The Hidden Intelligence Theory
                                           
           The basis of the Hidden Intelligence Theory is that Brittany Taylor is more intelligent than she portrays hers elf to be.  The main contention is that she hides her smarts in an effort to maintain her popularity in the eyes of her fellow cheerleaders, the football team and anyone else she believes is "cool."  No one is saying that Brittany is a genius or even of above average intellect or making any other comment as to what her IQ may be.  She is assumed to be of average or slightly above average intelligence that plays or acts dumb to keep her portrayed image intact.

Examples of Brittany's Intelligence

           The followi ng examples are from aired material and are intended to prove that Brittany has shown her intelligence and to prove that she isn't a savant (i.e. really good at one thing but severely lacking in all other areas).  The major examples are as follows:

#104, Café Disaffecto - Brittany shows an appreciation for Shakespeare that shows that she is capable of being interested in more intellectual topics and that she has the capacity to understand something relatively complex.

#107, The Lab Brat - She uses her little brother creatively as a weapon to stop a perceived threat of Daria and Quinn stealing her boyfriend that involved sabotaging a school proje ct.

#113, The Misery Chick - Brittany easily understands Daria's advice and is able to repeated it nearly flawlessly (even if she was more convoluted) in her own words.  "Feeling bad about not feeling worse" 

#202, The Daria Hunter - Brittany uses her never before seen proclivity for military strategy to come up with a brilliant tactic to win the capture the flag game.

#210, Fair Enough - Brittany tricks Kevin into thinking that they usually take the highway to school.  However, not much intelligence is required to convince Kevin of anything.

#301, Through a Lens Darkly - Brittany was able to say just the right thing to Daria to make her realize that it's not always bad to be vain.  She did think the glasses had something to do with it, so she's not that smart.

Concluding Remarks

           Of course, there are much m ore instances of Brittany acting completely ridiculous but that has been attributed to her trying to impress Kevin.  Notice that in almost every situation described above that Kevin and Brittany were separated by circumstances.  Therefore, a corollary to this theory is that, in general, the closer that Brittany is to Kevin, the dumber she acts.  There will be exceptions to this corollary (like the example from Fair Enough) but it can act as a good rule of thumb.  Overall, Brittany could be a bright person



Copyright © Mike Quinn and Toonscape, Inc., 2000.
Daria and all related characters are © 1997-1999 MTV Networks, Inc.