There comes a time when someone has to ask themselves a potentially life shattering question. For some that question might be "Who am I?", "Can I continue pursuing my passion?" or "Do I really love my significant other?" However, for me that question is "Who is the dumber main character in the hit 1994 comedy Dumb and Dumber?" Some readers think that a mere college freshman isn't capable of answering such a controversial question. They are probably right, but I am dumb enough to try.
I will only be using the original movie as a source to determine the answer to this question. This is solely for my own convenience, and because Dumb and Dumberer and Dumb and Dumber To are very bad movies. To start off then an introduction of our two contestants and main characters.
This is Lloyd Christmas, played by Jim Carrey, a limousine driver who lives with his roommate in Rhode Island. While on his job he quickly becomes infatuated with a woman he is taking to the airport. This woman intentionally leaves a briefcase full of ransom money to be picked up by her husband's kidnappers. Lloyd prevents this exchange though by taking the briefcase for himself under the impression the woman accidentally left it unaccompanied. He then embarks on his quest to return the briefcase and gain the woman's affection.
This is Harry Dunne, played by Jeff Daniels. He is Lloyd's roommate and works as a dog groomer, and as such he decorated his van to look like a dog as well. As Lloyd's briefcase situation unfolds the audience gets to see Harry work at his job as he tries to get the dogs he has groomed to the dog show. This is of course interrupted by the process of getting fast food for each dog, which eventually results in them getting messy before they arrive to the dog show. He gets fired for that and joins Lloyd on his quest to deliver the briefcase .
So now to decide who is dumb and who is dumber. Well when it comes to social situations Harry is definitely more successful than Lloyd. When they are at a high end social event in Aspen with the woman Lloyd is interested in, Lloyd asks Harry to get her attention for him. This results in Harry successfully fumbling his way into a date with the woman. To be fair to Lloyd though Harry does almost injure the woman in a snowball fight during the date. Lloyd never redeems himself with this woman though because when they finally have another one on one conversation he blows it by scaring her even more than he did the first time they met.
When it comes to more academic knowledge Harry also wins. Lloyd is near illiterate which is kind of where this argument ends. There is a scene where he is having trouble reading the word "the" and asks Harry for help. He also doesn't know much about history either because he gets super excited and surprised when he reads a framed newspaper article from 1969 about the U.S. moon landing. Harry doesn't get much of an opportunity to demonstrate his own academic prowess, but at least he can read the word "the."
Does any of this really matter though when Harry is constantly the second in command of the two? Lloyd is the one who calls all the shots. He is the one who sets them on their adventure in the first place. Their is only one time where Harry gets mad at Lloyd, and that is when Lloyd ends up driving the wrong direction to Aspen. Lloyd then ends up trading their car for a high MPG scooter which in Harry's opinion totally redeems his actions. They later go on to almost freeze when they arrive in Aspen. So is Lloyd really dumber than Harry when Harry goes along with Lloyd's idiotic moves?
The answer is yes because Lloyd probably kills a lot of people in one of the first scenes in the movie by running a bunch of red lights and causing an explosion he doesn't notice.
