived from the latin word "nescius", meaning "ignorant." Have a nice day.
- Some of the more extreme members, both politician and citizens, of the American political environment are big fans of this trope and equate "completed college education" with haughty "elitism." Luckily, this is far from a universal sentiment, but the prevalence is still jarring and disturbing. Of course, this is present in other countries as well (as shown by the Bertrand Russell quote on the top of this page), to varying degrees.
- The Book Of Ecclesiastes muses over this and concludes that smart may be good but it sure is sad and it is temporary as we all die anyway. Of course making philosophical speculations like that requires at least some smarts. So whatever.
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