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Working Class People Are Morons (view source)

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{{trope}}
{{cleanup|Tone is a defining part of a trope, and this one flip-flops between optimistic and cynical.}}
{{quote|''"You have to understand, these are just simple farmers. These are people of the [[Arcadia|land]]. The common clay of the New West. You know... morons!"''|'''Jim (aka [[The Trope Kid|The Waco Kid]])''', ''[[Blazing Saddles]]''}}
 
[[Exactly What It Says Onon the Tin]]. But fret not, ye honest poor - thanks to the rules of your universe, all your problems can be solved [[Dumb Is Good|without the use of complex reasoning skills]] or [[Book Dumb|book-learnin']] anyway! You can get by just fine on your [[Good Old Ways|folk wisdom]] and [[Ludd Was Right|life-loving]] [[Closer to Earth|affirmations]]. And if anyone [[Good Is Old-Fashioned|criticizes you]], well, clearly they're either evil or too rich to know how to loosen up. Don't worry, a few weeks around you and your wacky 'ethnic' family will give them a little pep!
 
This is prime-time's go-to plot device whenever embarrassing relatives come to visit the [[Girl Who Married Up]] or the blue-collar schlub wins the lottery. Basically, in TV Land, it is impossible to be both poor and intelligent unless you're the show's [[Insufferable Genius]] or precocious child. Indeed, one would almost be tempted to believe that [[There Are No Libraries]].
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* Eric Flint [[Word of God|explains in the afterword]] that he wrote ''[[1632]]'' in part to combat this:
{{quote| Part of the reason I chose to write this novel is because I am more than a little sick and tired of two characteristics of most modern fiction, including science fiction. The first is that the common folk who built this country and keep it running blue-collar workers, schoolteachers, farmers, and the like hardly ever appear. If they figure at all, it is usually as spear carriers or, more often than not, as a bastion of ignorance and bigotry. That is especially true of people from such rural areas as West Virginia. Hicks and hillbillies: a general, undifferentiated mass of darkness.}}
* ''[[Nineteen Eighty-Four|1984]]'' has Winston, newly emboldened by the idea of the resistance, stop in at a pub occupied by "proles"... only to see that they're taken by the (fairly substandard) [[Bread and Circuses]] provided by the Party, and unlikely to lay the groundwork of any revolution. {{spoiler|Then again, neither is he...}}
** To be fair, though, the Party [[Invoked Trope|refuses to educate them well and deliberately keeps them ignorant]] so they will be easier to manipulate and less likely to engage in the kind of revolution Winston is hoping for.
* ''[[Animal Farm]]'', by the same author, features Boxer, a horse meant to represent the working class. He is shown to not grasp reading and writing, and remain completely loyal to the farm's new management, which makes Napoleon's disgraceful treatment of him all the more sickening.
* The ''[[Lord Peter Wimsey]]'' stories are full of this trope.
* Stan Shunpike in ''[[Harry Potter]]'' is not the brightest of wizards and has a distinctly working-class [[Funetik Aksent|accent]]. Possibly averted with the Weasleys (in particular Percy and the twins), though they're arguable [[Impoverished Patrician|Impoverished Patricians]]s due to their Pureblood status - though if they do count as working class, Ron is the dumbest of the main Trio.
** Ron is still shown as intelligent in his own right. He just tends to be overshadowed a bit.
** Hermione is the smartest of the group, and she's the daughter of two dentists. We also see that when Harry's parents were teenagers, Lily (from a middle-class family) was intelligent, kind, and friendly while James (very wealthy) was not a ''bad'' person entirely, but tended to be "an arrogant toerag".
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* The [[Show Within a Show]] ''When the Whistle Blows'' on ''[[Extras]]''
* Played straight (sort of) on ''[[Glee]]'' when Kurt assumes his plain-talkin', football watchin' father will go ballistic if he finds out his son is gay. Subverted when Kurt comes out and his father is supportive (if not exactly thrilled).
* The original version of ''[[Survivors (TV series)|Survivors]]'' tended to display this trope.
 
== Music ==
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* Eliza's father in ''[[Pygmalion]]'' is a send-up of this trope. In actual fact, he's [[Smarter Than You Look|rather intelligent]], with his ingenious methods of [[Brilliant but Lazy|staying away from work]].
* [[William Shakespeare]] typically portrays commoners as simpletons. They often spout malapropisms and speak in prose, as opposed to the more erudite verse of the upper class. This is usually [[Played for Laughs]], perhaps most famously in ''[[A Midsummer NightsNight's Dream]],'' where some common tradesmen put on a pathetic excuse for a play while the upperclass spectators [[MST]] it.
 
== Webcomics ==
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* Parodied on ''[[The Simpsons]]'' (of course): When the perfectly sane and bright (if a bit stodgy) Frank Grimes tries to get along in Springfield, he goes tragically - fatally - insane, because the world is designed to accommodate apathetic idiots like Homer.
* ''[[The Flintstones]]''
* Subverted for laughs in a ''[[Robot Chicken]]'' sketch that placed ''[[He -Man and Thethe Masters of Thethe Universe (Animation)|He Man and The Masters of The Universe]]'''s Teela and Evil-Lyn in a farm for a reality show called "Country Folk R Morons" (a play on The Simple Life, starring the RC sketch's main target or inspiriation Paris Hilton). A farmer tries to explain to them theoretical quantum chrono dynamics.
{{quote| '''Teela''': "You're [[Sound Effect Bleep|f[bleep]ing]] stupid!"}}
* Subverted in ''[[Jackie Chan Adventures (Animation)|Jackie Chan Adventures]]''. Two farmhands look exactly like stereotypical hicks, but it turns out they both have PhDs. And they take [[Unusually Uninteresting Sight|remarkably well]] to the concept of a magical flying chicken and a pig with [[Laser Eye|Laser Eyes]]s.
 
== Reality TV ==
 
* Subverted for laughs by the Reality TV show ''[[The Simple Life]]''. Their country hosts were more or less average, but every time Paris Hilton or Nicole Richie opened their mouths they made everyone around them look like geniuses by comparison. Detractors will say that [[UpperclassUpper Class Twit|Hilton and Richie]] are morons by '''any''' standard.
 
{{reflist}}
[[Category:Characterization Tropes]]
[[Category:Working Class People Are Morons]]
[[Category:TropePoverty Tropes]]
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