Why is this? Is it because rugby players are actually dumber than everyone else, no. Maybe it is because the stereotype of a rugby player fits the stereotype of a dumb jock.
This stereotype did not just fall out of the sky, and therefore may have some grounds for truth. Athletes in high school, college, and even at the professional level were given his reputation. My first encounter with the idea of a dumb jock would have been in my freshman year of high school. There was a remedial algebra class, equivalent to the one that I had personally taken in seventh grade that was filled with six foot tall, could eat me for breakfast sized, football players.
It had disgusted me to the point where I stereotyped the whole football team as dense and stupid. He was an exceptional lacrosse player, student and eventual prom date. Their coach was turning an eye to their grades, and in turn rewarding their bad behavior. In Friday Night Lights you can also see how high school athletes, specifically football were given an upper hand. Each football player was given a rally girl who did everything from make them cakes, be a booty call, or even write their essays.
Tim Riggens, who seemed to be the most well-known dumb jock in town, was benefiting from a rally girl writing his papers, with coaches and possibly even teachers turning their heads until the academic adviser found out. Collegiate athletics and academics pair together in a peculiar way, depending on the school. Many schools have a GPA requirement for athletes, for example, Pennsylvania state university, only requires their athletes to maintain a 2. Chaddock, Laura, Kirk I. Voss, Matthew B.
Pontifex, Lauren B. Raine, Charles H. Hillman, Arthur F. Tomporowski, Phillip D. Davis, Patricia H. Miller, and Jack A.
June 1; 20 2 : — Join the Campaign for , Happier Parents by signing this simple pledge. Become a fan of Raising Happiness on Facebook.
Christine Carter, Ph. Find out more about Christine here. Become a subscribing member today. In the s, we began to see more stories that emphasized the unique struggles athletes faced, from the pressures placed on them by parents and coaches to the fears that high school might be their peak. For a time, the jock was no longer the token bully. He was allowed to be a sympathetic protagonist—lovably dimwitted, rather than primally aggressive.
These portrayals went a long way toward humanizing the jock—yet he still remained stereotyped as dumb, his life wholly defined by sports at the expense of smarts. These lingering distinctions between brains and brawn reflect off-screen misconceptions about our own skills.
With his competency in intellectual and athletic fields, Plato could be said to have been a generalist—or jack of all trades. Yet the paradox of expertise explains that mastery of just one area, while impressive, can also narrow your overall abilities. Meanwhile, their accelerated reflexes can actually give athletes an advantage when it comes to time-sensitive problem-solving. We see the jock as someone who specializes in sports—and we assume he prioritizes them above everything else, which leaves the other areas in his life sorely lacking.
And we often falsely believe that his focus on his body means he has nothing on his mind. The dumb jock is an exaggeration, yet it also illustrates some very real problems inherent to anyone who overemphasizes masculinity and competition, which can lead to an unbalanced existence.
One way we see that the dumb jock perpetuates his own self-fulfilling prophecy is by unequivocally putting athletics above academics. On Glee , Puck plays football, sings, and dates anyone he wants. Often the dumb jock is seen pinning all his hopes on an athletic scholarship that he hopes will lead to playing professionally.
And this creates its own sub-trope that we see time and again: The high school football star whose entire life is sidelined by a bad game or traumatic injury, leaving them with no other prospects.
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