Idiot of the Week: Difference between revisions

* In the Michael Crichton novel ''State of Fear'', the characters fall into three distinct categories: smart educated good characters, who don't believe human-caused global warming is an immediate threat and can quote entire geological surveys in their defense; smart uneducated good characters who start out believing in global warming but change their minds when confronted with facts; and bad characters who believe human-caused global warming and defend themselves with loud, pissy, easily-refuted propaganda.

** In one memorable instance, a minor character is effectively used as a concern troll by Crichton as she displays graph after graph - which the reader gets to see too - that "prove" global warming doesn't exist, and is pretty much lost on how to deal with the problem.

* In a second David Weber example, the novel ''Crusade,'' based on the ''Starfire'' board game, has Liberal Progressives ("LibProgs") and Liberals acting like complete idiots throughout the book for no other reason than they're, well, Liberals. Basically, Weber took the historical bent of liberal parties towards diplomacy and jacked it up to an extremely high level, to the point where you start wondering how these morons got themselves elected in the first place.

* The Truax was a response to [[Dr. Seuss|The Lorax]] written by logging supporters who didn't pay enough attention and thought Seuss' book was an attack on them. The Lorax-analogue, a vaguely racist-looking tree man named "the Guardbark", is an excitable, easily-swayed dimwit who the Truax (a logger) manages to convince with lazy and sometimes completely dissonant arguments; when the Guardbark asks what the logging industry is doing for endangered species, the Truax basically tells him, "Well, who's gonna care about gross nasty things like ticks that carry germs that kill cute little Cuddlebears (Yes, Cuddlebears)? And I mean, sure, everyone likes these minnows, but it's too hard to change what we're doing and we don't really want to, so we won't." The Guardbark is totally down with that excuse.

* ''[[Boston Legal]]'' usually avoids this, but sometimes Denny comes across as this when talking about being a Republican.

* There was a particularly [[Egregious]] example in one episode of ''[[All in The Family]].'' The issue: Sexism. The [[Idiot of the Week]]? The extremely liberal Michael, for whom this viewpoint was completely out of character.

* Strangely common on the [[The Big Bang Theory]], considering that most of the cast are scientists and generally viewed as geniuses, it's rare that the 'stupider' characters take this role.

** One notable instance was Marge's issues with her sister Patty coming out of the closet, after talking up a big show about how open minded she is about homosexuality. She fully recognizes what a hypocrite she's being, and indeed there are a lot of cases where someone believes they're completely accepting of gay and lesbian people until someone they're close to comes out.

*** What makes this example particularly odd is that eight years before that episode was one where the family befriended a gay man (voiced by openly gay director John Waters) and not only was Marge perfectly fine with him, she chewed Homer out for being homophobic and thinking that hanging around John would make Bart "go gay". [[Aesop Amnesia]], or [[Opinion Myopia]]?

*** How come we haven't mentioned [[South Park]] yet?

*** Because [[Crapsack World|it's SOUTH PARK, that's why.]]

** [[Fat Idiot|Peter]] from Family Guy of all people even lampshades the [[Transparent Closet]] before the commercial break by essentially saying, [[Sarcasm Mode|"Oh and get this, I like beer!"]] though Lois is the worst of the bunch as it's not only painfully obvious that she's a [[Strawman Political]] to [[Author Avatar|Brian's]] [[Author Tract]], it's hypocritical without being [[Hypocritical Humor]] as she's suddenly Mrs. Brady when the subject of drug legalization or gay marriage pops up despite being a pothead (and harder drugs) with recurring bouts of [[Depraved Bisexual]]. Meg's excused because she's a [[Butt Monkey]] both in and out the show's universe and represents Teen Wangst and Marge is Flanderization increasingly more naive to the times, but Lois serves no other purpose than as a Foil with no humor or lampshading involved.

** Maybe because a flamethrower is a (very) deadly weapon, and this is a children's show?

*** As opposed to what, (mildly) deadly? He was actually the most limited in his powers, the others could control the ring's element not just produce it. He never got to end forest fires or anything.