Selective Obliviousness / Western Animation

• American Dragon: Jake Long: In the episode "The Ski Trip", Rose starts letting hints to her identity as Huntsgirl slip. Jake, however, refuses to realize that he's dating his archnemesis, even when Trixie and Spud point it out to him. To quote Spud, "Denial, party of one, your table is ready." It takes seeing that Rose and Huntsgirl have the same Birthmark of Destiny for Jake to realize the truth.
• Bob's Burgers: Despite Bob Belcher stating many times before that he is not fond of her family, Linda Belcher seems to believe that he loves them deep down inside. To be clear, Bob has legitimate issues with his wife's family. Her sister Gayle is a borderline psychopath who is lazy, overemotional and dependant on Linda to the point of making her go out of her way to help without any concern for inconveniencing her or her family. Her mother is even worse, as she's very loud, controlling and ungrateful when she makes Linda do her favors or steal her daughter's cell phone charger while insisting it's her's. Her father, while not intentionally terrible, is often sick and is hard of hearing. Linda cannot at all grasp that Bob outright hates being around any of them.
• Chowder:
  • Panini doesn't understand the meaning of the words "I'm not your boyfriend."
  • Chowder himself in "Hey Hey It's Knishmas". He honestly believed Gazpacho is Knish Krinkle, despite everyone telling him he's just in costume. When Gazpacho has a meltdown and takes off the costume in front of him, Chowder frames it as "Knish Krinkle threw up Gazpacho and is now dead". Panini lampshades how he isn't even listening to her spelling it out to him.
• In Dexter's Laboratory, Dexter and Dee Dee's parents do not know about the lab, despite having witnessed the odd results of Dexter's experiments, as, for instance, the talking dog. It simply doesn't occur to them that this might be unusual.
• The Fairly OddParents!: Timmy's parents, while already pretty unintelligent, can never comprehend that Vicky is a Babysitter from Hell.
  • Subverted in Channel Chasers, where they begin to get suspicious and start investigating the matter, eventually receiving a detailed dossier on Vicky's behavior towards pretty much everyone from Deep Toot (i.e., Vicky's younger sister Tootie using a voice changer). They chew her out for everything and fire her, only for Timmy to push the Reset Button, reasoning that while he'd love to have Vicky out of his life, she's worth putting up with if it means he can spend more years with his fairies.
  • It gets worse in later episodes where Vicky doesn't even make any attempt to hide her evilness. In "Vicky Gets Fired", where Timmy is trying to get her fired (don't worry about that last example), Timmy even shows his parents incriminating evidence of Vicky torturing him, but they don't even bat an eye. Which he knew would happen, so he included footage of her erasing their reality show audition tape, which does manage to horrify and disgust them.
• Family Guy:
  • In episode "The Fat Guy Strangler", Lois' brother, Patrick, is revealed to be the eponymous Fat Guy Strangler. Lois refuses to believe Patrick is the killer, despite the several glaring pieces of evidence that point to Patrick, including a half dead fat guy lying in Patrick's room who outright states that Patrick tried to kill him, until Lois sees more and more damning evidence piling up and Brian screaming at her to wake up.
  • The Griffins, except for the children and Brian, never seem to be aware that Stewie is highly intelligent for a baby his age. Every time he talks they never exactly react to what he says. In the episode "The Courtship of Stewie's Father", Lois meets with Stewie's preschool teacher and she shows Lois several drawings Stewie made, which show Stewie killing Lois in various horrible ways. The two women then have this exchange regarding the images:
    Teacher: Notice anything unusual in these pictures?
    Lois: You're right, his father isn't in any of them!
• The titular protagonists of Fanboy and Chum Chum are prone to fall into this, most noticeable in the first episode "Wizboy". When a real wizard named Kyle comes to their class, they somehow believe he's only pretending to be a wizard, to the point of Fanboy dressing up as one to convince him that they're wizards, too. What doesn't help is most of his effects are far more realistic than seen on a magic show, such as materializing out of smoke, generating a dome of privacy with no assistance, and floating in the air without a harness. They grow out of it in later episodes.
• Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends: Mr. Herriman can fall into this. He can spot the tiniest speck of dirt, but he can't, say, tell a crudely made decoy of Eduardo from the real Eduardo or when Bloo is dressed up like a ghost.
• The Grim Adventures of Billy & Mandy: Jeff the Spider imprinted on Billy when he hatched and only wants Billy to love him like a son... and is completely incapable of understanding that Billy hates spiders, including Jeff himself, to the point of madness, despite the fact that Billy regularly beats him with anything he can get his hands on.
• Invader Zim has three examples:
  • Zim himself is completely incapable of processing any evidence that he's not a great hero of the Irken Empire. No matter how much he destroys on his own side, how blatant the Tallests' contempt for him is, or how obviously they try to get rid of him, he always bounces back just as convinced of his own greatness as before. He realizes that the Tallests aren't coming for him in Invader Zim: Enter the Florpus... for a few minutes before he rationalizes it away and is back to his old self.
  • Dib, Zim's Arch-Enemy, believes that exposing Zim as an alien will change how his family and peers think of him, despite plenty of evidence to the contrary. In the above-mentioned movie, at least his family shows they care about him.
  • Prof. Membrane is an expert in all fields of science, but absolutely refuses to believe that there is alien life no matter how much evidence is shown to him. Even when trapped in an alien prison, he just thinks it's a hallucination.
• It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown: Linus believes in a nonexistent Santa Claus figure called the Great Pumpkin, who rises out of the pumpkin patch with a sack full of toys; every year on Halloween he waits in the pumpkin patch outside his house, hoping he'll show up. When he does not show up and he is left alone outside, Charlie Brown tries to reason with him the following day, but he accidentally calls him "stupid" for waiting in a pumpkin patch for someone who obviously doesn't exist, launching Linus into a long rant throughout the credits that the Great Pumpkin will come next year and he'll be waiting.
• Justice League Unlimited:
  • Professor Hamilton worked with the Cadmus project and attempted to take down the Justice League all because of Superman's invasion of Earth while he was Brainwashed and Crazy and subsequently threatening him, referring to the events of the finale of Superman: The Animated Series. While that is true that Superman threatened him, it's only because Hamilton was being a total prick and refusing to help him save a badly wounded Supergirl because he was more concerned about saving his own ass by not consorting with someone who was considered a felon rather than helping a man he'd repeatedly given aid to in the past no matter the circumstance.
  • Superman falls prey to this exact same trope in the same Cadmus storyline. Despite later giving his "No More Holding Back" Speech in a different episode, at no point does Superman apologize to Hamilton or acknowledge that a human might have panicked at the reminder that his friend is an immortal alien with laser beam eyes. It later takes Green Arrow AND the Flash to point out that to most people, the difference between a Kryptonian superhero and a Kryptonian alien monster is a matter of how careful the Kryptonian is about damaging things. Like relationships, buildings, and people.
• In King of the Hill, despite being an extremely paranoid Conspiracy Theorist, Dale Gribble is completely unaware that his wife is having an affair, even though it should be glaringly obvious to anyone who meets "his" son Joseph and isn't blind. The only people other than him who don't know are Joseph and Peggy (who had to be told by Hank). Nobody has the heart to tell him about it.
• Looney Tunes:
  • Daffy Duck often uses selective obliviousness, especially to facts that damage his ego. Chuck Jones told in an interview that when they first thought up Daffy's voice, everyone was sure that they would be fired when their producer, Leon Schlesinger, would hear it because he would probably immediately realize that Daffy's lisp was based on his own. Strangely enough, Schlesinger never noticed this and even complimented the staff on creating such a wonderfully unique voice!
  • Porky Pig exhibits this at times. He refuses to believe in Daffy's imaginary friend, even when he is being carried in his invisible pouch. He will also never heed Sylvester's attempts to warn him about danger, not even when a monster is looking him square in the eye (that tall green Martian is obviously a friendly Native American).
• Mr. Magoo not only can't see past the end of his nose, but more to the point, refuses to acknowledge that there's something wrong with his eyesight. Even when he's told he's mistaken, he either misunderstands or dismisses it, stubbornly sticking to his guns rather than admit he's wrong. Only in two cartoons ("Fuddy Duddy Buddy", where he's told that he's mistaken a walrus for his old friend Bottomley; and "Magoo's Check-up", where's he's flat out told to get his eyes checked) is he confronted with the reality of his nearsightedness, and yet both times he pulls himself up and continues on as always (he takes the walrus out again because he genuinely likes his company, and he mistakes a TV repair shop for the ophthalmologist's office and thinks he's been given a clean bill of health). Word of God states that even if he did wear glasses, as bullheaded as he is, he would still make the same kind of blatant mistakes.
  • Interesting bit of trivia, there actually is an extremely rare condition in real life that causes people who are blind to think that they can see, called Anton–Babinski syndrome or Anton's Blindness. People with this condition can't be convinced that they are blind despite any evidence.
• My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic:
  • Fluttershy's introverted tendencies throughout her life result in a tremendous lack of self-awareness, to the point that she considers herself "a loudmouth" when others sometimes strain to hear her. In "Putting Your Hoof Down", this carries over into her resolve to stop being such a pushover (a status which she needed her friends' objective input to realize), causing her to fail to notice just how far in the other direction she's going until she notices how monstrous her reflection has become.
  • Scootaloo is stubbornly oblivious to the fact that acquiring a cutie mark actually requires personal introspection and self-discovery, instead simply trying whatever random activity or skill she can think of in hopes that this will prove to be her special talent. The other two Cutie Mark Crusaders, Applebloom and Sweetie Belle, follow her lead.
  • Pinkie Pie isn't fond of Mudbriar's stoic attitude and mannerisms, despite her sister Maud's own personality being similar to his. Case in point, when Maud and Mudbriar take out their pets to play, they marvel at the fun they have together. Pinkie, however, whispers to Maud that Twiggy is just a stick even though Boulder itself is just a rock. When Starlight points this out to her, Pinkie retorts that Boulder has "ten times the personality of some random stick!" Similarly, Pinkie thinks Starlight is joking when she points out that Maud is just as undeniably awkward and strange just as Mudbriar is.
• In The Oblongs, Helga Phugly thinks she is loved by all, especially the Debbies.
  Peggy: Let's see there's the popular kids, the jocks, the nerds, and then there's us.
  Helga: Hey don't lump me in with you losers. I am accepted by all groups. Hi Debbie, hi Debbie, hi Debbie, hi Debbie, hi Debbie, hi Debbie.
  The Debbies: Ewww!
  • Regarding a tea party with the Debbies:
    Helga: I’m sure my invitation got lost in the mail.
    Milo: You live in a fantasy world, don’t you Helga?
    Helga: What was that? I was thinking about my hundreds and hundreds of boyfriends.
  • When told point-blank that the Debbies can't stand her, Helga covers her ears and starts humming loudly and stomping.
• The Owl House: Amity Blight does this when she first met Luz, she disregards and/or ignores the majority of what she says, when she confronts Amity for nearly getting her killed, being mean to her and her friends or trying to have a friendly conversation, thinking that anytime Luz is around or tries to have any kind interaction with her, it automatically bothers Amity or gets her in trouble or humiliated, being mainly occupied with her problems and ignoring the harm she inflicts.
• Robotboy: Tommy Turnbull is smart and has an unrequited crush on Bambi yet he never gets the hint that Lola Mbola, who is one of his best friends, has a crush on him, despite how unsubtle she is about it.
• The Simpsons:
  • Marge Simpson can sometimes adopt this philosophy in addition to being a Stepford Smiler. One example is her saying that Homer used to be a fat, immature slob before they dated and now he's an entirely different person. There's also this.
    Bart: I've got to go teach some kids a lesson.
    Marge: I choose to take that literally.
  • It turns out that Jessica Lovejoy's Bitch in Sheep's Clothing act was pretty transparent to her father Reverend Lovejoy, who knew about her crimes and expulsion from boarding school but just chooses to cover his ears whenever it comes up.
• South Park:
  • Eric Cartman is so wrapped up in his own ginormous ego that he will ignore anything which contradicts his glorified self-image, and what he cannot ignore he will twist in his own favor. The best example is, of course, claiming he's not fat, but "big boned", but there are other examples too. On one occasion he frantically tries to avoid a fight with Wendy who's mad at him, because if he loses to a girl, nobody will think he's cool anymore. When he's forced to fight Wendy anyway and loses, the other kids tell him that not only did they never think he was cool, but they couldn't possibly think any less of him than they already did. Cartman thinks that they're just saying it to make him feel better, meaning they care about him, meaning they STILL think he's cool.
  • Cartman's tendency toward mental gymnastics for self-aggrandisement is directly called out in the episode "Fishsticks", where he takes more and more credit for Jimmy's joke, until even at gunpoint because of it, he has convinced himself he came up with the joke all by himself. His actual input entirely consisted of eating snacks on Jimmy's couch.
  • "Asspen" finds Stan spelling out the fact that he's not interested in competing against the resident Jerk Jock of the ski resort, only for the latter to take every single word as a challenge.
• SpongeBob SquarePants:
  • In "A Pal for Gary" SpongeBob not only completely ignores the words of warning a woman gives him about the Gremlins-like creatures she sells, but also ignores when it turns into a massive killer eel in favor of chastising Gary for "bullying" it even when he is in its mouth and about to be eaten.
  • What really sells SpongeBob SquarePants (ditto for Patrick Star) as this is the fact that he just cannot seem to comprehend the obvious fact that not only is Squidward not his best friend, but in fact hates him to the point of madness, even though Squidward has flat-out told SpongeBob to his face that he can't stand him on at least one occasion. This is best shown in "Little Yellow Book", where we're shown a scene of Squidward chewing SpongeBob out; while in reality, Squidward was furious at SpongeBob for letting Gary into his home and Gary chewing up many of his possessions, complete with Squidward screaming "horrible words that should never be used around strangers" in his face, SpongeBob sees it as Squidward giving him "his profound opinions on how to properly raise and care for a household pet."
    Squidward: Great Neptune, I had no idea. The depth of his delusion is awe-inspiring.
  • Squidward Tentacles is oblivious to the fact that he's not that good a clarinet player. It's implied that even SpongeBob knows it, but doesn't have the heart to tell him.
• On Total Drama World Tour, Cody. Courtney a bit too, though she was at least suspicious that Duncan was cheating with Gwen behind her back; when Cody found out he seemed completely shocked, despite the fact that in-universe it's been a common theory they liked each other going back to season two.
• Yam Roll: Minamiko acknowledges (and manipulates) all of her suitors except Yam Roll.

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