Stupidity, as well as intelligence, has often been a trope in television. The reason these traits turned into tropes is that it's very hard to tell the audience that a character is smart, or stupid, without going overboard. Naturally, there is some middle ground, just not a whole lot. After all, why settle for a character with slightly-above average, albeit far more realistic, intelligence when you can have a TV Genius?
See also Intelligence Tropes and Anti-Intellectualism. A character who Took a Level in Dumbass has tumbled a few notches down the list as a result of Flanderization.
Not all of these tropes are mutually exclusive, and some of them even complement each other. For instance, an Absent-Minded Professor can easily be a Cloudcuckoolander as well.
In approximate ascending order by intellect:
Tropes:
The morons
- The Ditz: This character reaches more deeply into the abyss of stupidity. Chances are they will be looked down on by other characters, and probably be book dumb AND street dumb, but usually have someone to help them out.
- Brainless Beauty: What they lack in brains, they make up in good looks.
- Dumb Blonde: Contrasting the Brainy Brunette.
- Dumb Muscle: When you put all your points into Strength and none into Intelligence.
- Half-Witted Hillbilly: Rural folks who are pretty dumb.
- Upper-Class Twit: The incredibly rich are also incredibly stupid.
- Working-Class People Are Morons: ...as are the poor.
- Too Dumb to Live: This character is going to die, and probably soon. They will walk home alone in the wrong side of town to call their friend about the zombie apocalypse, right before being killed by said zombies. If they are a recurring character on a show, expect plenty of pushes on the Reset Button, lest they join the undead themselves....
- Lethally Stupid: This character is stupid yet due to sheer dumb luck they manage to avoid getting themselves harmed from their actions but end up harming others or always having to be rescued by friends.
Not too smart, but not too stupid
- Book Dumb: This character isn't dumb at all, but they won't score high on school tests.
- Cloudcuckoolander: This character is a daydreamer. Barely even on the list, but a little naive nonetheless.
- The Cuckoolander Was Right: Because sometimes a daydreamer is more than just a daydreamer.
- Dumber Than They Look: The character fits several aspects of "The Smart Guy" stereotype, except for actual intelligence.
- The Fool: Here we reach into a character who is more than a little bit dumb. They may not be stupid and they can go through life without much assistance, but they're still not the sharpest knife in the drawer.
- Only Smart by Comparison: A character is stupid, but looks smart compared to other idiots around them.
- Too Dumb to Fool: Dumb. But not foolish.
- Smarter Than You Look: A character appears to be dumb at first (usually by falling into some negative stereotype) but is eventually shown to be intelligent and learned.
Examples:
Real Life
- Comedian Russell Brand did terrible in school. His book even has notes from his teachers who suspected he was Obfuscating Stupidity. Listening to his stand up and reading his book he comes off as extremely intelligent even culturally well versed.
- George Carlin didn't do too well in school and has said that either the work would be too difficult or too easy and he'd be bored. Carlin also goofed off in class quite a bit as well. Knowing his stand up, Carlin is possibly one of the smartest comedians who ever lived and some even call him a philosopher.
- Frank Zappa hated mainstream education and was a self-taught performer and composer. He even took his children out of school at age 15 and refused to pay for their college. Zappa was never anti-education, being a fiercely intelligent and near-obsessive autodidact, but his general disdain for everything to do with The Man left him with no respect whatsoever for the "formal" side of formal education.
- One YouTube video showed an amazing example of this trope. A poorly educated Chinese man with no electrical training builds complex robots out of stuff from junkyards. His creations are amazing. He is clearly ingenious and clever.
- A classic example is Dave Thomas, the founder of the Wendy's restaurant chain: ridiculously successful restaurateur, philanthropist, advertising icon, and high-school dropout. He finally got his GED in 1993 (at sixty-one, mind) because he thought his success might encourage others to take the wrong lesson and drop out like he did.
- Bill Lear — if his name sounds familiar it's because he invented the personal jet that bears his name
— and he never even had an opportunity to drop out of high school as he never went beyond the 8th grade. The Wright brothers themselves were simple bicycle mechanics who possessed what amounted to only a basic education for that era (which wasn't much).
- Sammy Davis Jr. worked in show business his entire life and never attended school.
- From a study that was quoted on The Colbert Report: out of all the billionaires in America, 5% come from Harvard while 35% come from "the college of No College Education". Also keep in mind the percentage of Americans who graduated from Harvard; it's got to be less than six million people.
- As quoted above, Albert Einstein supposedly wasn't successful at school, and thus ended up as a clerk in patent office. Fortunately, this gave him plenty of time to daydream, and while Einstein wasn't a particularly fast thinker, he was a very deep one, which in turn led to his discovery of the theory of relativity. This is, in fact, a 100% thoroughly debunked myth (except about the speed/depth of his thoughts — depending on his knowledge of trivia, he might have done very well on Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? but poorly on Jeopardy!). Einstein did extremely well in school. Einstein was actually a child mathematics prodigy who was doing both differential and integral calculus by age 12. It is true, however, that he didn't like the then-very-militaristic German schools. The myth may have arisen because the grade rankings in Switzerland (where he was born and went to school) are opposite to the ones in Germany (where he lived later). In Germany, 1 is the best grade, 6 the worst. In Switzerland, 6 is the best and 1 the worst. It could be assumed some Germans heard that Einstein "only" got 6s and came to the wrong conclusion. Also, when he first tried to apply at ETH Zürich (a science and technology university) he did not pass the entrance exam, because it was written in French. He still got exceptional marks in mathematics and physics. The other source of this myth may be the opinion of his teachers, who claimed that young Einstein was often prone to daydreaming and had trouble in focusing. Which is not surprising given that Einstein had already mastered large parts of his curriculum and was simply bored as hell. And one more thing: Einstein was not 'just a clerk in patent office'. He was a technical expert tasked with approving patent claims, a job that usually required a doctorate just to apply. He had, however, some "social" problems with some of his teachers. Best known is the case of his private teacher, when he was five-years-old. The teacher quit after young and irascible Albert threw a chair at her.
- A similar case with Alan Turing. The British concept of being "educated" when he was young placed a heavy emphasis on the Classics, literature, history, and social sciences. Turing, who was brilliant at mathematics but weaker on these other subjects, was considered too narrowly-focused by the standards of the system. Of course, he went on to be Britain's greatest codebreaker during WWII and also laid the groundwork for modern computing as we know it.
- Thomas Edison did poorly during his brief time in grade school as a child — which may have had something to do with undiagnosed hearing loss — yet he became one of the most successful inventors the US has ever known. He invented the phonograph, introduced practical incandescent lighting and power generation, started the first American motion picture company, and developed a system of corporate research and development caught on throughout the world. His mother started homeschooling him when he was about ten; he was a voracious reader and did his own chemistry experiments. His schooling basically ended at age 12 when he started working as a food vendor and newspaper boy on the Great Trunk Railroad, and through a youth spent hustling he learned telegraphy, started patenting inventions, and went into business. His favorite science was chemistry, but he taught himself a little bit of just about everything over the years with the help of an increasingly huge research library. He could never have produced so many inventions or gotten so successful without help from a lot of talented employees, many of whom he hired specifically because they had formal education or specialized knowledge that he lacked. Edison's treatment of rivals and employees who challenged his authority does require scrutiny, and he did more than once lose his dominance in the very industries he had founded by saying It Will Never Catch On to things such as the alternating current power grid and phonograph recording deals with famous artists. That said, nobody can deny that he left his mark on the world and changed innovation from a solitary pursuit into an industry in itself.
- Especially talented and intelligent children may often receive poor grades for a variety of reasons. Studies have shown that intelligence can manifest in many different ways. For example, a kid with good tactile intelligence might perform poorly in mathematics even if he has an intrinsic understanding of mechanics. Teaching styles often only address certain kinds of intelligence, putting certain children at a disadvantage. Intelligent children with learning disabilities such as dyslexia can also fall behind if their needs are not properly addressed.
- Math teachers routinely expect students to show how they reached their answer, and reduce scores if they don't, regardless of how correct the answer is. Gifted students who can work out the answer in their heads see no need for the step-by-step procedure, so they suffer for it. On the other hand, this method of grading really is meant to help out students who aren't too good at math, as showing your work often gets you enough points to pass so as long as you've answered a handful of questions correctly.
- Adolf Hitler is an example. He was a notoriously bad student and dropped out of school when he was only 16-years-old. Yet he also had an excellent memory and had a lifelong love of reading, and would eventually have a private collection of more than 10,000 books (although, on the other hand, he used that excellent memory to memorise passages from other authors and pass them off as his own, and believed that the smartest way to read a book was to commit the "useful" parts to memory and ignore the rest). He rose to seize control of an advanced industrial country and made some considerable headway towards conquering the entire world. As time went on, however, poor decisions and generally degrading sanity caught up with him.
- Marshall Mathers is an interesting case of this, he hated school and did poorly in it, repeating ninth grade multiple times, but he loved books and read the dictionary front to back multiple times, which he says gave him his incredible skill at rhyming.
- Craig Ferguson dropped out of high school at age 16 and since then has had no formal education. He considers himself an autodidact, having read for pleasure pretty much everything the rest of us are forced to read in school. He is thus incredibly well-read and extremely literate and articulate. He now has his own show, a Peabody Award, and two well-received books to his credit. Keep in mind that in the British educational system, leaving school at 16 is equivalent to graduating high school in the U.S. Only those students seeking to move onto university (U.S.: "college") go to school beyond the age of 16, as they study up for their A-levels (exams intended to be used for entry into university).
- In fact, this trope would partially apply to a majority of people in some countries. For example, studies show that, in France, people who have been reported to have a higher IQ than average (above one standard deviation from the average, meaning approximately superior to 115) are also globally low achievers at school. They have lower ratios of success at the "Baccalauréat" (High School graduating exam), and a higher proportion of them drop school before actually taking the "Baccalauréat". This might or might not be true in other countries as well. This is frequently believed to at least partly stem from the rather rigid and conformity-oriented French education system and the lack of formation of teachers relatively to this matter (although significant changes have been made thanks to governmental initiatives).
- The late stand-up comedian Mitch Hedberg. During an interview, he revealed that he lost interest in being book smart around 10th grade and barely graduated with a high school diploma. He also lampshaded it a bit with this great one-liner:
"I never went to college, but if I did, I would've taken all my tests in a restaurant because the customer is always right."
- Quentin Tarantino never finished high school but has been tested with having a genius-level IQ and has an encyclopedic knowledge of film. He also admitted in an interview that he loved his history classes.
- Christopher Titus brings up that he barely finished high school and that he still had a substandard education at "California public schools." While not academically intelligent, his stand-up routine brings up a great deal of fantastic insights into human interaction and the importance of self-awareness. In his podcast he also points out that his close friend (and fellow podcast member) Tommy Primo was actually put into special ed only because he was too hyperactive to pay attention and was a troublemaker, one time even jumping from the second story of the school to escape some teachers. Tommy eventually became a stuntman (among others, doing work on Titus) and was asked back to the school for a career fair.
- Ringo Starr was notoriously uneducated due to years spent in the hospital as a child, but he was far from unintelligent. Besides being an excellent drummer, he had a very quick wit even for a Beatle.
- Emperor Akbar, of the Mughal dynasty and the 16th Century India, is known as one of the greatest and most respected rulers that India ever had for several reasons: developing a comprehensive, cohesive and standardized taxation system across India, developing a comprehensive military and bureaucratic organization for his empire, patronage of wit and art and music, love for philosophy and developing his own school of thought, for coopting Hindu elites into his regime (thereby ensuring their loyalty to his dynasty) and for fostering a culture of tolerance and co-existence between Hindus and Muslims (thereby ensuring a degree of social stability). All these things portray a clever, wise and hard-working bookish intellectual, isn't that so? Well, he was known to be illiterate.
- Likewise, Charlemagne. He had no education as a child (his father, Pepin "The Short" didn't see the point), but then had a huge Empire basically dropped on him by the Pope. He was functionally illiterate his entire life. His solution was to have books read to him, while he exercised: which is pretty darn clever in itself, given what we now know about the effects of exercise on learning. He was also famous for grilling diplomats about their home countries. He presided over a period that some historians call a "Little Renaissance" in the 8th Century AD, that saw a flowering of the arts on the continent thanks to the political stability imposed by Charlemagne. However, the Carolingian dynasty he founded ended up not lasting very long note , and more warfare was to come before the real Renaissance happened. English-language world history books tend not to talk about this period, because Charlemagne's influence didn't extend into England. Charlemagne came up with the Imperial system of weights and measures. While inferior to the later metric system: this was miles better than the systems which had existed previously simply because all the units were intrinsically related to one another and could be applied globally (a pint's a pound the world around). This system was not named for the British Empire, but in fact for the Holy Roman Empire.
- André Masséna, one of the most brilliant commanders of the French Revolution and the First Empire, had little chance of getting any kind of formal education in his childhood (what with being a poor orphan from Nice and having to work as his uncle's soap factory) and only learned to read and write in his late teens. Contrary to other generals of the same era who tried very hard to compensate for their lack of initial schooling by studying hard in their adult life, he never cared much about deepening his culture, instead relying on his instinct to make war.
- Stanley Kubrick, one of the most visionary directors of all time (who reportedly had an Improbably High I.Q. to boot), hated school and got poor grades. He often cut class to go to the movies, and he later criticized the American educational system for failing to provoke critical thought.
- The infamous bibliomaniac Stephen C. Blumberg stole over 23,600 books worth at least 5.3 million dollars from various libraries throughout the United States before being caught in 1990. Ironically, this very literary person (he never tried to sell any of the rare books he stole) was a poor student who struggled to complete high school and only attended six weeks of college before dropping out.
Smart, but eccentric
- Absent-Minded Professor: A character who's unbelievably intelligent but would forget their own head if it weren't attached.
- Brilliant, but Lazy: A character who is smart but rarely puts any effort into things, yet ends up being successful regardless.
- Ditzy Genius: A character who is clearly intelligent but has nothing in the way of common sense or tact. An expert at landing themselves in trouble.
- Genius Ditz: A totally ditzy character who is absolutely unbeatable in one area of expertise.
- Modern Major General: A character who is highly skilled in several areas, except for the one they're supposed to be skilled in.
- Southern-Fried Genius: Ain't got 'nough time to stand around explainin' quant'm mechanics and the intr'casies of wrangling non-linea' space-time fluctuations to no city slickers. Ya'll wanna use the teleeporta' or not? I got a chess match going against that insufferable genius feller, and the weasel's probably cheating while I kain't see the boards.
Conventional geniuses
- Book Smart: A character who gets good grades in school.
- Child Prodigy: A genius who just so happens to be a pre-teen kid.
- Brainy Baby: A genius who might still be in diapers or daycare.
- Child Prodigy: A genius who just so happens to be a pre-teen kid.
- Genius Bruiser: When The Smart Guy and The Big Guy are one and the same. A character who's highly intelligent and intellectually accomplished, while also being physically intimidating and useful in a fight.
- Gentleman and a Scholar: Not only ranks this character very high on the brain chain, they are also one of the nicest, if not the nicest, character in their own work. They probably wouldn't make a big deal knowing they're at the top either, not wanting to make their less intelligent friends uncomfortable.
- Insufferable Genius: A character who has talent, knows it, and will no doubt tell you again and again. While they are very close to the top of the brain chain, they can't reach it due to there being one valuable thing they can't seem to wrap their heads around, humility.
- The Smart Guy: A character who can always be depended on to do some Hollywood Hacking, provide some Sesquipedalian Loquaciousness, or have technical knowledge.
- Teen Genius: A genius who just so happens to be a teen. Exactly like the TV Genius (see below), but without the odd side effects.
- TV Genius: A character who, naturally, is smart, but only how an unintelligent person would imagine a genius to act. This usually includes a lack of social skills, an extensive (read: show off) vocabulary, and Nerd Glasses.
The biggest brains in the world
- Omnidisciplinary Scientist: A scientist who is skilled in every scientific discipline.
- Einstein Sue: A Mary Sue that, despite often having no reason, is depicted as the smartest character in the setting.
- The Philosopher: Has deep knowledge about the wisdom of the world and will talk about metaphysical problems, The Meaning of Life and moral dilemmas to a degree that only the smartest characters will understand. Other characters like the Insufferable Genius or The Professor will still learn from him. Is mostly portrayed as a Byronic Hero in fiction, which doesn't make him any less smart.
- World's Smartest Man: If you were somehow able to quantify and rank intelligence, this guy is #1.
- The Omniscient: The smartest possible character in fiction and on top of the brain chain. He knows everything relevant to the story, if not everything as a whole. Will often be neutral, or have an Omniscient Morality License.
Examples:
- Advertising
- Anime & Manga
- Comic Books
- Comic Strips
- Fan Works
- Films — Animation
- Films — Live-Action
- Internet
- Literature
- Live-Action TV
- Music
- Video Games
- Other Media
- Western Animation