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{{trope|wppage=Anti-intellectualism}}
{{quote|"''Our great democracies still tend to think that a stupid man is more likely to be honest than a clever man.''"
|'''Bertrand Russell'''}}
Here's how it plays out: [[The Smart Guy|Smart People]] are mean, [[The Ditz|Dumb People]] are nice. Geniuses are psychotic and high-strung, idiots are nice and sweet, because [[Ignorance Is Bliss]]. [[Brains and Brawn|In comedy]] [[Boke and Tsukkomi Routine|pairs]] the genius will [[Dope Slap|smack around the idiot]].
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A direct inversion of [[Good Is Not Dumb]]. Contrast with [[Gentleman and a Scholar]], in which an intelligent character is one of the ''most'' pleasant, thoughtful, and well-adjusted people around. Try not to get this and [[Silent Protagonist]] mixed up.
{{examples}}▼
▲{{examples}}
== Advertising ==
* Diesel clothing's
** This is a common theme in advertising, since many people equate stupidity with frivolity and irresponsibility, traits that allow consumers to justify spending more money when they can't afford it, "just for fun."
== Anime
* The stupidest character in ''[[Sailor Moon]]'', Usagi, is also the good-est.
** Usagi is not so much as stupid as she is lazy and ditzy. However, her dub counterpart Serena '''is''' stupider then the original, complete with [[Valley Girl]] speech. Her boyfriend, on the other hand, is a super-ultra genius, if the books in his apartment are any indication.
* 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). In the original novels he was ''very'' much a [[Deadpan Snarker]], and did that [[Obfuscating Stupidity]] thing mostly because it was funnier that way.
** Found to a lesser extent in Amelia. While not really stupid, she's incredibly naive, tends to see the world in black and white, and occasionally strives into [[Cloudcuckoolander]] territory. She's also a shrine maiden who honestly wants to help everyone around her.
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* ''[[Lucky Star]]'': Subverted with the smart but sweet-as-pie Miyuki; played straight with her mother.
* The titular character of [[Yotsuba&!]] isn't stupid for a five year old child. But there's a very large number of things she doesn't know, and she's very good by any definition.
* James, Jesse, and Meowth from ''[[Pokémon (anime)|Pokémon]]'' are the original [[Goldfish Poop Gang]] in anime, and clearly not very competent as bad guys - which is why, since 1997, [[Ensemble Darkhorse| the fans just ''love'' them.]]
== Comic Books ==
== Comics ==▼
* Averted during Mark Waid's run on ''[[Fantastic Four (Comic Book)|Fantastic Four]]'', in which Reed Richards is shown to be a decent, compassionate, loving family man—and then immediately embraced in ''[[Civil War (Comic Book)|Civil War]]'', which depicts Reed as a detached, emotionless, who holds lesser intellects in contempt and is perfectly willing to stuff supposed friends into an extradimensional concentration camp.
** Both Reed and [[Iron Man|Tony Stark]] were ultimately revealed to have been doing all that nasty stuff because they'd "done the math" and scientifically proven that as bad as the things they did during Civil War were, they were literally the only way to prevent the world from going to hell in a handbasket. This was intended to subvert this trope by showing that that they were actually the only ones trying to save the world. In practice, though, it made them look like [[Straw Vulcan]]s who inexplicably never bothered to tell anyone their "logical" plan at best, [[Well-Intentioned Extremist|Well Intentioned Extremists]] who weren't even willing to admit it might be possible to save the village without destroying the village at worst.
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** That "cure for all diseases" came at the cost of the life of one of his fellow former students, in this vision (which should've been memorable enough, as it was the end of that issue we discovered this.) He also turned into a "for the greater good" ([[Hot Fuzz|SHUT IT!!]]) fascist. That was the whole point of the vision. In his quest to "improve things for everyone", he turned into an uncaring prick who forgets that what's "good for everyone", isn't always. The point was that knowledge without at least some morality leads to bad things.
*** Of course, the only explanation for how he ended up "without at least some morality" in the vision (seeing as he was usually arguably the ''most'' moral of his team) is that somehow it went away when he got too smart.
** Prodigy
* Played straight in [[Ultimate Marvel]] when Hulk defeats Abomination because the latter "thinks too much."
** Speaking of the Hulk, [[Incredible Hulk|the regular 616 version]] is usually [[The Hero]] or at least an [[Anti-Hero]]. [[Depending on the Writer]], he is near mindless or at least has a childlike mentality. His main villain is an [[Evil Genius]] named ''The Leader'' who has super intelligence.
** Also inverted with the supposedly smart Grey Hulk. He's an anti-intellectual with an adolescent maturity level, but a brute animal cunning, and wins otherwise matched fights by simply being nastier than the other guy. And when Bruce's persona are integrated, he may be [[Good Is Not Nice]], but also [[Good Is Not Dumb]].
* In one ''[[Garfield]]'' strip, Garfield berates [[Dogs Are Dumb|Odie's vapid stupidity]] and rhetorically asks who could possibly love a grinning idiot like him. Cue a sudden downpour that soaks everything. Everything but Odie, who is somehow shielded from the rain.▼
{{quote|'''Garfield (while looking up at the sky):''' [[God|You]] stay out of this!}}▼
* ''[[Krazy Kat]]'' has Ignatz, the mean, bitter and often discontented mouse, constantly tossing bricks at the sweet, loving, rather dim-witted Kat. [[Selective Obliviousness|The fact that the Kat thinks the bricks are a sign of love]] helps his cause a lot.▼
== Films -- Animation ==
* In ''[[The Emperor's
** 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 reference, and to speak fluent, um, [[Suddenly Fluent in Gibberish|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".
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* A precept of The Party in ''[[Nineteen Eighty-Four]]'': "Ignorance is Strength"
** Yes, the dumb always get the good things, while the smart people are ungood and must end up in [[Room 101]].
* In ''[[The Sound and
* ''[[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 [[Genius Ditz|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 [[Brother-Sister Incest|got some seriously taboo desires]] and ends up {{spoiler|[[Driven to Suicide]]}}, and Jason, a [[Jerkass]]. 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 ''[[The Magic Goes Away (novel)|The 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.
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** 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 (who, in the end, gets tricked into outsmarting himself).
* Blaggut, the illiterate, less-than-bright searat in ''[[Redwall|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 [[Exclusively Evil]] role of vermin, but eventually {{spoiler|kills him when the captain murders the abbey's Badger Mother}}.
* The ''[[Discworld]]'' novels will occasionally feature a stupid, more sympathetic villain (Banjo of ''[[
** Possibly played straight with Brutha from ''[[
** This is explicitly subverted with the characters of Carrot and Vimes. Carrot is a good natured, kind, and generally optimistic person who is often described as "simple". After this description, however, the books never forget to mention that [[Good Is Not Dumb|"simple" doesn't mean stupid]], and as the books go on it is clear that Carrot has an incredible deductive mind. Vimes, on the other hand is a cynical grouch who has little use for most people around him, but it's made clear that he truly loves his city and those who work under him, not to mention his wife and son.
{{quote|'''Angua:''' Someone has to be very complex indeed to be as simple as Carrot.}}
*** Vimes is often regarded by others as not very bright, but he makes up for it through a combination of obstinacy and being [[Dangerously Genre Savvy]].
***
** Cohen and his 'horde' from ''[[
* In ''[[Harry Potter (novel)|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 [[Idiot Ball|most idiotic and suicidal possible action]] to solve each and every plot throughout the books.
** Contrast them with Voldemort, who was described as having a terrifyingly keen intellect as a student and was even said by ''Dumbledore'' himself to have been one of the most brilliant students Hogwarts ever had.
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* 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 [[Sturgeon's Law|what we normally see on TV]] that "extolling the virtues of education and intelligence" actually makes the show unique.
** Toby is possibly the ultimate definition of "Doesn't suffer fools gladly."
* See also [[Aaron Sorkin]]'s ''[[Studio 60
* [[Playing with a Trope|Played with]] in ''[[Doctor Who]]'', in which [[The Hero]] is [[Informed Ability|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 [[The Chessmaster|seventh]] and [[Beware the Nice Ones|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.
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* In one episode of the 1990s ''[[The Outer Limits|Outer Limits]]'', [[Doogie Howser, M.D.]] plays a man whose mental retardation renders him immune to Id-unleashing parasites.
** That sounds [[Futurama|oddly familiar]]...
*
* In ''[[Survivor]] Allstars'' episode 5, the three tribes are tasked with building a raft out of bamboo that they are given. Two of them proceed to build nice looking rafts, while the third tribe notes that all bundled together, the raft will not sink, and out of laziness and exhaustion, simply leave the bundle as is. Naturally, the bundle of wood, while being the worst looking raft, proves to be by far the fastest and leave the other two tribes that took the time to carefully build their rafts far behind.
* ''Heavily'' averted in ''[[Primeval]]''. All the main characters are typically extremely intelligent, if not in terms of their education then in common sense at least.
* In the [[Made for TV Movie]] of ''[[Brave New World (novel)|Brave New World]]'' this is an actual ad campaign for a media company. (Which just happened to be [[Biting the Hand Humor|modeled after the "TV is Good" campaign]] for ABC...)
* In the soap opera ''[[All My Children]],'' cunning (often) villain Adam Chandler had a twin brother Stuart who was both very sweet and quite dumb.
* In ''[[Eureka]]'', Sheriff Carter is frequently shown finding solutions to problems that none of the geniuses around him can't find.
* ''[[How I Met Your Mother]]'': Ted seems to be at his most annoying when he's displaying conspicuous intellect. He even acknowledged this himself in one episode, recognizing that he was being a "douchebag" when reciting (from memory) Dante's [[Divine Comedy]] in the original Italian, a legitimately impressive achievement.
* ''Fox And Friends'' has been accused of anti-intellectualism, especially by [[The Daily Show|Jon Stewart]]. He has special contempt for Gretchen Carlson, who plays the part of the [[Dumb Blonde]] on the show despite being valedictorian of her high school, a Stanford honors graduate in sociology who also studied at Oxford, and virtuoso violinist. She has to Google words like "czar" and "ignoramus" on the show.
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== Music ==
* Pink's "Stupid Girls" criticises the trope and urges young women to think and have ambition in life.
* [[Gorillaz]] gives us 2D, who isn't too bright, but definitely a nice person; he's a supporter of the Free Tibet campaign, and fans often comment on how [[Ignorance Is Bliss|adorably innocent]] he is. Moreso than Murdoc, his crazy and amoral bandmate.▼
{{quote|'''Paula Cracker''' (talking about 2D in [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v{{=}}yBRFRcB4gCA this interview]: He was very sweet. A bit thick, though.}}▼
▲== Newspaper Comics ==
▲* In one ''[[Garfield]]'' strip, Garfield berates [[Dogs Are Dumb|Odie's vapid stupidity]] and rhetorically asks who could possibly love a grinning idiot like him. Cue a sudden downpour that soaks everything. Everything but Odie, who is somehow shielded from the rain.
▲{{quote|'''Garfield (while looking up at the sky):''' [[God|You]] stay out of this!}}
▲* ''[[Krazy Kat]]'' has Ignatz, the mean, bitter and often discontented mouse, constantly tossing bricks at the sweet, loving, rather dim-witted Kat. [[Selective Obliviousness|The fact that the Kat thinks the bricks are a sign of love]] helps his cause a lot.
* Zero in ''[[Beetle Bailey]]'' is [[The Ditz]] of the group, but also the hardest worker (he does the work of two men, which is why Beetle always wants him as a partner) and the nicest, having once refused to remove his homemade camouflage because [[Friend to All Living Things| some birds built a nest in it]].
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== Tabletop Games ==
* A major tenet of Imperial dogma in ''[[Warhammer
** "Blessed is the mind too small for doubt."
** Within the metaphysics of the universe, close-minded dogmatism is one of the only things [[Justified Trope|that can stop]] [[I Did What I Had to Do|a normal human from]] [[Mind Rape|falling]] to [[The Corruption|Chaos.]]
** [[The Ogre|Ogryns]] follow this tenet without knowing it. They have blind faith in the [[A God Am I|Emperor]], and while some fought on the wrong side during the Horus Heresy, it is highly suspected that they were lied to about which side they were on.
== Theater ==
▲* ''[[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 [[Genius Ditz|smarter in a few ways]].
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* In ''[[Backyard Sports]]'', Pete Wheeler, who is dumb, is actually extremely nice. Dmitri Petrovich, who is incredibly smart, is mean. Averted with Reese Worthington, who is smart but nice (and is not a nerd).
* [[Catgirl|Felicia]] has been generally established as the nicest and sweetest main character in the ''[[Darkstalkers]]'' series. Her appearances in other games, however, repeatedly suggest that she's also [[The Ditz]] on an almost painful level.
* Inverted in ''[[I.M. Meen]]'' where the antagonist is an evil wizard who can't spell and hates studious children while the protagonist is one such child, described throughout the game as 'smarty' and 'bookworm'.
* Subverted in ''[[Portal 2]]'' with {{spoiler|Wheatly.}} Though he does a [[Face Heel Turn]] {{spoiler|upon gaining control of the Enrichment Center and getting an intelligence boost}} ultimately he's WORSE than [[GLaDOS]]. {{spoiler|He attempts to trick and kill Chell and does not care that his actions will cause the entire Enrichment Center to blow up.}} Ultimately he's plagued by poor common sense regardless of his morality.
** Throughout Portal, there's this distinct vibe concerning Prometheus. In the mythology, Prometheus was definitely lacking in hindsight, his brother, Epithemus, is lacking in foresight. [[GLaDOS]] never learns from her mistakes, only altering her modus operandi in the later half of the game. {{spoiler|Wheatley takes the role of Epithemus. Definitely learning from the mistakes of [[GLaDOS]], but rarely thinking ahead to formulate plans or traps.}}
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== Web Comics ==
* Of the four main heroes of ''[[8-
** Also, it is because he is so oblivious to the evil of his "best friend" [[Villain Protagonist]] that he
{{quote|'''Fighter:''' Because friends look out for one another and ''we're'' friends, but Black Mage is my ''best'' friend. Also, I can block any attack and kill ''anything'' that bleeds. '''''Hint'''''.}}
** ''8-Bit'' pretty much nails this trope. There are only a few characters which can be considered intelligent: Sarda, who is as much as a [[Jerkass]] as one can be. White Mage, who started out with a kind, patient and gentle personality which eroded massively over time thanks to the idiots she has to suffer. Princess Sara is very definitely evil and is also more competent then every other official villain in the series. And Thief as well as Drizz'l are borderline cases: they carry the [[Idiot Ball]] more then once and are just smart enough to act as the [[Only Sane Man]] for their teams. Also, both are evil.
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** Also notice that King Steve is completely idiotic, but he's also a complete monster. Waroween, anyone?
** There's more than a little proof that Fighter was originally both intelligent and kind, but eventually just got tired of all the idiots in the world and pretty much turned off his brain.
* ''[[The Adventures of Dr. McNinja]]'': Dr. McNinja claims [https://web.archive.org/web/20090901201321/http://drmcninja.com/page.php?pageNum=47&issue=13 that this story arc's] [[Spoof Aesop|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 Snarker]]s 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.
* [[Psychopathic Manchild|Thog]] of ''[[The
** Elan, however, is a straight example.
*** Especially when you consider his smart [[Evil Twin]].
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* 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 [[The Ditz|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 too stupid to fully understand what he was doing was wrong, he automatically gets a free pass to Heaven.
* ''[[Bob and George]'':] [http://www.bobandgeorge.com/archives/020722c Why George forgot his powers]
* ''[[The Stupiders]]
* In ''[[Sinfest]]'', [
== Web Original ==
* Subverted in ''[[
** 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 thrown into jail. The audience of course is expected to know that he's just spouting [BS].
* Generally averted in the ''[[Whateley Universe]]'' stories. The (high school) protagonists are all intelligent and also good, with about half of them in the genius category, and several of them seriously focused on scholastic achievement. Some of the worst people on campus, like Buster, are the dumbest.
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** 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. The 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 because his usual course of abuse towards Pinky is rooted in witty recriminations).
* ''[[The Grim Adventures of Billy
* 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 [[Big No|Farnsworth's ire]].
** Mars University also parodies this trope with its motto,"knowledge brings fear."
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** Just about any character played by Bill Fagerbakke seems to epitomize this trope.
*** Even the [[Oz|sadistic Neo-Nazi prison guard?]]
* In the ''U.S. Acres'' segment of ''[[Garfield and Friends]]'', the Incredibly Stupid Swamp Monster. Actually a robot mistaken for a swamp monster due to being covered with swamp-moss and mud, he was pretty stupid, but also a [[Gentle Giant]].
* Though he's still pretty nasty, Megatron's rather dim lackey in ''[[Transformers Armada]]'', Demolishor, is probably the "nicest" one out of the Decepticons.▼
* [[Transformers]]:
** Grimlock, in any incarnation of the group, is easily the dumbest of the Autobots, which is the big reason fans of the franchise ''love'' him. Sure, he messes up a lot due to his lack of smarts, but ''so'' entertaining that it's impossible for ''anyone'' (in-universe or out) to stay mad at him.
▲** 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. {{spoiler|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 slightly more intelligent than average ( Homer: Is there no room in the world for somebody with a 130 IQ? ) . 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...
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* Lindsay from ''[[Total Drama Island]]'' and its followups.
* ''[[Recess]]'': While T.J.'s [[The Ditz]] and Mikey's a bit of a [[Cloudcuckoolander]], they're both some of the sweetest characters in the series.
* Played with in [[Animalia]], where Alligator actress Alegra becomes hightly intelligent after accidentally absorbing [[The Mentor|Livingstone]]'s intelligence, causing her to suddenly become a dangerously [[Evil Genius]], to the point Livingstone's rival Tyranicus ended up helping the protagonist to get the intelligence back because he'd rather have his rival in perfect state than an intelligent Alegra.Partially subverted in that Alegra [[Alpha Bitch|wasn't really a nice person to begin with]] (though her normal self [[Jerk with a Heart of Gold|does displays a softer side
* In ''[[The Powerpuff Girls]]'', Big Billy is clearly the dumbest member of the Gangrene Gang, which seems to make him the least malevolent, and he actually kind of likes the three heroines. He might have actually made a lasting [[Heel Face Turn]] in the episode "Slave the Day" had Blossom not [[Nice Job Breaking It, Hero| lost her temper and yelled at him]] when he was simply trying to help.
▲* [[Gorillaz]] gives us 2D, who isn't too bright, but definitely a nice person; he's a supporter of the Free Tibet campaign, and fans often comment on how [[Ignorance Is Bliss|adorably innocent]] he is. Moreso than Murdoc, his crazy and amoral bandmate.
* Doofus Rick from ''[[Rick and Morty]]''. Compared to other Ricks at the Citadel of Ricks, he's pretty dumb (still [[Genius Ditz|a lot smarter than the average human]], though) and is one of only two Ricks (the other being Officer Rick) with far more good qualities than bad ones.
▲{{quote|'''Paula Cracker''' (talking about 2D in [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v{{=}}yBRFRcB4gCA this interview]: He was very sweet. A bit thick, though.}}
* The Pakleds on ''[[Star Trek: Lower Decks]]'' are an alien race that was intentionally designed to be [[Stupid Evil]], and while they debuted in ''[[Star Trek: The Next Generation|Next Generation]]'', this series expands their role and takes their stupidity to new heights. Like say, testing a bomb, only to discover bombs are not reusable. In a meta sense, this makes them [[Laughably Evil]] and almost lovable.
* Clayface in ''[[Harley Quinn (TV series)|Harley Quinn]]''. No way to sugarcoat this, the man is ''an idiot'' but he's also the least dangerous of Harley's gang. He's only truly a threat in one episode where {{spoiler|he's brainwashed by Dr. Psycho.}}
*''[[Kim Possible]]'': While Ron isn’t necessarily less intelligent than Gill, and outsmarted him at the end of the episode he appears in, Ron’s decidedly more naive than the snarky mutant bully.
* In many adaptations of ''[[Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles]]'', Shredder's moronic henchmen Rocksteady and Bebop. [[Laughably Evil]] at the best of times, their incompetence almost endears them to fans.
== Real Life ==
* Averted in [[Real Life]]
* There seems to be an unspoken assumption in American politics that "intellectual" is a synonym for "elitist," and therefore
** It seems to have hit a peak of ridiculousness during the 2008 Democratic Primaries, when the two front runners, [[Hillary Rodham Clinton]] and [[Barack Obama]] were both getting painted with the elitist brush, since they were both well-educated Law school graduates. It created the surreal images of Hillary Clinton drinking shots in a bar, all the candidates appearing on ''[[Saturday Night Live]]'' and ''The Tyra Banks Show
** This trend in the U.S. (and to a somewhat lesser extent in Canada) is discussed in the book "[[More Money Than Brains]]", by Laura Penny.
* There is the old saying "A little knowledge is a dangerous thing, and [[Ignorance Is Bliss]]
* [[Emma Watson]] (who plays the above mentioned Hermione Granger) has openly spoken against this trope, saying "There are too many stupid girls in the media. Hermione's not scared to be clever. I think sometimes really smart girls dumb themselves down a bit, and that's bad".
* Adam Carolla had [
* A deadly application of this trope happened in Cambodia where intellectuals were among the people singled out as enemies of the state and slaughtered en masse. Often the criteria for being labelled a intellectual involved something as simple as happening to wear glasses or looking "scholarly."
{{reflist}}
[[Category:Goodness Tropes]]
[[Category:Anti-Intellectualism]]
[[Category:Sour Grapes Tropes]]
▲[[Category:Dumb Is Good]]
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