Southern-Fried Genius: Difference between revisions
→Literature
m (revise quote template spacing) |
Jade Shauni (talk | contribs) |
||
| (13 intermediate revisions by 6 users not shown) | |||
Line 1:
{{trope}}
[[File:half-life-2-orange-box-
An inversion of the "idiotic redneck" stereotype people from [[The Deep South]] often have attached to them, in a similar mould to [[Black and Nerdy]].
Line 10:
May overlap with [[Good Is Not Dumb]]. See also [[Southern-Fried Private]].
{{examples
== [[Anime]] and [[Manga]] ==
* Due to [[Accent Adaptation]], Bill tends to display this in the translation of ''[[Pokémon Special]]'' as a substitute for the original's [[Kansai Regional Accent|Kansai-ben]] - which was, much like this trope, presumably intended as a subversion of [[The Idiot From Osaka]]. Or maybe not — while [[The Idiot From Osaka]] is a trope that for some reason has really caught up in the West, the larger Japanese stereotype portrays Osakans, who come from a merchant city, as sharp, witty and moneygrubbing. And this is actually the reason for the idiot trope — the inhabitants of the [[Tokyo Is the Center of the Universe|more samurai-dominated Edo]], who valued reserve and dignity, considered brash and loud Osakans rude and uncouth and thus below themselves.
Line 17 ⟶ 16:
== [[Comic Books]] ==
* One issue of ''[[The Tick (comic)|The Tick]]'' had the characters run into this, when a town full of hillbillies got their hands on [[The Monolith]] from ''[[2001: A Space Odyssey]]''.
* Flash Forward from the 2001 ''[[Doom Patrol]]'' revamp is a poor kid from rural Alabama who dropped out of school in the sixth grade. He's also unquestionably the smartest person on the team, and the others aren't exactly morons themselves.
* Herschel Clay in [[PS238]] is more or less a redneck Tony Stark, with a business empire, power
== [[Film]] ==
Line 29 ⟶ 28:
== [[Literature]] ==
* Atticus Finch from ''[[To Kill a Mockingbird]]'', though he certainly doesn't exhibit any real southern stereotypes, at least no negative stereotypes. He's sort of the genteel southern elite, an erudite, upper class southern gentleman. Fortunately for his children and his client, he also displays an educated, liberal tolerance and gentility as well.
* Cy Ogle from ''[[Neal Stephenson|Interface]]''.
* The main character of ''[[The Killer Inside Me]]''. Too bad he's [[Ax Crazy]].
* The minor character Bud in ''[[Kurt Vonnegut]]'s'' debut ''Player Piano'' is a Georgian smart enough (maybe not) to create a machine that makes his job unnecessary.
* The main character of the [[Morganville Vampires]], and how.
* Calvin Whitlock from ''[[CoDominium|Falkenburg's Legions]]''.
* Andrew Jackson Libby from [[Robert A. Heinlein]]'s
** Lazarus Long probably qualifies as well, though his is a more general kind of Renaissance genius, capable of doing anything (Libby was a capable mechanic, and at home in greasy overalls, but happier with pure numbers) and anyone. When not deliberately speaking another language or putting on polish, Lazarus reverts to the rusty Nebraska saw he spoke in his youth.
Line 50 ⟶ 49:
* ''[[Supernatural (TV series)|Supernatural]]'''s Ash, from season 2. And in season {{spoiler|5, he's able to hack ''Heaven'' itself, easily, and for shits and giggles}}.
* Ballistics expert Calleigh Duquesne of ''[[CSI: Miami]]''.
* Lindsey MacDonald from ''[[Angel]]''.
** Not to mention Fred.
* A non-heroic version appears on ''[[Boston Legal]]'' in the form of the sleazy Southern defense lawyer Alan would occasionally cross swords with.
* Astronaut scientist [[Farscape|John Crichton]] hails from the [[Only in Florida|Florida]]. This trope is taken even further with his "super-evolved" version who speaks with a clear [[Everything Is Big in Texas|Texan]] drawl.
* Dwight Hendricks of ''[[Memphis Beat]]'' (with a side of [[Defective Detective]]).
* Abbie Carmichael, of the ''[[Law and Order]]'' Mother Ship, was a Southern Fried Legal Genius, with a dash of [[Blonde Republican Sex Kitten]] (OK, ''brunette'' Republican Sex Kitten, but really, does it matter?) and a bucket of [[Hello, Attorney!]].
** Also DA Arthur Branch, a smart man, whom the writers made no attempt to hide was simply his actor (the actually excellent lawyer and former US Senator from Tennessee Fred Dalton Thompson) in the form of a fictional character.
** One of McCoy's opponents deliberately invoked this trope to appear simultaneously a down-home country boy, just one of us chickens to pair with his rapier wit and encyclopedic knowledge of the law.
* This concept was discussed in an early ''[[QI]]'', where Stephen Fry said that it's difficult to imagine someone from the American South becoming a professor of fine art, and Rich Hall agreed, saying that if you come from the south, it's difficult to have any credibility if you do anything other than play a washboard with spoons.
* Overton the handyman on [[Living Single]], he knows Hebrew for one.
* ''[[Bones]]'': Finn Abernathy, the [[Fan Nickname|squintern]] introduced in season 7, is initially teased by Hodgins for his Southern drawl (and [["The Reason You Suck" Speech|calls him out on it]]), and manages to impress Temperance Brennan with his forensic skills when they first meet(no mean feat there).
== [[Real Life]] ==▼
* Google "redneck geeks", you'll get quite a list.▼
* Jay Maynard, the computer programmer who became a minor internet celebrity as "The Tron Guy". Though he now lives in Minnesota, he's most emphatically a Texan, with the accent to prove it.▼
* Travis Taylor, as well as several of his literary [[Self Insert]] characters. Also, his castmates on ''Rocket City Rednecks''.▼
* [[Jimmy Carter]] is from the [[Deep South]], and he has an exceptional IQ of 170.▼
** Served as a submarine engineer and was in line to be one of the very first nuclear engineers in the Navy, at that(though he had to quit to run the family peanut farm before he finished). As a result, while most modern presidents (Ford, Reagan and Bush I) have had aircraft carriers named after them, Carter got himself a [[wikipedia:USS Jimmy Carter (SSN-23)|submarine]].▼
* Colonel Harland David Sanders may very well be ''the'' literal [[Incredibly Lame Pun|Southern Fried Genius]]. Along with his "secret recipe", his use of pressure frying to cook chicken more quickly and crisply as opposed to pan frying it are one of the reasons why his KFC restaurant chain was so successful.▼
* Quite a few of the United States' Founding Fathers were from Virginia.▼
** The Founding Fathers' genius embraced such diverse disciplines as clockmaking, gunsmithing, architecture, legal drafting, theology [[And Zoidberg|and wine appreciation]]... ''[[Serial Escalation|and that was just]] [[Thomas Jefferson]].'' No wonder that when [[John F Kennedy]] hosted a gathering of [[Nobel Prize]] winners, he said, "I think this is the most extraordinary collection of talent, of human knowledge that has ever been gathered together at the White House, with the possible exception of when Thomas Jefferson dined alone."▼
* Robert E. Lee was a professor at West Point before the American Civil War and went on to become President of what is now Washington and Lee College after.▼
* Let's not forget about Leland, Mississippi's favorite son, [[Jim Henson]].▼
* The [[wikipedia:Southern Agrarians|Southern Agrarians]], a socio-politio-literary movement that began at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tennessee in the 1930s. Especially notable in that they started writing specifically to counteract the "idiotic redneck" stereotype which was, if anything, even more prevalent than it is now.▼
* [[Mark Twain]] anyone?▼
* Kris Kristofferson: country and western/folk singer and songwriter. Also Rhodes Scholar, ''summa cum laude'' BA in Literature, [[B Phil]] English Literature, military helicopter pilot and was offered the position of Professor of English Literature at West Point.▼
* Edward Osbourne(E.O) Wilson, a biologist and Pulitzer Prize winner who is known as the father of sociobiology and probably most famous for his 1990 reference encyclopedia ''The Ants'', hails from Alabama.▼
* In general, the South includes a lot of fine educational institutions, including Vanderbilt, Rice and Georgia Tech, among others.▼
== [[Video Games]] ==
Line 83 ⟶ 65:
** ''"Ah solve ''practical'' problems. Fer instance, how am ah gonna stop some big, mean mother-hubbard from tearin' me a structurally superfluous new bee-hind? The answer? Use a gun. And if that don't work, [[More Dakka|use more gun]]."''
** [http://www.teamfortress.com/engineer.htm His profile] on the TF2 [[All There in the Manual|website]] indicates he likes "[[Arson, Murder, and Jaywalking|barbeque, guns, and higher education]]."
* Cid Highwind is [[Final Fantasy VII|Final Fantasy VII's]] version of a rocket
* Clem from ''[[The Suffering]].''
** Ranse Truman, as discovered when you finally meet him close to the end of the second game.
* Irving from ''[[Strange Journey]]''. Uses multiple euphemisms in his everyday talk.
* Augustus Sinclair from ''[[
* Ellis from ''[[Left 4 Dead]] 2'' seems to be a lot smarter than he lets on. [[Genius Ditz|Even if he did think the Mona Lisa was a sculpture]].
* [[Punny Name|Eugene Ius]] from ''[[Oddworld]]: Stranger's Wrath'' is a very nerdy [[Everything's Better with Chickens|Clakker]] who studies ancient ruins and has a laptop that controls Buzzardton's power grid. Though he has a very negative opinion on the native Grubbs, considering them idiots, and destroys an ancient statue for a quick exit from the ruins.
Line 93 ⟶ 75:
== [[Web Comics]] ==
* All of the mages in [[What's Shakin']] speak with a southern accent, but are also highly intelligent.
* Clem from [[Sluggy Freelance]].
== [[Web Original]] ==
Line 104 ⟶ 86:
* In an episode of ''[[Robot Chicken]]'', there's a parody of Paris Hilton's reality show ''The Simple Life'' called ''Country Folk R Morons.'' A toothless redneck in overalls is standing in front of a chalkboard covered in equations.
{{quote|'''Hick''': ...aaaand that's about all there is to know about quantum mechanics.
'''Paris''':
* Bulkhead from ''[[Transformers Animated]]'' - really. He's lost the accent by the time the series starts, and he's not the sharpest tool in the shed most of the time, but he ''was'' raised on a farm (for energon) and he's an expert in space bridge technology.
** He's a Southern Fried [[Genius Ditz]].
Line 110 ⟶ 92:
* ''[[Captain Simian & the Space Monkeys|Captain Simian and The Space Monkeys]]'': Splitzy.
* ''[[Total Drama]]'''s [[Butt Monkey|Ezekiel]] seems to be this, [[All There in the Manual|according to his online bio]]. A typical TV [[Homeschooled Kids|Homeschooled Kid]], he can apparently speak eight languages and was a National Spelling Bee champion. [[Informed Attribute|We never see this in the show]], though, because the writers [[Out of Focus|have never given him enough screen time]].
* Sandy the Squirrel from ''[[SpongeBob SquarePants]]''.
* An episode of ''[[Kung Fu Dino Posse]]'' features a family of identical-looking cross-eyed buck-toothed idiot yokels... the last of whom speaks in a perfect Shakespearean accent, deplores the family business, and wishes he'd been an actor.
* ''[[Archer]]'' gives us Ray Gillette, the top-notch intelligence analyst and, while [[Camp Gay|quite flamboyantly gay]], [[Agent Peacock|actually pretty badass]]. He is from a family of West Virginia backwoods rednecks. They don't seem to know all that much about his life.
▲== [[Real Life]] ==
▲* Google "redneck geeks", you'll get quite a list.
▲* Jay Maynard, the computer programmer who became a minor internet celebrity as "The Tron Guy". Though he now lives in Minnesota, he's most emphatically a Texan, with the accent to prove it.
▲* Travis Taylor, as well as several of his literary [[Self Insert]] characters. Also, his castmates on ''Rocket City Rednecks''.
▲* [[Jimmy Carter]] is from the [[Deep South]], and he has an exceptional IQ of 170.
▲** Served as a submarine engineer and was in line to be one of the very first nuclear engineers in the Navy, at that(though he had to quit to run the family peanut farm before he finished). As a result, while most modern presidents (Ford, Reagan and Bush I) have had aircraft carriers named after them, Carter got himself a [[wikipedia:USS Jimmy Carter (SSN-23)|submarine]].
▲* Colonel Harland David Sanders may very well be ''the'' literal [[Incredibly Lame Pun|Southern Fried Genius]]. Along with his "secret recipe", his use of pressure frying to cook chicken more quickly and crisply as opposed to pan frying it are one of the reasons why his KFC restaurant chain was so successful.
▲* Quite a few of the United States' Founding Fathers were from Virginia.
▲** The Founding Fathers' genius embraced such diverse disciplines as clockmaking, gunsmithing, architecture, legal drafting, theology [[And Zoidberg|and wine appreciation]]... ''[[Serial Escalation|and that was just]] [[Thomas Jefferson]].'' No wonder that when [[John F. Kennedy]] hosted a gathering of [[Nobel Prize]] winners, he said, "I think this is the most extraordinary collection of talent, of human knowledge that has ever been gathered together at the White House, with the possible exception of when Thomas Jefferson dined alone."
▲* Robert E. Lee was a professor at West Point before the American Civil War and went on to become President of what is now Washington and Lee College after.
▲* Let's not forget about Leland, Mississippi's favorite son, [[Jim Henson]].
▲* The [[wikipedia:Southern Agrarians|Southern Agrarians]], a socio-politio-literary movement that began at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tennessee in the 1930s. Especially notable in that they started writing specifically to counteract the "idiotic redneck" stereotype which was, if anything, even more prevalent than it is now.
▲* [[Mark Twain]] anyone?
▲* Kris Kristofferson: country and western/folk singer and songwriter. Also Rhodes Scholar, ''summa cum laude'' BA in Literature, [[B Phil]] English Literature, military helicopter pilot and was offered the position of Professor of English Literature at West Point.
▲* Edward Osbourne (E.O.) Wilson, a biologist and Pulitzer Prize winner who is known as the father of sociobiology and probably most famous for his 1990 reference encyclopedia ''The Ants'', hails from Alabama.
▲* In general, the South includes a lot of fine educational institutions, including Vanderbilt, Rice and Georgia Tech, among others.
{{reflist}}
[[Category:Characters]]
[[Category:Intelligence Tropes]]
[[Category:
[[Category:Indexed States of America]]
| |||