Global Ignorance: Difference between revisions

{{trope}}

 

For some reason, TV producers seem to consider geography to be the most basic form of human knowledge. When they want to show that a person is an idiot, they almost inevitably show some geographic mistake, such as mistaking a continent for a country, or inability to find a given location on a map.

Often a character who isn't characterized as being either [[The Smart Guy]] or [[The Ditz]] will make understandable but amusing slips along these lines to cement their position in the intellectual hierarchy particularly if they have been being a bit too smart recently. A good example would be thinking Thai people are from Taiwan which is wrong, but not completely stupid either.

 

 

{{examples}}

== Anime and Manga ==

* In ''[[Mahou Sensei Negima]]'', when Makie reveals how much she's learned much about the history and geography of Mundas Magicus in a few weeks, Yuna is surprised, given that normally she can't find Germany, Italy or France on a map, and thinks that Switzerland is near England and that ''Australia'' is around Europe.

'''Joey:''' Um.... Pennsylvania Dutch come from Pennsylvania.

'''Chandler:''' But original Dutch people? Would you say they come from somewhere like the Netherlands?

*** For some reason, Chandler doesn't point out that Pennsylvania Dutch are actually German. <s> The word "deutsch" degraded into "dutch" because it's easier to say.</s> It took to the 19th century for it to be firmly established that in English, Dutch referred to people from one of the Low Countries, and not to the Deutsch.

** Joey also spent an episode trying to find somewhere he could change US dollars into "Vermont money".

** Although in fairness, while you can't genuinely see Russia from Alaska, its not exactly a huge stretch to say 'You can practically see Russia across the Bering Straight'. It's only about 50 miles from western Alaska to eastern Russia. Sarah Palin may not be the sharpest knife in the draw, but she's not actually psychotic.

* Conservative humorists had a field day when then-candidate Barack Obama mentioned visiting 57 states.