Idiocracy

Idiocracy is a 2006 science fiction comedy by Mike Judge, the same creator of Office Space and Beavis and Butthead. It follows Joe Bauers, the most average military serviceman ever, and a prostitute named Rita, in an Army experiment to freeze people in perfect hibernation for one year. Something goes wrong, however, and Joe and Rita find themselves 500 years in the future where all of society have devolved to complete morons, and the most average people that were frozen in the past are now the smartest people in the world.  

Now, I don’t know about you, but given the current state of the world right now, as far as science fiction goes, this really doesn’t seem all that hard to imagine. I’m pretty sure that the unintelligent are reproducing much faster than the intelligent are reproducing. And in larger numbers, too. And I don’t think that our culture has gotten any better in the last couple of decades. It certainly hasn’t made the leaps and bounds that it made from the century before it.  

But enough social commentary, the movie itself is hilarious. It makes me laugh out loud in numerous places. The sheer stupidity in some of the scenes is so absurd, you can’t believe people would act that way. But at the same time, you CAN believe that people would act that way. It’s such a paradox. And there are reviewers that gave it a bad review because they thought that it wasn’t witty enough to portray the message of the satire that it was trying to get across. But that’s literally the entire point of the movie. To be lowbrow and stupid. What kind of movie would it be if it was a movie about stupidity and everybody was walking around using perfect enunciation and correcting each other’s grammar? 

And just like Office Space, the movie didn’t do well when it came out, but for a different reason. It didn’t do well on purpose. The corporations that got lampooned in the movie, like Starbucks, and Costco, thought it was going to be a positive thing for their companies. When they realized that it was a negative, dystopian sort of movie, and that their companies were being reflected in a bad light, they didn’t want the movie to be released. But they had already sold the rights to be used. So, in an attempt to save face, Fox just did as little marketing as possible, and released it in as few theatres as they could, and almost nobody saw it. Then, when the movie came out on DVD and home movie, it took off, just like Office Space did. And now, it’s the cult classic that everybody knows and loves. 

So, yeah. Go and see Idiocracy. Firstly, to make sure you know what to keep from happening to yourself in the future. And second, just because Mike Judge makes excellent movies, and this is most certainly one of the funniest comedies in the last 20 years. And as always, keep on watching, with a smile on your face…