# Can you name a single movie where a genius is not depicted as being "damaged" in some way? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [July 9, 2010, 2:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-you-name-a-single-movie-where-a-genius-is-not-depicted-as-being-damaged-in-some-way/546096 "2010-07-09T14:24:25Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 17\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [July 10, 2010, 12:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-you-name-a-single-movie-where-a-genius-is-not-depicted-as-being-damaged-in-some-way/546096/61 "2010-07-10T00:03:08Z")
> [@Marley23](#): > > Tony Stark? At least in the first Iron Man movie, I still haven’t seen the second. He’s hedonistic and self-centered, but I don’t see damage. Later he needs the artificial heart and all of that stuff, but he was brilliant before that. In the comic book he’s a raging alcoholic and actually wound up homeless at one point. But, that’s just how he is, some people are alcoholics by nature – no connection is drawn between that and his mechanical genius or anything else. I mean, it’s not as if drinking and fighting Commies (Iron Man started out as a Commie-fighter) are different manifestations of the same inner demons he has. In the movies, he’s not exactly an alcoholic; more of a spoiled-rich, arrogant, self-indulgent hedonist to whom drinking and womanizing are simply different forms of hard-partying. That **is** relevant damage, as it would seem to be connected with his egotism, which is based on brilliance, success, and hereditary wealth. ---
**Author:** ![kidneyfailure](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/9f8e36/32.png) [@kidneyfailure](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kidneyfailure)\ **Post date:** [July 10, 2010, 12:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-you-name-a-single-movie-where-a-genius-is-not-depicted-as-being-damaged-in-some-way/546096/62 "2010-07-10T00:10:47Z")
> [@olivesmarch4th](#): > > A good but relatively obscure movie that came out a while back, **Charlie Bartlett** , features a teenage boy who is kind of like a genius Ferris Bueller. While he obviously isn’t free of faults and tends to irritate authority figures, he’s not a particularly tortured or dysfunctional person - which is partly the point of the film. He wants to become popular, so he begins treating the mental health problems of his peers by lying to his psychiatrist in order to get medication. Sure, he’s doing it because he wants to become popular, but it’s clear early on that the reason he wants to be popular is that he genuinely loves people. The film is about him learning the limits of his own genius. From what I recall, he is celebrated as a people’s advocate without the need to portray him as ‘‘damaged.’’ > > [See YouTube trailer, judge for self.](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WAKEKxS-I64) > > I actually think this is a pretty good film. It was only briefly touched on in the film, but Charlie clearly had issues with his father. He also seemed (to me) to be highly insecure and attention-hungry. That was the whole thing behind the plot angle of Charlie’s relationship with the principal: they disliked each other because they were more alike than different (and the principal was obviously “damaged”) but weren’t keen on admitting so. ---
**Author:** ![Superhal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/b4bc9f/32.png) [@Superhal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Superhal)\ **Post date:** [July 10, 2010, 3:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-you-name-a-single-movie-where-a-genius-is-not-depicted-as-being-damaged-in-some-way/546096/63 "2010-07-10T03:25:02Z")
I think it depends on how you define “genius.” House’s team, for example, are all very very smart, as is the cast of CSI, and they’re all portrayed as normal…i.e. dull as dishwater. However, if you define genius as superhuman, then yes, they tend to be portrayed as having negative character traits. However, I could argue that this is not solely directed at smart people. Dumb people aren’t treated kindly either, and there’s a long-standing bias against girlfriends of superheroes. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/the_other_waldo_pepper/32/12370_2.png) [@The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Other_Waldo_Pepper)\ **Post date:** [July 10, 2010, 6:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-you-name-a-single-movie-where-a-genius-is-not-depicted-as-being-damaged-in-some-way/546096/64 "2010-07-10T06:14:34Z")
The old MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE series featured master planner Jim Phelps plotting strategy for record-breaking weightlifter Willy Armitage, master-of-disguise Rollin Hand, hot chick Cinnamon Carter… …and all-around brain Barney Collier, who often enough was just called on to display whichever skill the episode required – he was an explosives expert who could tap your phones easy as play safecracker when he wasn’t busy picking up yet another language or performing hypnosis – but if you needed to beat a chess grandmaster or break the bank at some casino by predicting every spin of the roulette wheel or whatever, rest assured that everybody’s favorite helicopter pilot was a good enough computer programmer to swing it in no time flat. In the _ **’60s.** _ I mean, sure, if you merely want to lay someone up in the hospital, he’ll mix up the right drugs to simulate a heart attack, or use ultrasonics to evoke the symptoms of vascular disease, or produce a forty-foot telescoping metal tube for to compressed-gas launch the mosquitoes he’s been feeding the right bacillus culture, or whatever. But if you need a computer genius, he’s decades ahead of his time; about the only thing he _ **ain’t** _ is psychologically damaged. ---
**Author:** ![EllisDee](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ellisdee/32/4531_2.png) [@EllisDee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/EllisDee)\ **Post date:** [July 10, 2010, 9:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-you-name-a-single-movie-where-a-genius-is-not-depicted-as-being-damaged-in-some-way/546096/65 "2010-07-10T09:54:19Z")
The Mentalist Columbo As for Jews being geniuses, stereotype or not, in the field of intelligence Jews are definite producers. [One-of-five Nobel Prize Laureates are Jewish](http://www.ishitech.co.il/1204ar3.htm) > [@](#): > > Jewish names appear 127 times on the list, about 18 percent of the total. This is an astonishing percentage for a group of people who add up to 1/24th of 1 percent of the world’s population. But this positive disproportion is echoed even further in the over-representation of Jews, compared to the general population, in such fields as the physical and social sciences, and in literature. An examination of the large professional communities from which Nobel laureates are selected would reveal an even more dominant disproportion. As an example, it is estimated that about one-third of the faculty at Harvard Medical School is Jewish. > > The figure for the total number of Jewish nobel Prize winners varies slightly, depending on the strictness of the “Who’s a Jew?” definition. But the figure cited most frequently is 161, or 22 percent of Nobel Prizes in all categories awarded between 1901-2003. With the 2004 additions, the total stands at 166. If one worries baout that observation being un-PC, try listing the Muslim Nobel Laureates in the next paragraph. heh, talk about a slap in the face. [Nobel Laureates and the Muslim World](http://saleemali.newsvine.com/_news/2010/02/14/3895511-nobel-laureates-and-the-muslim-world) > [@](#): > > Jews "make up 0.2 percent of the world population.. but 27 percent of the Nobel physics laureates and 31 percent of the medicine laureates. > […] > Out of more than five hundred Nobel laureates in the sciences, only two have been of Muslim lineage. ---
**Author:** ![OtakuLoki](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/ac8455/32.png) [@OtakuLoki](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/OtakuLoki)\ **Post date:** [July 10, 2010, 10:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-you-name-a-single-movie-where-a-genius-is-not-depicted-as-being-damaged-in-some-way/546096/66 "2010-07-10T10:09:08Z")
Then there’s [Barnes Wallis](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barnes_Wallis), from the movie [The Dam Busters](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0046889/). Seemed perfectly sane as characterized in the movie. Certainly someone I’d consider having met the requirements of being a genius. The little I know of his personal life supports the claim that he was not damaged. A single marriage (if a bit of a May-September romance) that lasted until his death is not proof of sanity, but it’s a nice data-point. ---
**Author:** ![SevenOfTeemingMillions](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/76d3ee/32.png) [@SevenOfTeemingMillions](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SevenOfTeemingMillions)\ **Post date:** [July 10, 2010, 10:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-you-name-a-single-movie-where-a-genius-is-not-depicted-as-being-damaged-in-some-way/546096/67 "2010-07-10T10:30:32Z")
> [@PunditLisa](#): > > I find it amusing that you mention his limp instead of House’s more obvious anti-social personality. > > \ > > McDreamy on “Gray’s Anatomy” is supposed to be so brilliant that he’s broken ground in neuro-surgery, but he’s so normal that he’s boring. Maybe they should invent a limp for him. I thought the same thing about the limp. 🙂 Is House really a genius? It seems to me that he cures most patients via trial-and-error (with half of the patients almost getting killed with the wrong cure). I don’t think fans would be calling him McDreamy is he’s boring. 😃 (Or is McDreamy an in-show name and not used by fans? Or is he called McDreamy because he’s spaced-out/dreaming most of the time?) > [@Jophiel](#): > > I don’t watch it enough to cite anything but my wife is a nut for the show and when I asked her if Bones was autistic or something, she said it was heavily hinted at in (a couple of?) an episode(s) that she has Asperger’s. I think the writers intended for Bones to have something like Asperger’s but some network executive vetoed the idea so it was never stated outright in the show. ---
**Author:** ![EllisDee](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ellisdee/32/4531_2.png) [@EllisDee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/EllisDee)\ **Post date:** [July 10, 2010, 10:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-you-name-a-single-movie-where-a-genius-is-not-depicted-as-being-damaged-in-some-way/546096/68 "2010-07-10T10:55:30Z")
> [@SevenOfTeemingMillions](#): > > I don’t think fans would be calling him McDreamy is he’s boring. 😃 (Or is McDreamy an in-show name and not used by fans? Or is he called McDreamy because he’s spaced-out/dreaming most of the time?) The McDreamy nickname is an in-show name the female characters call him because he’s pretty. The writing is just that clever. This was later topped with a second pretty male doctor getting the in-show nickname McSteamy. We should all bow to the writing genious of Shonda Rhimes. ---
**Author:** ![SevenOfTeemingMillions](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/76d3ee/32.png) [@SevenOfTeemingMillions](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SevenOfTeemingMillions)\ **Post date:** [July 10, 2010, 11:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-you-name-a-single-movie-where-a-genius-is-not-depicted-as-being-damaged-in-some-way/546096/69 "2010-07-10T11:21:56Z")
> [@EllisDee](#): > > The McDreamy nickname is an in-show name the female characters call him because he’s pretty. The writing is just that clever. This was later topped with a second pretty male doctor getting the in-show nickname McSteamy. We should all bow to the writing genious of Shonda Rhimes. Ah, I see. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![PunditLisa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/4af34b/32.png) [@PunditLisa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PunditLisa)\ **Post date:** [July 11, 2010, 1:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-you-name-a-single-movie-where-a-genius-is-not-depicted-as-being-damaged-in-some-way/546096/70 "2010-07-11T13:54:26Z")
> [@Voyager](#): > > Good one. Keeping them alive, with Gilligan around, was good enough for me. Now, if he wasn’t shtupping both Ginger and Maryanne at night, then I might call him damaged. Ahem. From post #27: “Then we have the Professor on “Gilligan’s Island.” The man could craft a two-way radio out of a coconut husk! Yet aside from his glaring lack of sex drive, he was a regular guy.” ---
**Author:** ![The\_Devil\_s\_Grandmother](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/74df32/32.png) [@The\_Devil\_s\_Grandmother](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Devil_s_Grandmother)\ **Post date:** [July 11, 2010, 11:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-you-name-a-single-movie-where-a-genius-is-not-depicted-as-being-damaged-in-some-way/546096/71 "2010-07-11T23:42:25Z")
Jeb Bartlett, the president on _West Wing_, is clearly a genius (Nobel prize for economics and everything). He has an ego the size of freakin’ Montana, but is otherwise normal and undamaged. The only things you could call damage (that I remember) are the side effects of his illness and his daddy issues. ---
**Author:** ![msmith537](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d9b06d/32.png) [@msmith537](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/msmith537)\ **Post date:** [July 12, 2010, 12:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-you-name-a-single-movie-where-a-genius-is-not-depicted-as-being-damaged-in-some-way/546096/72 "2010-07-12T00:38:31Z")
What about Reed Richards (Mr. Fantastic)? > [@Hypno-Toad](#): > > It seems like the idea of a genius having quirks or damage is born of an irrational desire for fairness. People seem to feel that it’s _unfair_ for a person to have these above average abilities and not have drawbacks to compensate for them. I think it has to do more with making the character interesting. A character that is effortlessly good at overcoming adversity is boring. In fact, there is no story unless there is some sort of conflict the character must overcome. ---
**Author:** ![Apollyon](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/apollyon/32/4238_2.png) [@Apollyon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Apollyon)\ **Post date:** [July 12, 2010, 12:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-you-name-a-single-movie-where-a-genius-is-not-depicted-as-being-damaged-in-some-way/546096/73 "2010-07-12T00:50:49Z")
> [@Cagey\_Drifter](#): > > Ok, so maybe not inexplicable… but my guess is that they gave him a cane solely for the purpose of triggering a viewer reaction to label him a genius. There is an easier “damaged” argument to make for House though; he’s a drug addict, with a serious Vicodin habit – which started because of the leg injury. (The drug habit is probably part of him being based on Holmes). He’s also an enormous jerk. 🙂 (Which doesn’t seem to have the same Holmes basis). ---
**Author:** ![panamajack](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/47e85d/32.png) [@panamajack](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/panamajack)\ **Post date:** [July 12, 2010, 12:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-you-name-a-single-movie-where-a-genius-is-not-depicted-as-being-damaged-in-some-way/546096/74 "2010-07-12T00:53:44Z")
This one is very obscure, but I remember it because I happened to see Spartacus : Blood and Sand the other day, and recognized the actress Brooke Harmon. She was in a TV movie (which looked a lot like a failed pilot) about ten years ago, playing a teenage girl genius. She had somehow discovered the 108th element, which had some fantastic application. Aside from being young, she didn’t seem eccentric. I think at one point she was sort of coerced or tempted to be friendly with the villain who had kidnapped her (there was an oogy sexual element as well), but it seemed more like his failings than hers. ---
**Author:** ![Spice\_Weasel](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spice_weasel/32/5435_2.png) [@Spice\_Weasel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spice_Weasel)\ **Post date:** [July 12, 2010, 3:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-you-name-a-single-movie-where-a-genius-is-not-depicted-as-being-damaged-in-some-way/546096/75 "2010-07-12T03:56:39Z")
How about Julian Bashir in _Star Trek: Deep Space Nine_? Indisputably a genius, has some issues because he was genetically engineered, but not really any more flawed than any other human being. ---
**Author:** ![Horatio\_Hellpop](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/e5b9ba/32.png) [@Horatio\_Hellpop](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Horatio_Hellpop)\ **Post date:** [July 12, 2010, 4:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-you-name-a-single-movie-where-a-genius-is-not-depicted-as-being-damaged-in-some-way/546096/76 "2010-07-12T04:22:01Z")
If geniuses weren’t depicted as being “damaged” in some way, the rest of us would, out of envy, storm their castles with torches and pitchforks. We need the fraudulent impression that geniuses have shortcomings the rest of us should thank God we don’t have, like the compulsive need to wash our hands 80 times a day. How about Nichols on **L&O:CI**? He seems pretty well-adjusted, unlike Goren. Or is handling crappy, clicheed scripts a form of damage now? ---
**Author:** ![The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/the_other_waldo_pepper/32/12370_2.png) [@The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Other_Waldo_Pepper)\ **Post date:** [July 12, 2010, 5:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-you-name-a-single-movie-where-a-genius-is-not-depicted-as-being-damaged-in-some-way/546096/77 "2010-07-12T05:08:19Z")
While you could maybe build a case around his reluctance to use guns, I wouldn’t say MacGyver was damaged. (And, for what it’s worth, he of course used a gun when necessary, in episode after episode, but was enough of a genius that it usually _ **wasn’t** _ necessary – since, y’know, he’s often standing next to a well-stocked kitchen, which means he’s got access to various janitorial chemicals under the sink and plenty of magnets on the refrigerator even _ **after** _ combining some vinegar with cayenne pepper and baking soda to fill a hot-water bottle with instant tear gas, such that he’ll probably whip up salted but sugary explosives for the win fast enough to save your life with the improvised defibrillator he made from candlestick holders and this or that appliance before fixing your car by cracking a few eggs into the radiator.) [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-you-name-a-single-movie-where-a-genius-is-not-depicted-as-being-damaged-in-some-way/546096.md?page=3)