Anti-intellectualism may not be an issue in other countries, but it has been one in the US.

This may be slowly changing, but there has long been a distrust of the intellectual and/or the academic in this society as a whole.

Traditionally, the American Hero has been the man of action, the man of few words, the stoic, the Gary Cooper cowboy -- The Jim Ellison.

And now that hero can be a ... woman of action -- Buffy and Xena being two examples.

But it's only been relatively recent that the smart guy could be a hero, and if he [or she] is, he has tended to be second in command, so to speak [or treated that way by the writers and the press] And the smart guy has to be somehow non-threatening to the audience at large, so if you can't identify with him, you can distance yourself from him and admire him.

Clear examples, for me anyway, are good old Kirk and Spock -- action and distilled intellect. Spock was an outsider and the butt of teasing.

We have a similar thing going with Data in ST:Next Gen.

In the X-Files movie, I laughed out loud when Scully was succumbing to the bee and spieling off her vital signs to Mulder as the medics were on their way. I thought, "How 'Spock' of her!"

Intellectuals are often portrayed as socially inept or goofy. Mulder is supposed to be smart but he has his abrasive or goofy moments. Scully has no social life to speak of.

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I find it interesting that we have so many pairings of the action guy with the brains guy. It's like saying we need them, the smart guys, but they can't be, you know, the real hero.

So we have Xena's Gabriel -- the one who can read and write and who is a moral voice.

We have Mulder's Scully -- the one who can keep him from flying off into the ozone on leaps of intuition without checking out the facts. The one whom he's dubbed his one in 5 billion, who will believe in him if not believe what he says -- enough to do that one extra autopsy.

Buffy's Willow [or Buffy's Giles] -- both socially inept and a bit comic but incredibly knowledgeable -- especially in ways 'to find things out.'

And we have Jim's Blair.

Blair is also an outsider to the police force and to society at large. He has been shown to be socially attractive but also socially inept at times. He is funny himself and has been the butt of some teasing. He is a non-threatening intellect.

In "Love and Guns" he tells a story about entering a society of people who live in the trees. He was the first outsider they had met, the first Westerner. They thought he was the incarnation of evil because of his strange appearance and were set to kill him. But when he turns to run away, he falls face down in the mud, causing them to laugh and realize that he was no threat. That story epitomizes who Blair was conceived to be at the beginning of the show.

I think they try to show his intellectual curiosity and enthusiasm rather than 'what he knows.' It isn't about knowing facts for him; it's about the process of discovery and putting things together -- about pursuing the unknown.

The cool thing about this show is that BOTH guys are smart -- they each have something to teach the other. Jim just doesn't show off his book smarts or jump up going "Ooh! Wow!" He's not the "Oh wow" type. He plays close to the vest.

AND Blair, unlike the non-muscled smart guys of the past, is athletic -- a blend. He gets involved.

*****

The weird thing is [or maybe it's not weird knowing me] that for me the characters I really identify with and root for ARE the intellectual partners/sidekicks.

Illya Kuryakin, Spock, Artemis Gordon, Data, Gabriel, Willow Rosenberg and Rupert Giles, Dana Scully, and Blair Sandburg.

*****

This may be an extreme statement, but I'm feeling wow-ish about this:

I think that Dana Scully and Blair Sandburg are the two most unique characters on American TV these days. I really think they are breakthrough characters -- not only for changing what it means to be feminine and masculine in this culture but also for raising the status of the intellectual from 'sidekick' or second in command to full partner.