Well, this is just embarrassing. A new study from the Brookings Institution discovered that only 10 percent of Americans can competently draw film actor Tim Robbins, a humiliatingly low figure for a country that postures itself as a global superpower.
Of the 5,734 individuals polled, not even one in every 10 could convincingly sketch the Shawshank Redemption star, even though he’s been a fixture in American cinema for well over 30 years. An alarming number of those polled (16 percent) revealed that they weren’t even entirely sure who Tim Robbins was, despite receiving helpful prompts like, “He dated Susan Sarandon for, like, 20 years,” and “He was great in Mystic River.”
As China and the rest of the developed world continue to soar ahead, it’s disconcerting that so few Americans can faithfully render the likeness of the Academy Award-winning actor. Below are some of the more appalling attempts turned in by the study’s participants:
