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Idiocracy
Mike Judge’s Idiocracy takes place some five hundred years in the future. Trash is everywhere—mountains of it. Brands are dominant, even clothing is smothered in a variety of logos and issued out of boxes like disposable Kleenex. The president is a former wrestler and wears the presidential seal in the form of a rather unwieldy plaque that hangs around his neck (as does his cabinet). Prices have certainly inflated – a side of fries costs around two thousand dollars – but the scenario is not one of impoverishment. It is filthy and uncultured, to be sure, but not impoverished.
It is also not dystopian, which is significant as film often houses more rotundly ominous visions of the future. Despite the fact that the mean IQ has plummeted – speech is now delivered in incomplete sentences punctuated by guttural inflections – people are generally peaceful. There are guns, but what violence this scenario retains is prescribed as entertainment—at a gladiator-like monster truck rally, or in Ow! My Balls! , the most popular show on television. What fissured international relations this future has retained is not apparent. At least, the headline on the latest Naked Chicks & World Report (“Shit Sucks!”) seems to indicate a general malaise and not the latest scuffles in international diplomacy.
There is, however, an implicit argument to Judge’s future. Leisure has dissolved any incentive in maintenance, and slogans have become commandments. People are even named after the products they buy. Brawndo (the “Thirst Mutilator”) is a sports energy drink whose major competitor was water. Thusly, they bought out water. The stuff now pumps through irrigation systems, and through water fountains. Crops everywhere die. In a rather unnerving instance, a mother wields a bottle filled with Brawndo toward the lips of her infant child as he frantically swings his arms to remove the undesired nipple from his lips. This child is equivalent to every living person on earth, defenseless in the face of the corporations that malnourish his planet.
The only option for redemption is Joe Bowers, a military private from the present renowned for his average physique and average demeanor—he is a quantifiable mean on every measure of human physicality or intelligence. He is enlisted to participate in a government hibernation program, and scheduled to emerge from a chemical-induced sleep exactly one year in the future. Instead, he sleeps for five centuries, and rubs the crust out of his eyes to find the redundant charms of Ow! My Balls! and the landslide of garbage that has enabled his awakening.
Whereas other futures hinge upon some concept of correction, Idiocracy’s is distinguished for its indifference. There may be a conflict, but it is not an urgent concern to anyone. Joe, having been instated on the presidential cabinet for gaining an uncommonly high score on an IQ test, announces his plan for improvement, which is to simply replace Brawndo with water in irrigation systems. There are no immediate results, millions of Brawndo employees lose their jobs, and the populace demands to punish him at a monster truck rally. Excitement distinguishes these people, not patience. Of course, Joe’s simple motives are honorable if not initially welcomed, and he is too good-natured a protagonist in too good-natured a film to be punished. But Idiocracy’s conclusion is of little to criticize, as its true ingenuity is its concept.
There is an inherent irony in most any description of the film, in voices that come off as “pompous and faggy” as Joe’s to his Neanderthaloid companions. It is flawed – knowledge of Judge’s difficulty in producing it amplifies some of the later, more ill-fit scenes – but admirable. Idiocracy’s utter lack of promotion (it was released in exactly twenty-five US cities with only a poster in tow) is now something of a minor legend, and it remains perplexing given the film’s obvious charms. It lies, finally, an infant left at your doorstep, crying for embracement.
Credits
Review by
Rumsey Taylor
Posted on
12 January 2007
Source
Fox DVD
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dave on 12 January 2007 at 9:55 AM Website
I’m almost sure it was released in exactly 6 American cities (+ 1 Canadian): Los Angeles, Atlanta, Toronto, Chicago, Dallas, Houston and (Judge’s hometown of) Austin. Unless I missed a later wider limited release? It definitely never came out in New York; I had to fly to Austin to see it.
Rumsey on 12 January 2007 at 10:31 AM Website
Correct you are, Dave, according to Wikipedia’s claim: seven cities / 125 theaters. I probably misread the latter.
dave on 12 January 2007 at 10:40 AM Website
Its laughs are dumb laughs made safe for smart audiences, with condescention built in. and this plays on the “I’m better than everyone else” syndrome (80% of people think they are better than average drivers), so everyone gets to be smarter than the characters here. it’s a conceit that makes everyone in the film lovably obnoxious – including/especially Private Bowers. certainly one of my favorite modern comedies.
CK Dexter on 12 January 2007 at 2:50 PM Website
I didn’t really get the impression that the audience is supposed to feel smarter than the characters. I got the impression that the movie was an exagerrated portrait of the present, a funhouse mirror, and that the “glimpse at our grim potential future” angle was just a way of softening the blow. I mean, I really, really, winced with recognition frame after frame: that’s us, that’s our world. Which is quite striking, when the degree of exagerration is so ridiculously silly and over-the-top. Even the awkwardly set up joke of having the scientifically determined perfectly average person appear as a genius from the point of view of the idiocrats seems to reiterate the Socratic point: we’re all morons, even if some of us are bright enough to recognize it.
Perhaps the most interesting (and questionable) aspect of this odd and uneven movie is the explicit fatalism it expresses about idiocy: the human species’ lack of predators produces an evolutionarily inevitable regression in intelligence. The overall end feeling it leaves you with is Jon Stewart syndrome: what idiocy! But hey, what can you do?
tom on 13 January 2007 at 3:30 AM Website
I watched this a few days ago as well, and I must admit I wasn’t surprised it didn’t get a wide release. Entertaining enough, but not particularly funny or interesting. And I found it ironic that a film which bemoans the state of mean IQs feels it requires a near- constant voiceover to make sure we understand exactly what’s going on at all times.
But the film’s most disturbing aspect is it’s unashamedly fascist message, openly calling for sterilisation of the stupid, which in this case seems to mean the poor- Judge’s ‘dumb’ culture is actually American working class culture, treated so lovingly in King Of The Hill but viciously disparaged here.
Walmarthon on 19 January 2007 at 7:23 AM
Too bad, good movie! Shit sucks!
obviouslycryptofascist on 1 February 2007 at 5:16 AM
Unashamedly fascist? I must have missed the part where Judge calls for sterilization of the stupid. You might be so kind as to quote the relevant lines for the rest of us. All judge did was illustrate the effects of a dysgenic differential birthrate.
I guess I must be fascist to want humanity to have enough collective intelligence in the future to solve our problems and be able to escape the confines of the earth.
Lighten up… on 5 February 2007 at 9:35 AM
Guys, this was a comedy… did anyone enjoy it as much as I did?!
It seems that every review I read of this film is searching for an “-ism” we can assign to it.
I know Mike Judge is a smart guy who could be trying to make a grand social statement, but it is very obvious that he also intended to cause a serious laugh-fest.
I laughed so hard I was crying, and my wife thought it was stupid. But that of course, was sort of the point. Did you guys read this much into movies like “Airplane”, or “Anchor Man”?
Was Will Ferrell’s newsman character a pointed stab at the news media, meant to warn us of future moron’s like Dan Rather who will be shaping public opinion to the detriment of society? No!! It was just some “good-ole stupid” for the sake of laughter!
I don’t usually read film reviews, but since this was literally one of the funniest movies I have ever seen in my life, I though I would investigate how I had never heard of it until now. It doesn’t add up that a company such as Fox would be concerned with offending people, does it? None of this makes much sense to me but, maybe I’m just one of the people that isn’t supposed to re-produce! : )
rumsey on 26 February 2007 at 5:40 PM Website
Idiocratic Design
wo-man on 7 March 2007 at 8:27 AM
I am a woman and I laughed my butt off watching this movie. It’s not just a guy thing. I saw it a month ago and I still find myself laughing out loud thinking about scenes or lines in the movie. “It’s got elec-tro-lytes” is one of my favorites. Today I keep thinking about the scene in the emergency room. How true to life today is that? It is a fun house mirror look at current society. On a deeper level I found it depressing. But I laugh through the tears!
Richard on 21 September 2007 at 10:40 PM
This film is hysterically funny, but in a sense, all too true.
The message this film sends is that intelligent people should reproduce. The stupid SHOULD be sterilized.
leo on 22 September 2007 at 9:33 AM Website
Hell, let’s just exterminate them while we’re at it.
Steve Grossman on 12 May 2008 at 11:41 PM
I thought it hilarious, and certainly consistent with the utterly dark view expressed in B$B. Unlike a poster above, I would call this a dystopia, and one of the bleakest ever.
Scott Palmer on 23 August 2008 at 6:41 PM
I do not think it is calling for a sterilizing of lower classes. However I think it is more about how the mass media and corporations try to make us stupid. I know plenty of middle class suburbanites who have to Paris Hilton or Britney’s every move. Even more so than the trailer trash. Hell I worked in a mall last year. And middle class women. some in their 30’s were crying about it being unfair for Paris to go to jail. Also the local rich neighborhoods. Would frequently bus kids into the mall to shop after field trips. WTF? So it’s not only white trash like me that contribute to this problem. And it’s not all intellect waning. Common sense is suffering a great loss in society.
Neil McLaughlin on 12 February 2009 at 9:53 PM
Tom, This movie is anti-fascist. It underscores the corporate control “but Brawndo has what plants need… it has Electrolytes”, the devolution of manners “Carl’s Junior – F*ck you, I’m eating”, and the corporate logos actually replacing our names (President Mountain Dew).
David Ross on 31 July 2009 at 4:09 PM
re working-class culture: balderdash. Judge is attacking UNDER-class culture, the class which DOESN’T work. re fascism: Judge tips his hand at the end, wherein he shows how the Idiocracy justifies its rule. The “Time Masheen” sets up the Nazis (“Charlie Chaplin”) as the primordial villain, and after its defeat the U.N. (“the Un”) “un-nazified the world”. Given the thrust of the rest of the movie, our modern world is here attacked for allowing low-IQ nations to set global policy, and for banning eugenics. That scene effectively forgives the Nazis for their crimes, for the sake of their eugenics. I don’t think that opposing democracy and supporting eugenics to such a degree pushes Idiocracy all the way over to direct support of Nazism; much less of Mussolini fascism. The best analogy is, I think, to Woodrow Wilson’s first term: rule by experts. (Not as much to Wilson’s dictatorial second term.)
Dan M. on 14 August 2009 at 10:20 PM
I really cant believe some of the really idiotic comments here. Fascism? Seriously? Excusing the Nazis? HUH?
For those that got the movie…Idiocracy has arrived here!
HP on 23 September 2009 at 9:43 PM
Some people are really up tight! Fascism and Nazis is EXTREMELY ridiculous!! Duh people! Maybe you are THE people making society dumber….definitely have a stick up your….
Matt on 24 September 2009 at 9:14 PM
Well, there you go. A guy comes in here with some of his own analysis and a couple of goobers kick him for trying. Oh, wait… the MMA tournament’s back on – gotta go!
Ben on 17 September 2010 at 10:36 PM
Fascism doesn’t nescairly mean Nazism.
I do believe in Fascism (I’m still deciding my strand of Fascism) which focuses on Social Darwinism.
We live in a stupid, obese, and weak society. Egalitarianism will destroy this specie (and races).
Without means to thin the hard and threaten the survival devolution will happen.
Adam on 18 September 2010 at 6:32 AM
Believing in eugenics, while not Nazism is like saying, “I don’t agree with what the Nazis stood for, except the genocide.” Any society that would choose to “thin the herd” – as you put it – is far more disgusting and contemptible than any amount of stupidity, obesity or weakness.
Also, not only is the notion of “devolution” complete faux-scientific nonsense, it isn’t even true! General literacy is far higher than during the Enlightenment, amazing music is being produced, and we have FILM!
Idiocracy’s a pretty good film at that, though I wish it had stretches of beauty and pathos like King of the Hill.
Ben on 3 October 2010 at 11:50 PM
Well Adam I do have a suggestion.
You can become part of the vast majority (more than %65) of pathetic Americans, within the “Age of Enlightenment,” whose lives waste away on a coach watching FILMS and eating popcorn…and die of a heart of attack.
Your views of morality is a hindrance to any state or person individually. It create inefficiencies. What happen if any organism acted in they way you wanted? Keeping cells that are defect living and so forth? We’d be dead.
I exercise. I eat proper foods. I read medical journals. I learn. And anything else that increases my chances of survival. Evolution takes place on a social level as well. I refuse to be brought to the level of inferior people.
Granted, I may not know everything but my continued growth will help me evolve to new environments.
However, I see most people watching TV within their cage of narcissism, while poisoning their my minds will ill conceived notions of pseudo-freedom— they fall way sided to petty entertainment, engorge in foods to fill their endless pit, entice their narcissistic needs with useless goods, etc.
Democratic societies tend to decay for this very reason as when there is no threat of survival people decay. Either way this society is on its last legs and hopefully a more Fascist society will come to be.
Different forms of Fascism exist and different Fascist states existed (see Sparta). Sparta like Nazis also practice eugenics—but it was different in that the eugenics were for increasing their DIRECT survival (Spartans where on average 60lbs heavier and 5-6” taller).
Fascism is focused on survival. Different forms of Fascism emphasize different parts and different ways of going about it.
So yes, I’m Fascist.
P.S. For you to enjoy Adam…
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3tnPGJnOhDY
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vWcf7jOr1gQ
http://www.youtube.com/user/NXSchell#p/u/22/qzPT4GFA2YY
Ben on 3 October 2010 at 11:52 PM
Survival of the Fittest:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_1BJmB0ZuXI
Ben on 3 October 2010 at 11:53 PM
Survival of the Fittest:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_1BJmB0ZuXI