Mr. Bean, Borat and Charlie Chaplin. What do they have in common?

We are used to see Rowan Atkinson, Sacha Baron Cohen and Charles Chaplin play somewhat dumb characters yet, in real life, they are all incredibly smart people…

This got my curiosity and I think I understood why it is. I also see a similarity with Plautus: in his full name (Titus Maccius Plautus) there are traces of «Maccus» the by-definition dumb character in old roman tales. And yet, I believe we can agree that one of the greatest playwrights of all time is to consider dumb.

Doing some reaserch I also found more modern actors and actresses that are considered quite smart while playing «dumb» roles, such as Lisa Kudrow (Phoebe Buffay in Friends), Tony Hale (Buster Bluth in Arrested Development) and Nolan Gould (Luke Dunphy in Modern Family).

I’ve also identified some italian actors that follow this rule: Paolo Villaggio (as Fantozzi), the great Totò and Pasquale Medici (as Checco Zalone). The latter I’d also like to quote, as he once said in a message to italian students:

«I’ve often played the boor, the ignorant… well, you wouldn’t know how much I’ve studied to deliver those performances»

So playing the «dummy» isn’t so easy. But now comes the question: why? Why play a role so distant from one’s personality and stick to it for all thei careers?

Because we love, trust and identify in the «dummy» more than we do in the «know-it-all» or even «badass» character.

In front of a dumb character we lower our defences, our immunty system is shut off and we are vulnerable to all the lessons they teach us. What lessons – you might ask – though?

I’ve decided to take the first three characters and categorized them in three important fields in which they teach us a lot (this isn’t to limit them in a label, just to highlight their best potential):

• Society: Mr. Bean is a solitary, a society’s outcast at times dare I say;
• Personal: Charlie Chaplin is extremely powerful in transmitting his feelings, whih we relate to;
• Political: Borat did it in fiction and Sacha Baron Cohen did it in reality, both with deadly effectiveness.