Something that annoys me about film and television

[Orrex]

:rant:

I'm no smarter than you or the woman sitting over there or the guy standing over there, and I'm probably not much dumber, either. Therefore I offer this observation from a vantage of just-plain-run-of-the-mill brainpower.

I hate when a character in a film or tv show is identified as unusually "smart," and to illustrate this, the writers have him or her reveal some morsel of supposedly esoteric knowledge but which is in fact known to everyone.

Such as

"Reptiles are cold-blooded"

or

"A liter is more than a quart"

or

"Whales are mammals"

or something similarly lame. I mean, when these trivial tidbits are media-proxies for intelligence, what kind of deep thought can we reasonably expect from our fellow citizens?

I know why they do it. It's so that the average dimwitted couch potato won't resent the smart character or, by extention, the show in which the character appears.

But for pity's sake, could we have the character say something more insightful than "the Sun is actually a star" once in a while?

[ZombieNixon]

1. Well, gee, if the exotic matter injectors are frozen, the Alcubierre

compressor drive will never work...:eyes: :P

[Orrex]

3. Now that's more like it.

I know that every esoteric factoid will always be obvious to someone, but they could make an effort to be at least a little less obvious.

"You can fit more soda in your glass if you leave out the ice cubes."

[ZombieNixon]

7. Slingshotting around two cosmic strings in close proximity could

potentially cause a perceptual reversal of time...

Eh, I got a million of 'em. :D B-)

[Richardo]

2. The characters in the 'DaVinci Code' do this throughout the book

"I'm a respected Harvard symbologist: did you know that the Star of David is actually two triangles?"
"I'm a respected Harvard symbologist: did you know that Leonardo DaVinci wrote backwards?"
"I'm a respected Harvard symbologist: did you know that vital clues can be rearranged to spell seemingly irrelevant or misleading words? We in the business call these anagrams."

This is why I hate Dan Brown books.

[MrCoffee]

4. Umberto Eco could kick the hell out of Dan Brown

with both arms tied behind his back.

[Richardo]

5. I wish he would.

I'd buy tickets.

[Orrex]

9. I'm rereading Foucault's Pendulum!

I'll take Eco's semiotics over Brown's symbology any day.

[Richard Steele]

19. 'Focault's Pendulum' was just a great book.

The DaVinci Code, not so much.

[Orrex]

6. Excellent examples!

I haven't read anything by Brown, but in discussing the book with several friends, I got the impression that you describe.

It's hard to determine whether the author's style is dumbed-down for a wider audience or if the author is dumbed-down naturally.

[Richardo]

10. I think naturally.

In 'Digital Fortress' another code expert takes 200+ pages to realize that a dead-end clue is an anagram that points in another direction entirely.

I saw the anagram instantly. Seven letters. How hard is that?

[kwassa]

11. The clues were hilarious in the DaVinci Code

I could find a million triangle shapes in a million paintings. Plus, the character in the painting of the Last Supper is not Mary Magdalene, but one of the male apostles.

The idea that one triangle represents male, and one female, is pretty visually distant as symbols for genitalia.

Like, symbolism for idiots.

[MrCoffee]

12. The only good thing Stephen King ever wrote...

the newest Dan Brown novel is "the intellectual equivalent of Kraft Macaroni and Cheese"

[Mad_Dem_X]

13. Hey...don't dis Mr. King

He tells a helluva good story.

[Orrex]

14. And he tells it again & again & again & again & again & again & again

He has a few gems, but mostly his stuff is crap until reinvented for the screen.

My $.02

[underpants]

8. "the leopards kept eating my monkeys,"

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=105x5570260

[petronius]

15. I agree, but what I have an even stronger love/hate relationship

with is when they get that commonly known fact wrong, as in "whales are mammals, but they don't have hair."

[Orrex]

17. Good call!

Perhaps the classic example is the Scarecrow's mangling of the Pythagorean Theorem, ironically right after he's awarded his diploma for Thinkology.

[ScreamingMeemie]

16. CSI drives me nutty sometimes for that reason.

"If fired from the doorway, the blood splatter would be on the North wall, but it's not"... as if the person they are working with failed this in their forensics studies. That,and (this is mostly CSI Miami and New York) how the head guy gets to make the bust, do the questioning. I mean, give me a break. They're forensics guys. They work the crime scene and report back to the guys who do the arresting. Drives me crazy I tell you.

[petronius]

18. That's always irritated me about a lot of those shows, too

"Up against the wall, punk! I'm the second assistant medical examiner, and I'm taking you in for interrogation!"

or,

"OK, detectives, I've finished sweeping the scene with my gadgetry; now here's what I need you to do next..."