When Idiocracy was released 20 years ago, it was to fulfill a contractual obligation between 20th Century Fox and Mike Judge.
The movie bombed because the studio tried to bury it in as few as many theaters as possible with no press or marketing. But its notorious release helped word of mouth to spread as social media was exploding. Over time it’s seen more as a horrifying prophecy especially with the election of Donald Trump in 2016.
Many people have questioned Judge’s political views and I’d say he’s more of a moderate across the board. But he doesn’t care for big corporations and how they see Americans as consumers. In King of the Hill, he poked fun at big box stores with MegaloMart and as Hank Hill was trying to hold on to the last of the Nuclear Family ideals in a society that was changing too fast. Hank wasn’t always right but those around him weren’t always wrong.
Office Space seemed to show how the corporate world was sucking the life out of people who had grown up on those ideals only to see the rug pulled out. Even if Jennifer Aniston’s Joanna put more and more novelty buttons “flair” on her work vest, it still wouldn’t be enough.
People in the 1990s were being told to buckle down more, roll up their sleeves and give a little extra, yet there was no incentive.
That’s how things have become by the start of the movie. A college degree doesn’t guarantee a good paying job or at least one where you won’t be told on a Friday afternoon, you’ve been let go because they want to save money by hiring someone who can work for less. Education isn’t important as athletics has taken more priority. A redneck cheats on his wife with a neighbor who both fight over him. His son wins a football game and knocks up the cheerleading squad while a yuppie couple don’t feel its the right time to have children.
The problem is that a few decades earlier, it was easier to start a family with multiple children. But by the 2000s, there was no incentive. Having a child become more and more of an expense. And it’s only gotten worse since and more and more expensive. People aren’t having big families anymore or even kids. Yet they romanticize people like the Duggars.
Joe Bauers (Luke Wilson) the main protagonist of the movie has found a way to join the military and be assigned an easy job. But because he doesn’t take many initiatives as his superiors tell him to “Lead, follow or get out of the way” as he always gets out of the way, he is criticized. Just like in Office Space, people are expected to keep doing more and more and more but they’re not rewarded.
Joe is assigned to participate in an experiment where he will be frozen for one year because he’s average. A prostitute, Rita (Maya Rudolph), is chosen after the military officer behind the project forms a friendship with her pimp Upgrayedd (Brad “Scarface” Jordan.)
Like Office Space, Judge is showing how people given power and authority choose to see those under them as expendable. Why not use some young officers? Because Joe and Rita are viewed as not contributing much to society. Yet the officer behind the military experiment becomes more corrupt and is arrested.
And funding is cut to the experiment while Joe and Rita are forgotten about and 500 years pass before dumb luck result in them being released. People have become so inept and incompetent, they don’t know hot to dispose of trash, just piling it up into the sky. I wonder if the minds behind WALL-E saw this and used it or it’s become apparent we have more trash than what we know what to do with it.
The world Joe and Rita wake up in is a world in which being smart is a bad thing. But Judge and co-writer Etan Cohen know we still look down on people who are smart. Chris Rock said in his stand-up people released from jail/prison get more respect in his neighborhood growing up than people with a Master’s as he mocks them saying “You my master now?”
Even the old insult of calling someone a “college boy” is seen as a flex that someone who works in a factory is more important. Yet the deterioration of vo-tech education and apprenticeships really left many young people with little to no options.
Joe is disoriented coming out of the hibernation chamber which crashed through an apartment during massive trash pile avalanche. The apartment belongs to Frito Pendejo (Dax Shepherd wonderfully cast), who is typical of the rest of the society. He yells at Joe telling him to shut up when Joe asks where he is and shoves him outside totally oblivious to how there’s a huge hole in his home.
The rest of the population mumble words speaking in a cross between hillbilly and valley girl, inner-city slang and grunts. They call him a “retard” and “faggott” because of the way Joe talks. Big obese guys even threaten violence.
Obesity seems to be a huge problem as people eat Carls Jr. and Butt-Fuckers which is what Fudd-Puckers is called. I don’t think Judge and Cohen were being prophetic, they were just being observant. In the first Harold and Kumar movie, there’s a group of white young men who scream “Extreme” and seem to live to be a constant nuisance to everyone they come in contact with. And the movie is about eating fast food which has always been a big push since the 1970s.
Jackass, The Jerry Springer Show and reality TV were all popular. People seemed not to care about others as they continued to be more manly to be more dangerous.
And while today it seems a lot has come true with the election of Trump who mirrors President Dwayne Elizondo Mountain Dew Herbert Camacho (Terry Crews) and his Cabinet who all seem just as incompetent as him, the signs have always been there.
Elections are really popularity contests. It’s been theorized that Franklin Pearce was elected because Nathanial Hawthorne wrote a book about him publishing it during an election year. George Washington, Ulysses S. Grant and Dwight Eisenhower were all popular war generals. Sonny Bono was elected to Congress and Jesse Ventura and Arnold Schwarzenegger became governors of California and Minnesota respectively.
Joe becomes famous because he takes an easy cognitive test and it’s determined hes the smartest person alive and is appointed Secretary of the Interior to help the dust bowl problem. But the problem is easy. Brawndo, a Gatorade-style corporation used its money and political influence to take over the FDA that Brawndo is used in water fountains and on crops.
And despite Joe’s repeated insistence water should be used, he’s told Brawndo is what plants crave which is a slogan. It’s funny because it’s true. People believe stuff just because a corporation says it or a jingle. They still believe we swallow spiders while we sleep.
What Idiocracy shows us is a world in which people refuse to use common sense or individual thought out of fear it will make them an outcast and suffer violence. There’s no mention of religion but I feel it’s also meant as a target for a world where individual thought is seen as a weakness. In the era of “I do my own research,” what people mean is they are just listening to what they want to hear.
The elevation of talk radio and people like Rush Limbaugh created a world where whomever yells the loudest wins the argument.
When Joe convinces everyone to water the crops, it results in Brawndo’s stock collapsing and mass layoffs, where Joe is sentence to Rehabilitation, a Thunderdome meets demolition derby event that the President attends happily. It mirrors the UFC White House event. But Rita notices the crops are growing and tries to tell him as he replies he hasn’t seen any crops. It sounds similar to today’s times where people who are in power act like their opinions are all that matters.
But one thing that has puzzled me is if society has become to incompetent that they can’t reset a digital clock or not drive off a highway where the road has collapsed, how are they still able to build automobiles or make clothing, even if it’s made of polyester. Is it all imported from other countries? If so, what are they getting out of it?
Some have argued the movie endorses eugenics but I think it’s really about how Americans become too reliable on automation and valuing profits. The people of the future don’t care about anyone but themselves. We’ve made it acceptable to mock and berate those we don’t like. The popular TV show Oh, My Balls! has someone who repeatedly is hit in the groin and people do it in real life.
And yet things seem to have happened in our real life. Fast food companies have kiosks know to take your orders and they malfunction. Coffee places offer sexual favors and reports indicate a former prostitute is the First Lady.
But just as people feared the realities of 1984 and It Can’t Happen Here, there’s always been pushback to stop it. Soylent Green hasn’t happened and The Soviet Union is no more. Even Adam Sandler movies featuring him and some of his minions like Rob Schneider are no longer popular. We have continued to make movies with stories that have made you care about whose ass it was and why it was farting.
What do you think? Please comment.
Zane Says 