Basic Trope: A character is ignorant about basic geography knowledge; they are therefore stupid and should be shamed over it.
- Straight: Bob thinks Toronto is the capital of Canada. When Alice corrects him that it's Ottawa, he argues with her and is convinced it's Toronto.
- Exaggerated:
- Alice is an American woman who longs to go to Paris for holiday, and is surprised to find out the flight will take several hours. She doesn't know it's a city in Europe, never mind France.
- Bob is an American guy who can't find the USA on the globe.
- Charlie thinks Africa Is a Country.
- Dave is a Michigander who is convinced that Detroit is the state capital and refuses to believe that it's actually Lansing.
- Downplayed:
- Alice is a small girl who can't find her own town on the map. Her parents think she's old enough to know and they feel ashamed of her ignorance.
- When asked what is the capital of Georgia, Bob (an American) says "Atlanta" and Nikolai (a Russian) says "Tbilisi". They're both right, but they both think the other one is wrong since neither one is aware that there are two places called Georgia.
- Justified:
- Bob slept through all his geography classes in school.
- Bob's geography classes were rubbish.
- Geography? Charlie won't be getting those lessons until second grade.
- Inverted: Bob is a total geography nerd who seems to know every spot on the Earth. He often corrects people's wrong assumptions. He's ridiculed for his eagerness and enthusiasm for geography.
- Subverted: In a group of foreign exchange students, Bob the American guy can't find New York City on the map and other students laugh at him. It turns out he was just pulling their leg. Of course he knows where New York is on the map, and all the other major cities. Bob can quickly find each student's home country.
- Double Subverted: ...except for one.
- Parodied:
- Zig-Zagged: Bob's geographic knowledge can range from good to bad.
- Averted:
- Geography knowledge is irrelevant.
- No geography knowledge is mentioned.
- Everybody has all the geography knowledge they need.
- Enforced: Producers want to have a wacky American character on the show, and they ask the writers to include a Running Gag. Once per Episode, the American exposes their lack of global knowledge, like not knowing where a certain city is, swapping countries, taking continents for countries, calling countries by their obsolete names, or doubting certain countries even exist.
- Lampshaded:Bob, American tourist: Where is the Pacific Ocean, anyway?Emily, Australian tourist: [Beat] You Americans really suck at geography, don't you?
- Invoked: Bob's wacky guardian home-schools Bob, and thinks it'll be hilarious if Bob embarrasses himself about his geography knowledge, so he never teaches him geography, and occasionally he feeds him wrong information.
- Exploited: Bob plans to go to Memphis, Tennessee. The Con Man tricks Bob by sending him to Memphis, Egypt instead.
- Defied: Bob's father is horrified that his son doesn't know almost anything about the world, so he hires a geography tutor for him.
- Discussed: "Remember Charlie at school? When asked to find London on the map, he was staring at Germany."
- Conversed: "What's so funny about him not knowing where this obscure little country is? In real life, you can Google it in an instant, and I bet most people wouldn't know that either. I wish movie characters could use the Internet like we do."
- Played for Laughs: Bob goes to Birmingham, England, thinking he's going to Birmingham, Alabama. Cringe Comedy obtains when he acts as if he's in the southern US.
Back to Global Ignorance.
