I recently received as a gift a box set of DVDs of the US TV series Bones, described as a kind of "sexed-up CSI" They make for fascinating and enjoyable viewing. Like so many of these highly successful American TV shows, Bones also seems to say a lot about what kind of society the US is, and what kind of people make up its TV audiences. Two threads seem to run through each episode. One is the implied sexual tension between the tough, no-nonsense, averagely smart, but handsome FBI agent Seeley Booth, (played by David Boreanaz) and the forensic anthropologist Dr. Temperance ‘Bones’ Brennan, (played by Emily Deschanel), who is extremely intelligent and dedicated to her work, but who is supposed to lack ‘people skills’ and to be dry and ‘unable to have a good time’ as a result. The other, closely-linked thread is a kind of general disdain for people who are ‘too intelligent’ and therefore ‘not like normal people’ – referred to in the show as ‘squints’.

American English must be unique for the large number of pejorative terms that it has for intelligent people: nerd, geek, dork, pointy-head, cone head, double dome, book worm, blue stocking… I’m sure you can think of some more. I think that this contempt for ‘excessive intelligence’ is a feature that marks out American culture from that of most Europeans nations. In fact an American writer, whose name I cannot remember (does anyone else know?), once said something to the effect that every father secretly hopes his son will grow up to be handsome, healthy, affable, popular and of about average intelligence, the idea being that this is the equivalent of winning the gene pool jackpot. Being too smart, according to this view, would be the equivalent of having some kind of physical - or at least social - handicap.

It is interesting when watching any American TV series to see that it is a given that the lead roles will go to handsome actors and beautiful actresses. Actors with more ‘normal’ looks are relegated to the roles of supporting roles: quirky, sometimes eccentric, often lovable, but not hero material. In fact Americans, who do not see as much foreign TV or movies as we see of theirs, probably think that this is a universal characteristic of programme casting; it isn’t. More than any other people, Americans equate moral goodness with physical good looks to an astonishing degree. This is especially so in the one area where you would most expect this idea to be challenged – in religious programming. Both Hollywood and numerous independent religious film makers have given us so many handsome, hunky Jesuses, strapping patriarchs and photogenic disciples over the years - Mel Gibson's casting of James Caviezel as Jesus in The Passion of the Christ being just the latest example. Just have a closer sometime at that religious tract stuffed into your reluctant hand at the shopping mall - you know, the one with the colour illustrations of the supermodel blond messiah, with the hippy long hair and neatly-trimmed beard and his chiseled disciples, and those corny post-rapture pictures in which the lion is lying down with the lamb and heaven is a place where ugly people are banned. I call this surprising because, although many Americans seem not to know this, for most of its history Christianity has traditionally seen holiness in lice, matted beards, and a general lack of personal hygiene.

America is the only democracy in the western world where a person can be elected to the highest political office not just in spite of their lack of intelligence, but actually because of it. A partial explanation often offered is that, for American conservatives in particular, ‘character’ matters more than intelligence. In reality they should both matter. Blair is probably a liar, Chirac almost certainly a crook, Berlusconi is beyond words, yet none of these people are as dumb as George W. Bush for one very simple reason. Europeans, who are too jaded to expect their politicians to be good, at least expect them to be smart. That is the bare minimum that is required and includes an ability to string together a sentence made up entirely of your own words. Idiots Savants, like Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush would never even be considered for election to high political office in any European nation. And, if we assume that, on average, Europeans voters are not necessarily any smarter than American voters, then the most likely explanation for this is that most European voters of average intelligence want an elected leader who is smarter than they are; while most American voters of average intelligence are looking to elect a ‘regular guy’ they believe to be just like them.

America is a new nation. To a very large degree it has forged its identity by differentiating itself from the Europe from which most of its citizens ultimately hail. And bearing in mind Europe’s history of absolute monarchies and other assorted tyrannies – and more recently the twin disasters of communism and fascism that have spread from that continent to blight the world – that is probably a healthy thing. Americans have little time for the snobbery and elitism that mark much of Europe society. Americans have embraced their destiny, not by trying to outplay the so-called First World at its own game, but by creating a completely different identity. If Europe is sophisticated and cultured, it is also debauched and decadent. From the nineteenth century onwards, Americans more and more envisioned themselves as ‘honest, plain, regular folks’ without all that European ‘high falutin’’ nonsense. In literature this worldview is best expressed by Mark Twain, who, especially in Innocents Abroad, expresses a mix of reverence for Europe’s traditions and artistic achievements and puritanical disapproval of its morals and manners that continues to inform the American view of Europe to this day.

And the result: a nation where it is definitely better to be good-looking than to be smart; where a six-pack in the stomach, or silicone in the breasts is to be preferred to a philosophy tome in the hand; where a president who goes to church every Sunday and is faithful to his wife is preferred to a national leader with intellectual curiosity, an ability to think things through clearly and conscientiously and a grasp of the fine details of international politics. Here’s a quick quiz question: how many Hollywood movies can you think of that revolve around the contrast between the super-smart, but socially inept, ugly guy/girl in glasses and the handsome/pretty, averagely smart guy/girl who is popular and knows how to have a good time?

So back to Bones. First of all, it must be said that, as with so many US TV shows, the production values are fantastic: imaginative camera angles, state-of-the-art graphics, gorgeous washes of colour. In other words it’s a very good looking programme. But not so smart: the characters are somewhat cartoonish and one dimensional; the above-mentioned idée fixe – clever nerds who don’t have a life versus handsome, if not so smart, people who have great sex and enjoy life - is just too relentlessly and unsubtly hammered home, just to make sure that even the slowest-witted viewers also get the ‘message’; the cloying ‘moralism’ that passes for morality (am I the only viewer of American crime series to notice how unrealistically these hardened crime fighting professionals seem to go into shock at the slightest brush with the panoply of human wickedness?) Call me an old first-world snob (because that’s what I am), but I’m really happier watching, say, a British crime series like Inspector Morse, with its finely drawn, complex characters; its slow, thoughtful pace; its shades of moral complexity; its assumption that the viewer is smart enough to make up her/his own mind about what they are watching - and yes, it must be admitted, it’s almost complete lack of eye candy. In the end, my preference for clever, even if ugly, people over Baywatch means that I would probably never make a good American.