6 Characters Who Were Inexplicably Awful At Normal Jobs

6 Clark Kent Is A Hilariously Shitty Journalist

Most Superman stories see Clark Kent holding an everyday job, both to A) make him more relatable, and B) to further illuminate just how much of an entitled asshole Batman is. And for some reason, the career Clark pursued was journalism, instead of say, weightlifter, or professional Deal Or No Deal contestant. But is he any good at it?

Let's look at the most recent incarnation of Superman in Batman V. Superman: Dawn Of Justice. One of the first times we see Clark working he's covering Lex Luthor's party. Amazingly, he doesn't recognize, or even seem to know, who Bruce Wayne is.

That's like not recognizing Steve Jobs or Bill Gates -- understandable if you live in an isolated Greenland fishing village, but not so much if you're a journalist working for a major media outlet. Speaking of which, we later see Clark actually at work at the Daily Planet offices. Probably pounding out a newspaper article, right?

Nope, he's apparently just Googling Batman, the guy he's fighting with secretly as Superman. That would be like if you spent most of your work day Facebook-stalking that asshole who started a bar brawl with you last Friday. Clark's even reading a Daily Planet article, written by someone who's presumably getting paid the same amount to actually do his job. Even worse, if you pause the movie just before Clark opens the browser, you can see what he's working on -- namely, nothing. He doesn't even have a goddamn headline yet.

And it's not like he doesn't have shit to do. Later, Perry White flips out because Clark blows off writing a sports article to obsessively research Batman instead. (This is a perfectly acceptable excuse here at Cracked, but not at most publications.)

Clark argues that he hasn't done anything wrong, because the Planet should be writing about Batman.

This is insane for a few reasons. First off, how is a Batman story a substitute for a recap of a local sporting event? Can you imagine checking the paper for a baseball score and getting 1000 words about a crazed vigilante branding sex criminals? Secondly, the Daily Planet has written about Batman, which Clark should know because he was just reading the article. Goddammit, Superman.

Somewhere in your subconscious, you have a vague, hazy memory of James Franco adopting a chimpanzee. It wasn't a fever dream, but rather the plot of 2011's Rise Of The Planet Of The Apes. In the movie, James Franco's neighbors (not unreasonably) complain that there's a hyper-intelligent super ape running around ruining their property values, so Franco must entrust his pet chimp Caesar to an ape sanctuary. Which, hey, doesn't sound so bad, right?

Unfortunately, it turns out that everyone who works there is a dickhole -- yes, these people got into the ape-saving business except to act like total psychos. The worst offender is Brian Cox's son, played by Draco Malfoy. He has no interest in any part of the job except for the "abusing the apes for no reason" one.

Brian Cox's character is somehow even more ridiculous. You'd think that the guy running the ape sanctuary would, you know, have some interest in ape behavior. But when he notices that the apes have started forming a murder squad, he just backs away and heads home.

These guys know there are other jobs, right? Why would this family who either hates or just doesn't give a shit about apes run an ape sanctuary? Are there no Starbucks in this universe? Did one of them run over Jane Goodall with their car and get a curse put on them?

4 Emma Stone Screwed Up Her One-Woman Show In La La Land

We tend not to expect realism from musicals, which is why nobody cared that Gene Kelly didn't die of pneumonia at the end of Singin' In The Rain. Even so, there were a few moments in La La Land that were utter head-scratchers. Like, how many jazz musicians could relate to the story of a piano player who suffers due to an abundance of paying gigs and photoshoots?

Also, what was going on with Emma Stone's character's one-woman show? Sadly, nobody shows up to it, probably because one-person shows in L.A. are as common as urine-soaked subway rats are in other cities, and just as appealing.

Luckily, thanks to the internet, we don't have to wonder any further why her show tanked as hard as it did. Comedian Emily Heller went full Room 237 on this movie, tweeting a freeze-frame of Mia's email invite:

First of all, Outlook? Really? More importantly, as Heller points out, Mia didn't BCC the email recipients. Anyone who's had any dealings in PR (or, like, life in general) knows that you shouldn't "broadcast the addresses of everybody to the entire mailing list" -- it's a real faux pas. So anyone receiving the email likely disregarded it as the work of an amateur. Of course, things did ultimately work out for Mia, because some big-time casting director was one of only a few people at the show. Meaning that the movie is either totally unrealistic, or the La La Land DVD will have a deleted scene showing that the casting director only dropped by the theatre for a poop emergency.

3 The Heroic Doctor In Halloween Sucks At His Job

There's certainly no shortage of memorable characters from John Carpenter's slasher classic Halloween, from masked killer Michael Myers, to terrified babysitter Laurie Strode, to Dr. Samuel Loomis, Michael Myers' psychiatrist. Apparently, a lot of people in law enforcement consider Halloween a state holiday, because Loomis is seemingly the only one who gives a crap about tracking Myers down after a violent escape.

Eventually, Loomis tells one of the local cops his full history with Michael. See if you notice when it starts to get a tad unprofessional:

Just to recap, that's a doctor describing his child patient as being decidedly Satan-like. And that was just his first impression of the kid -- it gets even worse.

So, that's a mental health professional diagnosing a young patient as pure evil, which is his entire rationale for throwing the towel on his rehabilitation and trying to keep him locked up forever. And sure, you might be thinking: "But Michael Myers is evil; he's possessed by an ancient Druid curse!"

But how could Loomis possibly know that? All Michael has done up to this point is murder a few people -- that, unfortunately, happens all the damn time. Pale skin, dilated pupils, and an inexplicable fixation with William Shatner are no justification for a man of science to one day start yelling about Lucifer like an Ozarks snake handler. Can you imagine this jabroni testifying in court? No wonder Halloween got all those sequels, Mike Myers probably kept walking.

Oscar-winner The King's Speech told the true(ish) story of the heartwarming friendship between King George VI and the speech therapist tasked with keeping the masses from knowing he had a speech impediment. The movie makes it clear that the king's problem requires a hefty amount of psychology. In order to help his oration, every aspect of George's personal life is to be discussed.

After some tough love moments (the therapist curses at him and calls him "Bertie"), the King is finally de-stutter-ized after having a catharsis, finally confessing a childhood trauma.

The problem is, that's the totally wrong approach. While there's usually a psychological aspect to stuttering, there's no evidence that it's caused by some kind of childhood trauma. That may have been a popular notion at the time the movie is set (AKA, the backwards-ass olden times), but we now know that stutters don't have emotional triggers.

This is a neurological phenomenon we haven't totally figured out yet, not the result of, say, wetting your pants at a grade-school dance -- so the therapist was talking out of his ass and hassling the king for no damn reason. But hey, it worked in real life, right? Probably not, since their candid relationship is mostly made up. Now that's what we call Oscar gold!

1 Indiana Jones' Boss Is Totally Cool With Murder

It's been well established at this point that Indiana Jones is pretty much the worst teacher in the world, a morally bankrupt piece of crap, and, above all, an impressively lousy archeologist. Hell, the first time we see him, he tries to retrieve one small gold statue and ruins an ancient temple, leaves behind at least one corpse, and makes us all wonder why the movie wasn't called Indiana Jones And The Hefty Fine Plus Five-Year Probation.

You might say there's just no changing Indiana Jones, as evidenced by the fact that he's worn the same exact outfit for 30 years -- which is weird as hell, when you think about it -- but what about those surrounding him? Aren't they enabling his clearly ridiculous lifestyle? Take Marcus Brody, the dean at Indy's college. Brody is the one funding these murder-filled exploits and, in turn, reaping the rewards. He chooses to live in willful ignorance about where these fancy antiquities are coming from.

Really, Marcus? There isn't any paperwork you have to fill out or something? In The Last Crusade, Indy straight-up steals a small golden cross and, in doing so, inadvertently blows up a boat. That's four dead people so one dumb cross can be in a college museum and provide ambiance for students sneaking in to make out.

Again, Brody doesn't give a rat's ass that a handful of people got blown up so he can have a sweet new artifact. In fact, he's more than happy to dole out some tuition money for this blood-stained doodad, plus dinner and champagne for the world's skeeziest teacher.

JM is now on Twitter, and co-hosts the podcast Rewatchability.

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