Track 26: The Smart Discussion

Since when did it become a bad thing to be smart?

Now, hopefully you say to yourself, "It's not a bad thing at all. It's always an excellent thing to be smart."

However, I feel that there would be a considerable amount of people who would frown upon smartness. One only has to look so far as pop culture and media to confirm this unfortunate opinion.

What made me think of this topic was a character from the movie Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs. This character would make incredibly smart statements, but she would then retreat and say the general idea in a much simpler manner. She explained that she always got made fun of for sounding like a nerd when she said something smartly. Ultimately, the movie reinforced a message of being an individual, so she no longer hid her smartness. Still, why is it that the media portrays smartness acting as a detriment to someone?

I've had an encounter with this type of criticism myself. Back in ninth and tenth grade, my friends convinced that I talked too intelligently. With some practice and consideration, I was able to curb my utilization of over-the-top vocabulary. Was this shift for the better? Probably. I think sometimes I tripped myself up trying to figure out how to frame my thoughts as smartly as possible. I believe I can now converse more effortlessly as well.

Maybe it is all too easy for an intelligent person to get lost in his or her own thoughts. Yet, it shouldn't be the place of others to criticize me for being smart. This discussion also reminds me of a Ford commercial a few years ago touting their new line of trucks. Ford basically claimed that the truck was designed by the nerds sitting in the front of the class learning some crazy hard physics. Of course, the commercial proclaimed how they designed the truck for you, the guys sitting in the back of the class goofing off and eating pizza.

This marketing only leads to discouraging smartness and to possibly impacting the education of America's future generations. Anyways, that's my little tirade for today. What's your opinion on how intelligence is displayed in the media?