Wicked Pretentious - TV Tropes

Wanda: But you think you're an intellectual, don't you, ape?
Otto: Apes don't read philosophy.
Wanda: Yes, they do, Otto. They just don't understand it.

• Frieza from Dragon Ball is a businessman who drinks A Glass of Chianti and acts sophisticated and aristocratic. However, beneath that elegant personality lies a mood-swinging Psychopathic Manchild with anger issues.
• Fairy Tail: Jose Porla fancies himself a Gentleman Wizard who cares about good manners even toward those he kidnapped. But beneath the thinly-veiled façade is an arrogant Green-Eyed Monster whose envy over the titular guild’s esteemed reputation drives him to wage war. The fact that he intends to ransom Lucy to gain her family’s fortune while crushing Fairy Tail into nothing further exposes him as a greedy, jealous, and spiteful man at heart.
• Jojo's Bizarre Adventure: Golden Wind: Polpo, a high-ranking member of Passione, zigzags the trope. On one hand, he is genuinely well-read, enjoys the finer things in life such as A Glass of Chianti, and muses on the value of trust and Undying Loyalty. On the other hand, he is a grotesque eater (to the point he’s unconcerned with eating his own fingers), ties said ideals of loyalty to a gang that sells drugs to children, and believes he is entirely justified in killing a man if he was being insulted.
• Jujutsu Kaisen: Mahito is a Straw Nihilist who loves to wax philosophical on human nature and believes that he's the only one who understands the meaning of life as well as the soul. He's also a misanthropic Psychopathic Manchild who uses his ideology as an excuse to murder hundreds, never mind that, once his beliefs are thrown back in his face, he will quickly abandon them to save his own skin.
• One Piece:
  • Ex-pirate captain Kuro plays the part of a well-dressed, urbane butler named Klahadore as part of his plan to murder a young girl and make off with her fortune. When his plan starts hitting roadblocks, he breaks out his Wolverine Claws and shows the bloodthirsty savage he actually is, frightening his right-hand man Jango in the process.

    Jango: To avoid scratching his face with his "Cat Claws"...he pushes his glasses up his nose [with his palms]. It's proof that he hasn't forgotten how to kill!

  • Marine Lieutenant Fullbody pretends to be a sophisticated wine connoisseur to impress women and keep up appearances as an Officer and a Gentleman. When Sanji exposes the façade he quickly drops the act and even assaults his date in anger, receiving a Curbstomp Battle by Sanji for his troubles. Ironically, after getting demoted^note  he drops the persona and starts inverting the trope, becoming openly crass and silly but also considerably nicer.

• The Penguin from Batman is from an upper-class family but is also a brutal gangster. Several stories show that he just doesn't fit in among Gotham's social elite despite his best attempts. This is Depending on the Writer, though, as he is sometimes shown as genuinely Wicked Cultured and sometimes even more refined (if also more murderous) than the elite he hobbles with.
• Marvel Universe: Wilson Fisk/The Kingpin, of Daredevil and Spider-Man fame, actively cultivates his image as a Self-Made Man and a philanthropist with refined tastes, hiding from the public at large the violent mobster he truly is.
• Burt Schlubb and Douglas Klump from Sin City are described as having "Delusions of Eloquence" and are nearly incapable of not peppering every sentence with pretentious twenty-dollar words delivered in the most stilted, wordy ways possible. This in spite of the fact that they're two no-name thugs who get no respect from anyone, least of all the story.
• In Starman (DC Comics), Simon Culp is a violent racketeer, cultist and murderer, delighting in taking his revenge on society, which has ostracized him for his proclivities and dwarfism. He makes it a point to dress immaculately and very much prefers to limit himself to talking in French, especially since he feels his own native Cockney makes him look vulgar.
• Preacher: Eccarius, the vampire leader of Les Enfants du Sang. After being turned, he dedicated himself to living like a haughty Classical Movie Vampire with some Anne Rice flavoring (gothic mansion, Purple Prose, adoring legion of human groupies, leather pants, etc.). Cassidy sees him as a harmless twit Cursed with Awesome like himself, and makes friends with him after convincing him to drop the affectations, but it turns out Eccarius is one of those kinds of vampires — happily preying on the innocent without remorse.

• An American Tail: Warren T. Rat pretends to be quite cultured, quoting Shakespeare and playing the violin... neither of which he's able to do correctly.
• The Box Trolls: Archibald Snatcher is a vicious pest exterminator whose attempts at appearing articulate and fancy expose a desire to enter high society. Not only does he fail to properly emulate the upper class he wants to join, but he's willing to go as far as wiping out an entire species to get what he wants.
• Coco: Ernesto de la Cruz is a musician, singer, and actor who's proficient with folk songs like "La Llorona" as well as modern ones, and he takes the time to admire Miguel's performance. However, he has no genuine appreciation for whatever art form he performs. Everything he does, he does to attract attention to himself and gain fame and wealth. Above all else, he is also a plagiarist and a murderer, as he took credit for Héctor's music after killing him.
• The Great Mouse Detective has Professor Padraic Ratigan, a Moriarty Expy who tries to pass himself off as a Mouse of Wealth and Taste, but his Berserk Button, coupled with his Villainous Breakdown, only serve to show the audience how beastly he really is.

• In Batman Returns, the Penguin was born deformed due to inbreeding and his parents, to avoid scandal, quietly disposed of him. Growing up as a carnival freak, he returns to Gotham but doesn't fit in among the upper crust because of his atrocious manners.
• Birds of Prey (2020): Roman Sionis, also known as Black Mask, comes off as a charismatic, art-collecting businessman who runs a swanky nightclub. In reality, he's a misogynistic, mood-swinging Spoiled Brat gangster who tortures people for imagined slights and his own pleasure. His art collection exemplifies this, consisting of paintings objectifying women and shrunken heads of people he likens to having power over.
• In Blood and Bone, the Big Bad James does everything he can to preserve his image (wearing fine suits, avoiding alcohol and swearing, owning a painting of Genghis Khan), but the mask slips every time he is inconvenienced or even contradicted. Other characters wind up dead soon after.

  Mob boss: I've heard you've become quite the golfer.
  James: Yes. But unfortunately, I've just lost my golfing partner.

• Albert Spica, the titular thief in The Cook, the Thief, His Wife and Her Lover, is a mafia boss that has taken control of the La Hollandais restaurant where he dines every day with his wife and crew. He fancies himself an intellectual and elite, ordering French food (while mispronouncing the words), musing about philosophy and shaming his group for using improper utensils. In reality, he is a gross, abusive, heartless man. He tortures and kills people he believes have crossed him (regardless of whether they actually did it or if it warranted the punishment), publicly brutalizes his wife and various patrons at the restaurant, harasses Michael for reading while at the dinner table, and this is just what we see on screen. He is so bad, that both the kitchen staff and his own men turn on him by the end of the film.
• Die Hard: Hans Gruber is sharply dressed and brags of his classical education, but mangles a quote about Alexander the Great badly enough to reverse the meaning, to say nothing of comparing himself to one of the world's most famous conquerors while he struggles to maintain control of a single office building long enough to rob the owners.
• Django Unchained:
  • Main antagonist Calvin Candie thinks he is charming, intelligent and cultured, but is actually cruel, petty, stupid and disgusting. Despite presenting himself as a lover of French culture, insisting on being addressed as "Monsieur Candie", and naming one of his black slaves after the protagonist from The Three Musketeers, he doesn't actually speak French and is not even aware that Alexandre Dumas was part black himself. The greatest challenge facing Schultz and Django during their stay on Candie's plantation is flattering him and playing along with his hypocrisy without revealing their utter disgust.
  • Candie is far from the only example in the movie. Big John Brittle is a sadistic, racist criminal who loves quoting the Bible while mercilessly beating slaves. "Big Daddy" Bennett has the charm and panache of a Southern Gentleman, but leads a proto-Klan hate mob to kill Django and Schultz because he can't stand the idea of a black man getting the better of him.
• A Fish Called Wanda: Otto is a violent thug who thinks reading Friedrich Nietzsche makes him much more intelligent and cultured than he really is; he thinks Aristotle was Belgian, confuses Buddhism and Social Darwinism of all things, and believes The London Underground is a political movement.
• Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3: The High Evolutionary tries to come off as an erudite Emperor Scientist and shows an interest in culture and music, but it’s abundantly clear that he’s little more than a perfectionist Psychopathic Manchild who's more concerned with playing God and torturing his creations for failing to meet his impossible standards. He really doesn’t understand anything about the culture or science he invests himself in, and when his creations fail him in any capacity (or cause a blow to his ego), he responds with cruelty of the highest order. The Guardians are not impressed by his love of classical music and musing on humanity during their first meeting (especially on account of learning the sheer trauma he inflicted on Rocket), and when called out on the mess of a society he created he decides that it’s unsalvageable and chooses to burn it to the ground rather than own up to his mistakes. The end result of all this is an unbearable Hate Sink and one of the most despicable villains in the Marvel Cinematic Universe.
• In The House That Jack Built, the titular Jack is a sadistic serial killer who likes to posture himself as a brilliant philosopher and "artist", framing his killings as justification for his pessimistic worldview, while also expressing admiration for fancy things like wine, Greco-Roman architecture, and the works of William Blake. However, Verge frequently cuts through the BS to remind Jack (and the audience) that not only is Jack very much still a monster, he's in fact nowhere near a diabolical genius as he thinks he is, very frequently exaggerating details of his stories to make everyone other than him seem stupid, with evidence showing that he avoided suspicion not because he was careful with his work, but because of police oversight or sheer dumb luck. Verge indirectly calls out Jack as putting on his "cultured" visage simply to impress him.
• Santino, the Big Bad of John Wick: Chapter 2, fancies himself a sophisticate and the perfect candidate for a seat at the High Table, when in reality, he just thinks he is above the rules that the Criminal Underworld has established and has earned few real friends for it. His father passed him for his sister to inherit the position and instead inherits an impressive collection of Renaissance art that is put on display at the Met, something he views as just "paint on canvas".
• Kingsman: The Secret Service:
  • Richmond Valentine rolls in high-class circles but is an upstart tech mogul who dresses poorly and serves fast food at meetings. This contrasts with the protagonist, Eggsy, who is generally regarded as a street thug but whose journey is all about finding his own variety of class.
  • Charlie is a haughtier, elitist example, being Eggsy's Privileged Rival during his time in Kingsman Academy and frequently putting him down for being common-born. He's kicked out when exposed as a Dirty Coward, later tries to sell Eggsy out to the Big Bad, and drops the pretentious part entirely in the second movie to become the movie's ruthless dragon figure. Lampshaded by Eggsy in their final confrontation, remarking that he is more of a gentleman than Charlie will ever be.
• The Ladykillers (2004): Professor Dorr (Tom Hanks in a rare villainous role) tries to present himself as an intelligent man of culture to get in the good graces of Mrs. Munson, but his Southern Gentleman act is so over the top and so painfully out of place for the mid-2000s setting that he comes across more as a Snake Oil Salesman. While he certainly possesses some cunning to manipulate the old lady for a while and put together a temporarily successful criminal scheme, he's also not as intelligent as he makes himself out to be, mostly just using fancy language to sound smarter. This has even caused some viewers to wonder if he is from the South at all, or whether he's just some guy from a place like New Jersey or Boston or even Canada who put together the entire thing as an expression of his own out-of-date views of how Southerners are supposed to look and act based on his limited knowledge of movies like Gone with the Wind. The best you can say about him is that he is the least stupid of a group of Stupid Crooks.
• The Menu: Tyler initially appears to be a charming foodie with a deep understanding of cuisine who is ecstatic to be dining at a high-class restaurant hosted by his idol, Julian Slowik. However, it becomes increasingly clear that he's largely interested in impressing Slowik and looking like he understands his cooking, even as the chef's murder plot unfolds. His attempts to show off his "knowledge" are very surface-level and earn no attention or respect, and when he's instructed to make something himself, he fails spectacularly. Oh, and for the "Wicked" part? He knew Slowik was going to kill everyone but still dragged Margot into it just so he can have the plus-one required to attend. Quite tellingly, Slowik is absolutely disgusted with Tyler and takes pleasure humiliating him into being Driven to Suicide.
• The Night of the Hunter: Reverend Harry Powell presents himself very charismatic, well-spoken man of God who has a natural talent for charming people with fancy speeches and biblical anecdotes. This is nothing more than an act to hide the greedy, misogynistic, and bloodthirsty Serial Killer he really is. He flies off the handle at the slightest bit of resistance and carries a switchblade which he has no qualms about threatening to cut off a little girl's fingers with.

• American Psycho presents this as the Running Gag of its Villain Protagonist, the yuppie serial killer Patrick Bateman, who makes a pretense at being an aficionado of fine food, clothing, and music. Close inspection will reveal that he's only interested in these things because they're popular fads, and actually has little understanding of any of the subjects. Among other things, the Snooty Haute Cuisine he gushes about ranges from bizarre to inedible, his clothes are hopelessly mismatched, and all of the musicians he praises were seen at the time as ridiculously cheesy. Bret Easton Ellis came from a wealthy background, and this was his roundabout way of showing that off, writing Patrick as somebody whose tastes would sound impressive to an ordinary person but who would come across as a clown to somebody from that world.
• A Confederacy of Dunces has protagonist Ignatius J. Reilly. While he is genuinely intelligent, he fancies himself as a peerless philosopher when all he really is is a fat, lazy slob.
• The Godfather: It's noted that the oldest and most experienced wiseguys try to seem the most respectable but also wear the cheapest suits. This is deliberate on their part. They want you to know that they are accustomed to getting their hands dirty, and that respectability hasn't changed that.
• Rita Skeeter from Harry Potter, like any good paparazza, uses some very flowery vocabulary in her writings that does nothing however to hide either the gossipy nature of them or the cheap, petty mean-spiritedness that they possess.
• The Hound of the D'Urbervilles makes Colonel Moran out to be a strange inversion. Despite being raised in a good family and famed for his distinguished military career, he just doesn't give a damn about his reputation and is quite happy living as a thug and a murderer who only feels at peace when his life is in danger.
• James Bond villains get this treatment a lot. The average Bond villain is Nouveau Riche, vulgarly showy with his wealth, adorns himself with attractive female assistants a fraction of his age, has notable deformities that he calls attention to by trying to hide, and one or two of them even cheat at "gentlemen's" games.
• Chrysler Peavy from Mortal Engines is a pirate leader who began having delusions of being an honorable mayor after seizing control of the suburb Tunbridge Wheels and now plans to turn it into the world's first respectable pirate suburb... a goal which he utterly fails to achieve since none of his crew share any of his ambitions, and he himself is still a ruthless pirate at heart.
• Red Rising: Golds certainly like to use cultural references, specifically ancient ones, to make themselves come off as the inevitable, and best leaders of humanity, who carry on a legacy of greatness going back to olden days. However Golds are also a bunch of depraved, self-absorbed, tyrants, who are actually quite stagnant for all their talk of progress, so all their cultural references only makes them come across as even more full of themselves.
• A Song of Ice and Fire: Tywin Lannister is a variation; he makes a big deal about maintaining regal composure in public, but he can stray into hypocrisy sometimes, like when he arranges for his enemies to be killed over dinner, something that's the epitome of bad taste in the Sacred Hospitality culture of Westeros; plus, despite calling it unfitting, he's apparently been seeing whores secretly for some time. However, he ensures the former is carried out by another house (who do indeed get ostracized by their peers,) and he is so discreet about the latter that his own family are shocked to discover it, so unlike most examples on this page he is smart enough to both maintain appearances and avoid the backlash when convenience requires him to play dirty. His understanding of the pretenses necessary to stay in power fully fit with his reputation as "the king who never wore a crown".
• Sword Art Online: Sugou Nobuyuki acts sophisticated, and appears as such to most. Beneath the mask, however, he's a self-absorbed, arrogant psychopath who's nothing but a creepy Psychopathic Manchild, as those who've seen his true self can attest.

• American Horror Story
  • Freak Show has both halves of its Big Bad Ensemble:
    • Dandy Mott, a wealthy heir who attempts to present himself as a cultured gentleman to the people he's trying to charm, but it's all an act. It takes remarkably little resistance from the other party to make him lose his cool and cause his real personality, that of a murderous childish sociopath who throws temper tantrums the instant things stop going his way, to show through.
    • Stanley, who attempts to put on an air of a charming, worldly salesman type, but is actually a sleazy Con Man who will commit murder for a quick buck and spends much of his time in the company of male prostitutes.
  • 1984 gives us Margaret Booth. She displays shades of this early-on, but it's initially overshadowed by her faux-fundamentalist personality. She really dives headfirst into this trope following the timeskip, however. She cultivates the image of a stylish and fashionable businesswoman, but her modus operandi of buying up famous murder sites and turning them into tourist attractions is seen as in extremely poor taste even in-universe, as she's on the verge of losing money over it.
• The Boys (2019):
  • Homelander gets a moment of this in Season 3, when he claims have been reading Martin Luther King Jr. and relates to him as a victim of persecution who "spoke truth to power." This newfound philosophical side stems from his frustrations over not getting his way anymore and finally having his evil deeds catch up to him, portraying himself as an enlightened figure when all he really did was lash out over the consequences of his actions. Right after going on this spiel, he further shows he hasn't changed at all by making the Deep eat an octopus alive For the Evulz.
  • Tek Knight is an even more blatant example. To the public an articulate, classy billionaire hero, behind closed doors he's a Smug Snake elitist and virulent racist with disturbing sadomasochistic hobbies. And then there's his Attempted Rape of poor Hughie…
• In the first season of Daredevil (2015), it's made clear that Wilson Fisk is a violent gangster despite his attempts to pass himself off as an upper-class philanthropist. He owns a closet full of suits with the same black color, owns a bunch of cufflinks he never wears, flips over a table with imported Chinese tea on it because a fellow mob boss insulted him, and his idea of "beautifying" Hell's Kitchen is forcing all the inhabitants out so he can bulldoze it to put up luxury condos. More subtly, he has to get a recommendation from James on what wine to bring on a date, and shows bad manners by smudging the glass with his fingers.
• Homicide: Life on the Street: White supremacist and attempted Cop Killer Gordon Pratt attempts to present himself as a refined, educated revolutionary. He even owns a copy of The Republic in the original Greek, which he brags about whenever he isn't smugly mocking Lewis and Pembleton (who are black) with alleged "scientific evidence" of how black people are genetically inferior to white people. Pembleton manages to provoke him into a Villainous Breakdown by challenging him to read a passage; while he cannot, Pembleton can. Pembleton then dismantles his façade by revealing that he's actually a high school dropout who flunked all of his classes and mocks him for being such a pathetic failure.
• It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia: Dennis Reynolds is a narcissistic creep who often sees himself as a cultured intellectual who's above everyone else, but he's pretty much a pathetic and immature delinquent who's not as cool and intelligent as he believes himself to be. His intellect and Ivy League-background only makes him slightly smarter to the rest of the Gang, and he fares horribly when interacting with normal people. And that's not even going into his petty, manipulative nature.
• The Prisoner (1967): The episode "Hammer into Anvil" takes its name from a scene in which the new Number Two — established as the cruelest and most ruthless Number Two yet — quotes Goethe's line that "You must either conquer and rule or serve and lose, suffer or triumph, be the anvil or the hammer." However, he is clearly unaware of George Orwell's famous coda to the line, "In real life it is always the anvil that breaks the hammer, never the other way about." Number Six, who apparently does know the Orwell quote, has little difficulty in utterly destroying his would-be oppressor, driving him to a complete meltdown through simple mind games.
• While adults in A Series of Unfortunate Events (2017) are all Too Dumb to Live in one form or another, Count Olaf takes this to another level with his Delusions of Eloquence and sophistication. He believes himself to be a Master Actor when really people only fall for his disguises because they are all dumber than him, and he is considered terrible while on stage. He is terrible at math and grammar and he uses words incorrectly at a failed attempt to seem smart. Even his title — Count Olaf — is a title he gave himself to make him seem more impressive. In a lot of ways his home acts as a perfect visual metaphor for himself; a massive mansion that is clearly uninhabitable inside and out in plain sight of an otherwise lovely neighborhood. Ironically, later on in the series, it's suggested that much of his Wicked Pretentious status is, in itself, an act, as he is able to quote a Philip Larkin poem while bleeding to death. This suggests that Olaf fashions himself in opposition to the intellectual and cultured members of VFD, and therefore gives the outward impression of a Lower-Class Lout.

• The titular character of "Bad, Bad Leroy Brown" by Jim Croce is a violent, womanizing thug who likes to make a show of himself with fancy clothes, diamond rings, and vintage cars.
• Mr. Fluglemeyer from Rob Cantor's unreleased song "Cuckoo" dreams of being in the upper class, but it's clear from the lyrics that he's a crude and horrible person who cheats his customers, uses child slaves, and just wants everyone to do his bidding. The song itself uses the tune of Ludwig van Beethoven's "Fur Elise," just to hammer in how he attempts to appear cultured.

• Gentleman John Lynx, a manager in Prairie Wrestling Alliance, tries to convince people he regularly consumes fine culture — he often apes an upper-class British accent (which he invariably fails to maintain), wears a nice suit (complete with cufflinks), and will sometimes recite poetry and make literary references. Those references betray his lowbrow taste in literature, and he's had more than one tantrum at ringside.
• Allysin Kay is a militant gangster who likes blasting murder ballads on the radio and watching contact sports on television. Still, she wants people to think she is globally cultured and a regular consumer of the fine arts, which she attempts to accomplish by imitating wrestlers who are, like Kazuchika Okada. These attempts have more than once fallen flat. Marti Belle, Kay's rival turned ally of convenience turned Tag Team partner, comes from acting and fashion backgrounds. Belle is more culturally learned than Kay, but nonetheless tries to appear classier than she actually is in imitation of Kay.
• Lady Chardonnay Darcy, the Queen of Chavs — she learned that chavs are considered low-class, so she dropped that claim and hired a butler named Savoy in attempt to look more regal, but didn't know how to react when Solo Darling scoffed at the idea of a chardonnay drink, much less as a title of royalty.
• William Regal has historically tried to project the image of English dignity and sophistication whenever he manages to win an "international" contest or title belt. He will lightly clap at the accomplishments of other wrestlers, bow to ladies (if they are "English"), critique the cadence of others' speaking, but the man is a carney conman hooker who is at best "working class" when he tries to posh up, and is a self-admitted dirty rotten scoundrel with hate in his heart deep down.
• Wild Red Berry grew up poor and had no formal education. He would habitually read poems and dictionaries in search of words he did not hear anyone using in an effort to confound listeners, but often did not grasp the full meaning of these words himself.

• Dungeons & Dragons: The Nalfeshnee are a race of demons who often have delusions of grandeur and see themselves as a twisted form of aristocracy within their home plane, the Abyss. When not fighting against or bullying others, they host ritual banquets in a twisted mockery of those conducted by mortal nobles, eating the flesh of still-living creatures with rusted utensils.
• In Nomine: Belial, the Prince of Fire, likes to think of himself as a suave, sophisticated villain. What he is is a half-mad brutish pyromaniac who occasionally puts on a nice suit.

• Assassins: John Wilkes Booth. While he fancies himself a Man of Wealth and Taste with a passion for theatre, and is superficially more well-put than his fellow assassins, it's still made clear his true nature is a white supremacist and Confederate sympathizer who killed Abraham Lincoln for being a "nigger-lover."

• The Penguin once again, in Batman video games:
  • In the Batman: Arkham Series, the Penguin is depicted as a pushy, rude, arrogant, petty, sadistic, openly bigoted London Gangster who is just as unrefined as the henchmen he looks down on, even ruining the exhibits of a natural history museum just to accommodate his criminal headquarters, yet nevertheless believes himself to be the height of sophistication and class because of his Old Money family. Interestingly, unlike most versions of the character that came from wealth or faded glory and now try to keep up appearances, Penguin refused to better himself when he had the opportunity — sent to London by his parents to receive private schooling, he didn't fit in with his classmates and instead spent most of his time there with various street gangs, returning to Gotham with virtually no formal education, even worse etiquette, and a superiority complex as broad as the accent he picked up. He did make a sincere attempt to at least be admired by Gotham's wealthy elite when he unveiled the Iceberg Lounge, but Joker disfiguring a waitress the night of the grand opening humiliated Oswald and sparked their long-running feud. Even in terms of aesthetics, this Penguin is presented as a Darker and Edgier twist on tropes commonly employed by the character.^{For example...}
  • The version of Penguin from Batman: The Telltale Series is Affably Evil and superficially charismatic, but is nevertheless an Impoverished Patrician whose fall from grace turned him into a criminal mastermind bent on revenge against the Wayne family (for somewhat justified reasons, as in this game, Bruce's father injected Penguin's mother with a drug that drove her insane and threw her into Arkham Asylum because he coveted her land and she refused to sell it to him). Whether he's championing himself as a liberator of the downtrodden or enjoying the high life after taking over Wayne Enterprises, Penguin never stops being a brash, violent thug.
• Bully: The prep clique are all like this. They come from privileged backgrounds and speak in fake "posh" accents, but are all spoiled, thuggish brutes.
• Final Fantasy VII: Genesis Rhapsodos has this as a defining feature of his personality. He's one of the world's leading scholars on LOVELESS and is implied to have published writings about his theories to its meaning due to his obsession with it. Normally, this may make him come across as Wicked Cultured, but as his condition and sanity deteriorate and his desperation for a cure intensifies, he starts drawing parallels between the events of Crisis Core and LOVELESS, and becomes convinced it is some sort of holy prophecy or legend that he must fulfill, making him less cultured and more crazy. As for LOVELESS itself, several characters do not have a high opinion of it; Cid, Sephiroth, and Hojo all dismiss its quality at different times, and the NPCs who form its fanbase are largely portrayed as the in-universe equivalent of the more obsessive Final Fantasy fans.
• Persona 5: Ichiryusai Madarame poses as a respectable and talented artist when, in reality, he's long lost his passion and makes a living stealing the works of his students. He admits to currently being in it for fame and fortune, and his Magnum Opus, the mural Sayuri, was made by a disciple he let die so he can claim the panting as his own. Perfectly fitting for the game's Monarch of Vanity.
• Trade Prince Jastor Gallywix from World of Warcraft and its spin-offs is considered greedy even amongst goblins, who have greed as one of their racial personality quirks. He typically wears a top hat, dresses in fur-lined coats and capes, smokes fancy cigars and flaunts his wealth to all who are watching. He's more than happy to abuse his underlings and tries to sell the player and other goblins to slavers. Like most goblins, he speaks with a heavy Brooklyn accent, and he is said to have backstabbed his way up society to reach the top of the Bilgewater Cartel. He's pretty much a street thug, so his classlessness often shows through.

• Ace Attorney:
  • Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney: Manfred von Karma, THE Amoral Attorney, is a so-called "god of prosecution" who has proven the defendant guilty in every trial he's prosecuted for his entire 40-year career. He's very respected (and feared) in his profession. He dresses like an eighteenth-century aristocrat. Why is he here and not Wicked Cultured? The second he opens his mouth, he brazenly intimidates the judge, and during cross-examination he can't go five seconds without interrupting or insulting Phoenix Wright in some way. And that's before you find out he murdered Gregory Edgeworth in cold blood for giving him a minor penalty on his otherwise perfect record.
  • Luke Atmey in Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney – Trials and Tribulations. An arrogant Attention Whore of a detective, he wears clothing just as fancy as the Von Karmas and attempts to come off as brilliant and urbane. He's both a thief and a murderer. For bonus points, his tuxedo, monocle, large nose and unusual yellow hairstyle make him resemble both (again) the Penguin and an actual (rockhopper) penguin.

• Ask That Guy with the Glasses: Despite his sophisticated façade, Ask That Guy is less Wicked Cultured and more of a Wicked Know-Nothing Know-It-All.

• Still more Penguin, from Batman animated shows:
  • Batman: The Animated Series: The Penguin appears charming and sophisticated compared to the rest of Gotham's criminal element, but to the city's actual social elite, he's anything but, which is played for tragic effect in "Birds of a Feather". After a recent release from prison, Penguin makes a genuine attempt at going straight and befriends a wealthy young socialite, only to learn that the whole thing was a Prank Date and her friends were laughing at his crass mannerisms the whole time. This leaves him so embittered and humiliated that he gets back into crime on the spot. Also, in the tie-in comic The Batman Adventures, the Penguin is shown encouraging his personal gang to learn new words on their own, then — as an encouraging teacher — show that he's ahead of them by defining whatever they bring up... even if he doesn't actually know and has to make something up. Then flipped around after the retool; not only does he lose any similarity to the deformed version from Batman Returns, but as a fence and nightclub owner, he is a lot more Wicked Cultured, and loses any interest in avenging himself on high society. Although, in his words:

    "Living well is the best revenge."

  • The Batman (2004): Penguin's Establishing Character Moment involves him crashing a gala he wasn't invited to, quickly making a spectacle of himself with bad manners, feigning offense when he's asked to pay the cover charge (which he can't really afford) and then sneaking off with the silverware. He has a Freudian Excuse; his family used to be eminent and influential in Gotham before the Waynes started overshadowing them. He's a Spoiled Brat who never grew up, even after losing the means to be spoiled.
  • Harley Quinn (2019): Despite wearing fancy clothes and running an upscale nightclub, the Penguin is an unapologetically ruthless and sadistic mobster with a decidedly boorish and unsophisticated demeanor. He abuses and kills his henchmen for petty reasons, takes his revenge against Harley Quinn in a flagrantly degrading and misogynistic way, and doesn't even try to pretend that he's not forcing his nephew Joshua to carry on the family business against his will. This is even reflected in his gang's dress code, as his male goons wear tuxedo-print t-shirts while his female minions wear skimpy leotards with bowler hats.
  • DC Super Hero Girls (2019): The Penguin is barely groomed, visibly unwashed and wears a sweater with the image of a dress shirt on it but is still confident enough to mock Barbara Gordon's blue-collar status to her face. He doesn't even come from money or partake in any white-collar business. All of his money is from blackmail, price gouging, vendor sabotage, rigged games and fixed elections.
• Castlevania (2017):
  • Varney carries himself with class and postures about and being in Dracula's sacred inner circle when everyone sees him as a grubby foulmouthed vampire who thinks way too highly of himself. Eventually, his partner Ratko gets fed up with his antics and gives him a "The Reason You Suck" Speech where he calls him out on his surface-level attempts at wit and importance. While Varney's real identity as Death is legitimately grand and influential, his class has always been a farce and he more or less drops it when he doesn't need to pretend anymore.
  • Ratko's speech doesn't only call out Varney, but also all vampires who act like they're Wicked Cultured. For all their attempts to project charm, wit, and reverence, Ratko knows that as vampires, they're violent and insatiable beasts to their core, and thinks that they're better off embracing such.

  Ratko: You're everything I hate. You vampires who think it's all about wit. I use the word loosely, because you're a shithead for the ages. Being charming, using clever words, desperate for people to admire you because you're special. Too much of the damaged, needy human on you.

• One-off villain Mad Dog from Courage the Cowardly Dog is a crude, unsophisticated, low-class thug who does dirty jobs for quick pay, yet nevertheless he has a high opinion of himself and his lifestyle.
• The Cuphead Show!: Ribby and Croaks mention that they used to be rough-and-tumble fighters, but their mother helped them clean up their act, and now they're "respectable" types who wear pinstripe suits and run a high-class riverboat club. The problem is, Ribby and Croaks are still very prone to violence, and they have a Jerkass streak, making it clear that they're not quite as reformed or squeaky-clean as they think they are.
• King K. Rool, antagonist of Donkey Kong Country (1996), uses large words in an attempt to be sophisticated, yet throws tantrums like a child.
• Hazbin Hotel: Valentino is a pimp and pornographic filmmaker who styles himself as a suave Latin Lover with a penchant for stylish clothing. It doesn't take long for anyone to see he's a slimy, misogynistic, Ax-Crazy Psychopathic Manchild who is obsessed with controlling his staff and keeps them in line through coercion, physical violence, and sexual abuse.
• Miraculous Ladybug: Gabriel Agreste presents himself as a stern, but respectable bigshot in the field of high fashion and lives in a large mansion. As the supervillain Hawk Moth, he presents a loud and bombastic personality and gives his minions gaudy costumes and names. It's revealed later on that his real name isn't even Gabriel Agreste, and that he used to be a young restaurant worker named Gabi Grassette who built his whole legend from the ground up to seem more impressive.
• She-Ra and the Princesses of Power: Horde Prime carries a veneer of sophistication and appreciation for alien culture and arts that never deters from his megalomania and horrifying, oft-times genocidal rule over most of the universe. He particularly enjoys keeping relics from civilizations he ravaged as a power play meant to demoralize his enemies and express his invincibility.
• South Park gives us Gerald Broflovski. As a lawyer, Gerald likes to drink A Glass of Chianti and acts smug and sophisticated. However, Season 20 reveals that Gerald is nothing more than an immature man who trolls women on the internet for his own twisted amusement.