question in re [western] female characters

[kaigou]

In US/EU television or movies: can you think of any female characters that are genuinely stupid?

I don't mean the dingbat of the screwball comedy, unaware of the 'real world' but savvy about people. I don't mean the so-called dumb blonde (who actually manipulates really rather cunningly to obtain the material goods she desires, when you really take a look at her). The most common form of 'stupid girl' characters I can think of in western media are usually like the bubbleheaded archetype of the daughter in Married... With Children or Chrissy in Three's Company: the kind of person who stands around, helpless, while everyone tries to diffuse the bomb, and at the last second says, "why don't we just unplug it?" and reveals she's been standing next to the outlet for the bomb's timer. Her apparent bubbleheadedness is meant to show she sees the world in simpler terms, and therefore isn't fooled by certain behaviors/appearances that fool everyone else (even as she's otherwise fooled by everything that anyone else finds commonsense).

In a sense, I guess perhaps I'm looking for the female equivalent of the stereotypical 'dumb jock' -- all brawn, no brains, and not even any perceptiveness or flashes of intuition, let alone an ability to see to the (emotional) heart of things. Just plain, well, stupid.

Anyone?

ETA: was on TVTropes (and managed to make it out before dark!) and came across this instance of The Ditz. It's a classic example of what I mean when I say "stupid/airheaded/scatter-brained in some ways, but then shows flashes of insight, intelligence, or some other kind of savvy -- sometimes to deliver an emotional message (usually to one of the main protagonists), sometimes for the sake of a punchline o' irony. In this case, the purpose is the latter (comedic irony):

Rose, confronted by a robber at the front desk of the hotel the girls are running, is too ditzy to even realize that she's being robbed. The robber eventually leaves, with nothing, in frustration. The trope is subverted as Rose immediately calls the police, providing a detailed description of the robber, where he's headed, what kind of car he's driving, etc., ending with "Who is this? Oh, just someone who's not quite as dumb as she appears," much to the delight of the audience. The subversion itself is then subverted as we hear Rose's next line into the phone: "Oh, this is four one one?"

However, when I say "stupid," I mean a character who wouldn't just be unaware s/he is being robbed... but then wouldn't even realize after-the-fact, but would just carry on. Like an extreme of Ignorance is Bliss, perhaps.

Comments

[whatistigerbalm]

There was a TV series starring a country singer (Reba McIntyre? I know her first name was Reba) and she was divorced but still friendly with her ex, and his new wife was a serious airhead.

ETA: IIRC Balki's girlfriend in Perfect Strangers fits the bill too, but it's been a while since I saw that series.

ETA2: Does Rose from Golden Girls count?

[kaigou]

For most USian representations I've seen, the airhead is always given at least one (and for Rose, I think it was at least once an episode) instance of something brilliant coming out of her mouth. Something that sharply and neatly defined whatever issue was at hand, but delivered in a way that made it clear she hadn't the faintest clue as to how brilliant her commentary was. I think it's kind of like "out of the mouths of babes" (as in, "those who are ignorant") -- USian media does seem to love the stereotype of the otherwise dimwitted girl (nearly always a girl, but sometimes a guy) who can show remarkable insight at unexpected points.

I think it's related to the notion that lacking common sense and/or normal logic/reasoning skills, the airhead is better able to navigate right past the complex parts of life/logic (that she can't grasp) and get right to the heart of an issue. Sort of like... hm, maybe if we recast the boy in "The Emperor's New Clothes" as an airhead: that kind of bubble-headed, wide-eyed delivery that comes with a stated (or implied) attitude of, "can't everyone else see it?"

It does seem, though, that the more the character is background (like a non-regular character who's a tertiary character), the more likely she (or possibly he) will be played as just plain dumb.

[fromastudio]

Would Brittany in Glee qualify? Or is she too socially successful? XD

[kaigou]

No idea! Never seen any Glee. But I don't think "socially successful" is mutually exclusive with being less than stellar-bright... you can get along with people and be generally liked without necessarily being extra-intelligent.

(Yes, being socially successful requires some level of social adeptness, and that's a type of intelligence/savvy that often gets downgraded... probably because "getting along with others" codes as feminine, and thus is a less-valued type of intelligence... so in terms of logical or mathematical thinking, the person may be average or below-average, but be above-average in other types of skills/savvy.)

[windsorblue]

I was going to say Brittany from Glee also. Classic Brittany line: "Did you know dolphins are just gay sharks?"

The only other ones that come to mind are Katie and Sadie from the Total Drama cartoons.

[quivo]

Really can't think of anyone, unfortunately, so I'll be watching this entry to see what people come up with. Interesting question, though.

[kaigou]

It bears on some criticisms I've been slowly building as I watch various East Asian (Japanese, Korean, and Taiwanese) dramas... and I realized I was coming up with a complete blank when it came to any analogous USian (or even EUian) character examples.

[trickster_tree]

Multiple women in Chuck Lorre's sitcoms fit the description of "dumb without redeeming qualities", although for them it's a matter of all beauty, no brains. Two and a Half Men is particularly full of such characters.

[kaigou]

All beauty no brains would qualify, as long as they never show a flash of insight, intuition, or other "non-logical" logic. It's not that the character has no redeeming qualities -- being friendly, optimistic, or athletic are certainly good qualities -- it's that the character has no reasoning skills at all. No intellectual skills AND no emotional skills.

[trickster_tree]

Arguably none of Chuck Lorre's characters have emotional skills, but that might be my distaste for the man shining through, eheh. But, yes: I can think of several female characters in his shows that lack the capacity for both intellectual and emotional reasoning.

Is there a context to this question? Or should I know by now that the context will be tomorrow's post?

[kaigou]

Or should I know by now that the context will be tomorrow's post?

Bingo!

[phoebe_zeitgeist]

Harmony, from Buffy? She underwent something of a metamorphosis when she reappeared on Angel, I've been told, but at least through season 5 of Buffy (after which I couldn't bear to watch the show any more), she struck me as genuinely stupid. Or at least, as close to genuinely stupid any character written by intelligent writers ever manages to be. There's a reason that the line "Harmony has minions" sticks in my mind to this day, years after I've forgotten the episode it comes from.

I think she was meant to be the equivalent of the dumb jock, whose expertise is likely to be in fields like walking in heels, rather than in a team sport with referees. But I could be wrong, and anyway, perhaps that's not what you're looking for?

[phoebe_zeitgeist]

And dammit, there was supposed to be a question mark on that quote. The line is, of course, "Harmony has minions?" It is spoken in tones of shock and disbelief, and then followed by hysterical laughter.

[kaigou]

Ahahaha, Harmony having minions, yes, I remember that line!

For the duration of BtVS, Harmony was definitely dumb as a brick... but she was also a tertiary character, at most. She was more of a plot device, really -- in that she acted as the lead Mean Girl's greek chorus. So I'm not sure she was really developed enough, at all, or had enough screen time to display anything other than mindless yes'ing.

Once she turned vamp, though... hmm. As her character was more developed, she did achieve some level of basic skill with work -- we see her doing general secretarial stuff, at least, with some basic competence. She also, as I recall, started to show (or was given screen-time to show) a little bit of the dingbat (topsy-turvy non-left-brain logic) mingling in with her previous flat dumb-as-a-brick presentation. That is, I seem to recall points where one of the other characters would try to explain what's going on (usually presenting a really rather complex issue, often with the point subtly implied that "it's so complex, see, you'd never figure this out so this was all a waste of my time and you should just learn your lesson and stop trying to figure things out") ... and Harmony, in the tradition of USian-media bubbleheads everywhere, would go right to the heart with a simple statement like, frex, "So really it's just that you like her, and she doesn't like you" or something equally simple, direct, and very nail-hammer-bang.

The irony in my mind is that to do such comedy well (and the actress playing Harmony really proved, IMO, that she had major chops for that kind of comedy, much like Christina Applegate had)... you can't be stupid on all levels. It takes incredible timing and delivery to pull of that combination of so-stupid and so-sharp, and that's not an easy skill.

[phoebe_zeitgeist]

Now you have me wondering about dumb-as-a-brick male characters. If someone is genuinely stupid in both analytical and intuitive terms, how do you build a story around him? I suppose if I were a less fussy media consumer I'd already know the answer, but as it is I'm not sure I could id an utterly stupid male character any more than I can think of a truly brainless female character.

Which, clearly, Harmony wasn't by the end.

To lurch off in a slightly different direction, though -- and this is an actual question, not a disagreement disguised as a question -- in the "why don't we just unplug it?" scenario, is it always intended that the character has intuition, or a kind of practical intelligence that the show tells us can be more effective than mere analytical intelligence? Because knowing nothing more than the scenario, I think I'd read it as not so much an indication of grounded common sense, and more an indication of someone who is actually so unbelievably stupid that she didn't even think to mention that there was a plug, or that she was standing so that her team couldn't see it, until the last ten seconds of the countdown.

(Or, if the show's rhetoric was appropriate, as an indication that she and her opinions were so routinely sneered at by all around her that she had simply assumed that if no one else mentioned the plug, that would mean it was too stupid to mention at all. Although in that kind of a setup she wouldn't be asking her faux-naive question. She'd be huddled with nervous tension until the last second, when she pulled the damn plug in desperation because it wasn't likely to hurt.)

[kaigou]

I think both are pretty common. If an airheaded (usually female) character doesn't get one, she'll get the other. I think it's meant to offset the rather offensive characterization of a female character as dim-witted (thanks to the gender implication of 'helpless' -- a jock may be slow, but he's still not cast as helpless, unlike the ditz). That is, to rephrase your words into two versions:

a) the other characters have repeatedly explicitly (or implicitly) set her aside as less intelligent, or devalued/discounted her non-linear or non-bookish intelligence... thus she so firmly believes her own stupidity that she only speaks up when there's nothing left to lose. (Or in a less common version, at least in the US, she only speaks up after the fact, and even then usually only to whomever she trusts/likes the most.) That's when you get 'dumbass has a point' (and I'm not linking! get buried in TVTropes all by yourself!)

b) s/he's so stupid s/he doesn't even realize how stupid s/he is, which I guess would be a really extreme representation of "ignorance is bliss". Thus, speaking up about plug-in-wall may sound stupid (or may not) but just as s/he is unaware that 99% of the time s/he is dumb as a brick, s/he will then also be equally unaware s/he just said something really brilliant or insightful.

If you're old enough (or seen any reruns), Chrissy from Three's Company was a classic icon of the "so stupid she doesn't even realize how stupid she is," so she'd freely come out with the most bizarre, screwball-like, ditzy commentary or explanation. Most of the time, what she said made sense to her (but no one else), thus she continued to believe she could hold her own among other people. Which, in a sad/uncomfortable way, makes the joke even more on her, for not realizing how pathetic/stupid she was in other people's eyes.

[(Anonymous)]

Its hard without knowing what the stupidity is supposed to *mean* in the original context.

Gretchen on Wonderfalls maybe? She's a not very bright chearleader stereotype, though the point of the episode is her dawning fear that Be Pretty and Marry Rich isn't making her happy the way she was told it would, and can't really think of an alternative.

There's Donna Noble from Dr Who, who isn't stupid so much as very sensitive about intelligence as a result of emotional abuse. As result of which she's very sympathetic to Mr Lux's personal assistant in the Silence in the Library, who is also very certain of her own stupidity (which is readily vouched for by her crewmates.) The assistant does have a moment of noticing something before everyone else in a moment of mortal danger, but it is dismissed by the crew because of the source.

There's Mary from Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind.

[kaigou]

I'm not familiar with the examples, but it's mostly the issue of whether a character's apparent stupidity (on an intellectual, bookish, deductive basis, I suppose is the best way to describe it) is offset by some other kind of mental skill/talent -- an ability to empathize and understand where other people are coming from, an ability to see through evil schemes or false friends, an ability to understand the emotional heart of a problem even when the problem is presented on purely intellectual terms.

Or maybe I should say: from what I recall, nearly all representations of a stupid character (whether s/he is aware of his/her stupidity, or exists in blissful ignorance, that is, is too stupid to even realize s/he is stupid)... are almost always offset by some kind of inductive, non-bookish, intuition. Sometimes this is written off or discounted as "female intuition", but intuition is still a kind of intelligence. (It sounds like your second example falls into this category -- emotionally intuitive, but insecure about intellectual skills?)

I'm looking for characters that never even get the tiniest bit of a moment of glory, because they never contribute anything (whether the reasoning is intellectual or emotional) to a storyline. They can't figure anything out, so they're constantly waiting for someone else to tell them what something means... but every character I can think of (in USian media) does get at least one moment of alternate-intelligence, or at least emotional resonance/intuition.

[the_rck]

I haven't watched much of these shows because I find them repulsive (I've forbidden my daughter to watch them even though we watch other Disney Channel shows), but I think London Tipton from The Suite Life of Zach and Cody and The Suite Life on Deck might qualify. She seems, from the little I've seen, to be both stupid and insensitive. The comedic point of the character is that she has so much money that the world goes her way even when she's utterly wrong. She's not likable at all.

[kaigou]

The comedic point of the character is that she has so much money that the world goes her way even when she's utterly wrong. She's not likable at all.

In a sense, you could say her stupidity is buttressed/offset by having enough money that (in a sense) it's worth putting up with her stupidity? If I'm reading the subtext of your text correctly -- that she's sort of the female version of the Peter principle, in a way?

[the_rck]

I'm not sure what the Peter principle is, so I can't address that point. London is a teenager whose father owns the locations where the shows take place. Most if not all of the other characters work for her father. Keeping her happy is part of the job.

[maire]

I'm having trouble coming up with examples, but I'm also not sure of my understanding. Can you give any examples of the male 'dumb jock' who never comes out with a sensible statement?

[kaigou]

aaaaaand my brain just went completely BLANK. All I can remember is that one of the commonest nicknames for that type of character is "Moose", and he's usually shown as dense, affable, and slow to anger (requiring his brainier boss/hyung/sempai/gangleader to work him up). Let's see... I know there was a classic type in the Back to the Future movies, the antagonist/bully character. Cripes. I can't think of any others, possibly because -- as a former jock myself -- I always found the stereotype offensive, so refused to 'see' its use on the screen, or just not remember it for long, afterwards.

[maire]

I just can't think of any examples of dumb male characters who never get used to show that 'simple' minds can be more insightful than clever ones. I don't think it's a male/female thing, that, so much as an anti-intellectual one.

[soukup]

Look, okay, I was babysitting, okay, so don't laugh at me for having seen this movie. And I can't even believe I remember it well enough to cough this up for you, but anyway:

Karen Smith from Mean Girls, played by Amanda Seyfried. I'm pretty sure she's what you're looking for -- that I recall, she doesn't have any moments of unwitting brilliance, and her dumbness is reemphasized throughout the story.

[kaigou]

I think things we've seen while babysitting tend to traumatize us permanently. There are movies I saw while babysitting that remain in my head to this day, and it doesn't matter how many years of bleach have passed in-between. So don't worry, I won't tell anyone! (Well, other than you me and the internets, eh.)