I probably shouldn’t be talking about this, but this is an issue that absolutely blows my mind. I am speaking of a film whose logic is so flawed, but is loved by quite the large cult of people who sheepishly believe every word the film utters. This film is an aberration upon the human culture foolishly gratifying the basic instinct and desire to be more intelligent than someone. This film is symbolic of a generation of high IQ non thinkers that are wasting their time reiterating the same crap undeveloped ideas of a generation of elitist trash. The film I am referring to is Idiocracy.
To start off let me explain to you the house that is this film before I tear it down. Idiocracy isn’t a very good film, it’s not well written, not fully thought out, not impactful enough and not particularly funny either. Staring the ironically average Luke Wilson, it follows the tale of the “most average person in the US Army” Joe Bauers, and his futurama-esqe journey to the land of tomorrow. Unfortunately when he gets there, the world culture has essentially devolved into a culture of idiots (aka people who live in red states if you didn’t get the symbolism), and so his journey to return home is terribly hindered. The story is vaguely reminiscent of The Time Machine and it even more so apes the tale of “The Marching Morons” and at first it may seem like not a bad set up for a comedy, and it really isn’t. At times the film can be quite funny, and really isn’t a terrible watch, however it’s when you realize the truth about this movie it robs it of most of its joy and entertainment value.
The world as Idiocracy would have you believe it devolved into its wretched state supposedly through “breeding”. Yes, that is right since “intelligent people” (wealthy white democrats) don’t have as many kids or as “Stupid people” (Poor white Republicans), the world slowly rooted out intelligent thought through selective breeding, and a dumbed down technological system. It is at this point, which oddly enough is the beginning of the movie, a rational person should dismiss most parts of this logic as false, however quite a strong majority of people who watch this will take this logic whole scale and adopt it as their new socio-political stand point on the future of America, and world at large.
The film makes it its sole duty to say that all children of unintelligent people will turn out the same way, and that since unintelligent people have so many children, all of whom shall end up equally or less intelligent than their predecessors, they will supposedly overrun and destroy any remnants of intelligent culture. The logic here is that every child is solely like their parent and completely unable to rise above their meager beginnings, or let alone develop into their own person. This film takes the theories of Nature and nurture, shoves them into a blender, to create a foolish jumble mess of logic. I shouldn’t have to spell this out, but guess what not everyone becomes their parents. This movie is based around mankind’s apparent inability to overcome. It is under that thinking that the human race never should have come out of the Stone Age, let alone develop the super computer, or travel to the moon. It should be common logic that if someone wants to learn and grow, they can and will in spite of what their parents may think or teach them. This is basic stuff that should throw out any believing in the films ideology quickly, however unsettlingly this film has an incredibly strong cult following, of people who take it as truth instead of hokey fiction.
This film is so ridiculously hateful, it’s insulting. Idiocracy implies that parents because of their position in society, and intelligence level they are completely unable to love their child and support the natural human curiosity of a child, so much to snuff it out of the human race entirely. It implies that people view learning and reading as “faggy”. To an extent yes this is true about humanity, but it’s been all but snuffed out in the larger part modern society. To believe that a majority of parents wouldn’t want a better future for their children is ridiculous.
If there is one thing that this film says about our culture that I mildly agree with, it’s that technology has huge potential to hinder the development of the human race; however Idiocracy doesn’t even show this appropriately. The culture that Idiocracy displays is one that has been slowed down by advanced technology as much as the failing of the human spirit, giving them simplistic instructions as to how to proceed in any situation, however this film is also set 500 years in the future, if the culture is so simplified over the ages, shouldn’t they not have the capability to sustain themselves and such a life style? One of the major plot points of the movie is the fact they can’t grow anything, because they have lost the knowledge of agriculture, and don’t understand plants need water to grow. Besides the fact that the robots would be doing the farming for them, and they would have overly simplistic instructions telling them that plants need water and time, making this vital plotline all to broken. Not to mention that all of their technology would have gone without repair of decades to centuries, further breaking the very specific set of situations that this film puts forth. Really if you want a more logical situation where this set up is far superior Wall-e, it does a set up similar to this that is far more brilliant, and logical than anything Idiocracy puts out.
After thinking about the apparent phenomena that this movie is, I came to ask myself why. Why are people so quick to turn off their brain and accept this movie as an inevitable truth, and the answer is as simple as it is complex. People Love to think they are better than someone else. I shouldn’t be surprised; it’s merely the result of the class oriented society that has plagued the human race since the development of civilization. However if we delve deeper this also extends to the superiority that has grown out of blue state America, and the internet.
Blue state America, and its culture has developed into a generation of people who view the opposition as a bunch of redneck mouth breathers incapable of producing thoughts outside of “Aha ha her! Where’s my gun! I want to make out with my cousin! George Bush was a great president.” It is out of this that the internet has given birth to websites like “People of Wal-Mart”, and thousands of views on YouTube videos making fun of people who don’t understand technology. The internet culture has made it so easy for everyone to laugh at people who are different then you. Wrestling, NASCAR, Mullets, Computer illiteracy, working on a construction site, joining the military, having an accent, having different values, believing in god, liking different music, etc. all these things must make you stupid, so as Idiocracy would have you believe all of these people shouldn’t be allowed to breed, or why not go to the next logical step.
Idiocracy really misses the true message that most of these future stories miss, and that’s a combination of Hope, and Holocaust similarities. In The Marching Morons, the solution to the large population of unintelligents is to kill them all. Idiocracy doesn’t have the balls to go there, but I will be damned if at least forced sterilization isn’t the ultimate message that the film wants you to believe. But then again, why not? Why not kill every man, woman, and child you personally deem to be completely useless? Why not people can’t learn or develop past what they are at this moment in time. People can’t become wiser, or teach their children the value of learning, so why not burn them all right now. Don’t you understand they will destroy our culture one day; they are plotting the downfall of the rightful human beings place on the earth. So light the fire, grab a southern state or two, and celebrate. We can destroy those different stupid people right now, before they destroy our earth. So a toast to eugenics! The Nazi Party would be proud.
Notes
- I feel this rant may be a little under developed. I feel I have more in me, but honestly I'm tired of being angry today, I want to move on for now.
- Has anyone ever thought Luke Wilson was particularly funny?
- I am a democrat
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