The incredible thing about television is that characters have the potential to be represented in a million different ways. Unfortunately, producers tend to stick to the same few archetypes and tropes. Nearly every show about high schoolers includes a tough jock or a rebellious bad boy. As such, it is no surprise that television follows a few patterns and stereotypes when it comes to portraying intelligence. One of the most obvious and frankly painful depictions of intelligence is the socially awkward genius. In spite of their high IQs and brilliant minds, these characters have trouble understanding jokes and other social cues. For instance, nearly every character in “The Big Bang Theory” acts this way. Most of the show’s humor comes from the contrast between the awkwardness of the brilliant physicists like Sheldon and Leonard, and the “normal” people like Penny, the waitress who lives across the hall. Another kind of intelligent character is the one whose abilities are limited to helping the protagonist. We thus can see that in the show “Arrow,” Felicity Smoak is a computer whiz who worked as an IT girl for superhero Oliver Queen’s company before joining “Team Arrow” as a hacker. She could do anything from finding shortcuts during a car chase to sending a greedy criminal’s illegally-earned income to a charity as a twisted form of blackmail—all from the comfort of her computer screen. However, when she wasn’t busy saving the world, she was reduced to little more than Oliver Queen’s love interest. The final type of smart character is the one that is constantly picked on. In a high school scenario, it’s the nerdy kid who gets shoved into lockers and made fun of. The show “Glee” created an entire series based on this idea. Even after the glee club won awards and competitions, it was still met with resentment from the majority of the student body. Although the audience wanted the students in the glee club to succeed, the prevailing theme throughout the show was that the kids who were smart and hard-working were not the ones who were cool and popular. The fact is, smart people aren’t as unique as television makes them out to be. They should not be marveled at like zoo animals or be used as an easy target. Additionally, the characters who are presented in the media shouldn’t have their intelligence be their defining characteristic. Although television has come a long way in normalizing intelligence, there is still more ground to be gained in creating characters that are complex and interesting—not just smart.