“The Future Is A No Brainer”
As a truly funny “full throttle” comedy which also delivers both extremely relevant and deeply insightful social and political commentary, this film belongs to a fairly small class of movies. Producer, director and screenwriter: Mike Judge (who has written and directed other hits such as Office Space) has outdone himself with this satirical romp through a pessimistically projected future. Although the basic premise may not be completely original with this movie, if it has been used in film before I have not seen or even heard of it.
Generally, projections of the future in fiction follow one of two paths: either the highly positive — in which a future world has wonders available to everyone which far exceed the expectations of today’s common man; or the extremely negative — in which some form of oppressive power dominates a dystopian landscape which subjects ordinary people to indignities beyond what they suffer today. This movie’s storyline fits neither of these conventional types. Instead, it takes a trend perceived by many in today’s world and extrapolates that tendency 500 years into the future.
What trend does this film extrapolate? Often today’s commentators note the dearth of offspring from some demographic group they favor and compare it to a swell in output of progeny from an opposing demographic. The two groups contrasted in Idiocracy differ in IQ. The film begins with a narrator outlining the past of human evolution through “natural selection.” It also points out the contrast between the increasingly more civilized worlds of science fiction, and our time: the early 21st century, which often appears to be losing levels of civilization compared to the fairly recent past.
The evolutionary process favors those who pass on their genetic material. In the past, intelligent survivors produced progeny. Those lacking intelligence usually produced fewer children which survived. Today, that situation may seem reversed. The film’s narrator discusses a “case study” involving a “Yuppie” couple: Trevor (Patrick Fischler) and Carol (Darlene Hunt); compared with the intellectually less impressive Clevon (Ryan Ransdell). The high IQ couple: Trevor and Carol, repeatedly put off having children until they feel better prepared to raise the children as they think best. On the other hand, the low IQ Clevon has many children with several different women. This process, one perhaps substantially different from that which has operated for the last few centuries, favors Clevon and those like him.
This basic premise — that instead of mankind climbing ever higher rungs of civilization, people may devolve into less advanced sub-humans — also fed the imagination of the short-lived SF master C.M. Kornbluth. Kornbluth wrote many short stories, but his novella on this theme: “The Marching Morons” became a classic. Although most details differ between Idiocracy and “The Marching Morons” the basic premise remains essentially the same: contemporary human(s) undergo suspended animation to awake in a world in which the bulk of humanity has become much stupider.
In Idiocracy the “contemporary humans” take part in an Army experiment testing “human hibernation.” As a stereotypically average person, Private Joe Bauers (Luke Wilson) receives orders to participate for a year. The Army does not find such an “average” female in its ranks and instead “contracts” with a private procurer for a female subject: Rita (Maya Rudolph). Joe and Rita undergo hibernation, but through comedic misadventures become forgotten and misplaced. After 500 years pass other comedic misadventures wake them from their slumber. Their subsequent adventures with Frito (Dax Shepard), President Camacho (Terry Alan Crews) and other denizens of a pessimistic future comprise the body of the movie.
It has electrolytes
I can not think of a movie which has many similarities to this one. However, other hilarious comedies have attempted the same level of scathing social and political commentary. The Marx Brothers ’30s era classic: Duck Soup also has the physical comedy along with social / political commentary. Terry Gilliam’s more modern classic: Brazil has some of the negative progress theme in a dystopian setting. However, neither film has quite the same level of pessimism about modern humanity as this movie; which, even with its attitudes, still manages to “pull out a happy ending.” I am aware of no other film which poses such a strangely ironic problem but still manages to both entertain with laughter and provide deep insight into many of the problems of today’s world. Even though this movie has no electrolytes and isn’t brought to you by Carl’s Jr. (or Hardee’s, A&W, etc.) perhaps it has what many movie viewers crave, I give Idiocracy my highest recommendation.
Tom Ender likes to emphasize culture in his efforts to promote the voluntary society. Most libertarians of all stripes tend to enjoy reading, but it has seemed to Tom as though other cultural forms get mentioned less in our efforts. He hopes to change this, especially for movies. Tom asks readers to leave comments containing suggestions for future movie reviews. 
Sorry, ’bout all the “fag talk” …
Super weird but I just watched this last night.
@skr, that’s not really “super weird” It’s a very popular film and timely, too. It might be weirder had you watched Duck Soup, a great film but less popular now since it’s so old. It has quite different premises from Idiocracy but shares some styles.
Great movie. Fortunately, though, its theme has been refuted with empirical evidence.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flynn_effect
Not meaning to be contrary, but here’s a quote from your link “The Flynn effect may have ended in some developed nations starting during the mid 1990s….”
In any case, an empirical observation doesn’t really refute the movie’s theme, only offer evidence against it (more “fag talk”).
I suspect that without the state, the Flynn effect would prevail, but with the modern state I won’t take that bet.
I did not enjoy the film. For my part, stupidity isn’t usually funny. It’s dull.
The slapstick was timid, the bathroom humor was (as always) stinky, and the jokes were badly written. Also, I didn’t see any credit to Cyril Kornbluth, who wrote the entire story in 1951. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Marching_Morons
I read Kornbluth’s story in 1978 or so. Several of my friends discussed it over a game of three-board Risk! one night. I concluded that the effect was over stated because intelligence is sexy.
I thought the movie parodied many stupid trends in today’s world. I didn’t think it praised any of it. For my part, I’ll take the slapstick in Duck Soup over Idiocracy, but I did like many of the “sight gags” and language corruptions in Idiocracy. Idiocracy was suggested by several Fr33Agent members.
Kornbluth certainly used the basic premise first. I also think his novella has more depth than an hour and a half movie ever could. Even though the novella’s premise is more thoroughly developed, I usually review movies. I did mention Kornbluth in my review and gave two Amazon links for his work. I’m not sure exactly when I first read “The Marching Morons,” but long ago for sure.
I also believe intelligence is sexy. As an example I really liked HotForWords before “Hollywood” got her. She once had “intelligence is sexy” in her opening “boilerplate”, and usually lived up to that. Now her stuff is not as smart in my opinion, and she apparently has not returned to earlier formats; but I digress.
Jim, you and I may not fall in the mainstream on intelligence being sexy, like many other topics. Large numbers have a big influence on the evolution of populations, as explored in Kornbluth’s novella.
What sort of movies do you like, Jim? I have a review in mind for next, but a suggestion I like could bump it. That happened once already.
The last time I fell into the mainstream, I was found floating face down in my own stream of consciousness. Eww.
Films that I own on, say, DVD or VHS. Casablanca, 12 Monkeys, Braveheart, 300, Buckaroo Banzai: Across the 8th Dimension, Serenity, the Bourne Identity, Grosse Pointe Blank, Demolition Man, Deep Throat, Doctor Strangelove or How I learned to stop worrying and love the bomb, Everything you always wanted to know about sex but were afraid to ask, First Blood, Goodnight and Good Luck, Taboo American Style, Into the Night, the Great Escape, the Devil in Miss Jones, Shawshank Redemption, Blues Brothers, the Thomas Crown Affair, Sneakers, Our Man Flint, the Patriot, the Matrix films (all of them), the Star Wars films (except the most recent), Patton, Independence Day, V for Vendetta, Traffic, Pulp Fiction, the Life of Bryan, and others. In no particular order, from memory.
Of course, I have an eidetic memory so I can pretty much read the titles off the bookshelf without walking across the house to look. Heh.
Many films have merit. I especially like “Grosse Pointe Blank” for its theme of redemption, its practical view of pilots carpetbombing cities, and its humor. Also the popcorn motif is very nice.
I like the original “Thomas Crown Affair” better than the remake, especially the line “It’s me against the system baby, and I have to know, are you with me or against me?”
For one-liners, I like “Sneakers” very well. “I wanted to work at the NSA, but they said I wasn’t qualified. My parents were married.”
I’m very fond of “First Blood” as an action film with lots of pigs being beaten up and killed. The alternate and humorous endings on the DVD are worth watching, about one time each.
As thoughtful narrative or commentary on, say, the prison industry or the drug trade, “Shawshank Redemption” and “Traffic” are good.
If there is a unifying theme to the films I like enough to purchase, it is almost certainly independence, or self sovereignty, or freedom of association. One must understand that with bitTorrent there isn’t exactly a point to buying films any longer, unless it is to throw money as praise at studios that carefully avoid taxes. So, more of a hobby, really.
Reservoir Dogs. Must have skipped over that one.
Some great films still have yet to make their way to DVD, and may not exist as torrents yet. I have many old films still on tape only.
I will probably post reviews of several of the films you named before very long, and you have given me added incentive for viewing a couple I have yet to watch.
I don’t plan on putting my review of The Matrix up here, as I think yours was better.
I’ll probably stick with the one I was thinking of for my next posting though, as it may fit the season slightly better.
Thanks for your suggestions and I have kept the list.
For the record “The Morpheus Proposal” is not a review of “The Matrix.” Not in the sense that other film reviewers would regard it as a film review. I don’t, e.g., discuss the acting, settings, costumes, etc.
I enjoyed Idiocracy, with reservations. There are some wonderful bits in it. I still cackle like a loon whenever I think of “St. God’s Hospital,” complete with mis-spaced name trailing down the building facade. Mike Judge is a clever writer with a keen satirist’s eye.
In the end I felt Idiocracy wasn’t itself a smart enough movie to be so smug.
What it seemed to me to end up selling was an unearned sense of superiority – the very thing it struck me as guilty of. Almost anybody watching can feel superior to the devolved yokels portrayed as inhabiting the future. “See what happens when people don’t watch as much PBS as I do?” Or whatever taste preference or effortless habit the viewer imagines conveys superior virtue to himself.
By making viewers feel smart without the need for them to be smart, doesn’t the movie maybe exemplify what it’s supposed to be warning against?
Judge does have a keen eye. However, I think you make a quite valid criticism of the film being perhaps a bit smug. In that respect “The Marching Morons” is better, but also darker in several ways. If all one gets from either is a sense of superiority, then something has indeed failed; perhaps not the film, but the viewer of the film.
BTW, thanks for your latest blog entry. I was able to find a YouTube version of Franz Kafka – It’s A Wonderful Life. That was a treat. Not only Metamorphosis and It’s a Wonderful Life, but also elements of A Christmas Carol and a very twisted Pinocchio, and probably more as well. Amazing they were able to cast someone who could look a bit like both Jimmy Stewart playing George Bailey and also Franz Kafka.
You’re most welcome. I enjoyed the movie. Glad you did too.
Good to see you getting fr33 Vic!
I had the same reaction to the movie as Jim Davidson when I watched it the first time. Every detail about the future was like nails on a chalkboard. I cringed. A lot.
Then I watched it a second time thinking I possibly missed something, since the movie was borrowed from a coworker who highly recommended it. In the second viewing I found a biting wit and humor that I loved. It was Office Space writ large, as in the whole of society (as mass perceived, anyway). I found a new appreciation for Mike Judge and the rest of his work from this movie, which I reviewed here.
One thing I’ve noticed recently about this movie that I hadn’t picked up on before was the language. Orwell always tapped into the power of language, and I believe Judge had been paying attention. As language deteriorates so goes society or vice versa?
Thank you for comment and link.
I like the way you put it in your review: “I wouldn’t call this movie a masterpiece in film making or storytelling, but it is a solid piece of work and seriously entertaining, to boot. Lurking behind that entertainment is a seed of truth that is germinating and growing even as we watch the movie. Just like any well-constructed dystopia, this future is closer than we think.”
The importance of language is shown by how hard politicians, and their handmaidens in the media, work to corrupt our words. Since language carries ideas between people, a corrupted language provides camouflage for the corrupted ideas promoted by the establishment. It is no accident that Newspeak is essential in Orwell’s 1984.
Language is important, as it is our main tool in the culture war.
Or as Steve Martin said in his stand up routine (“Let’s get small,” 1979) “Some people really have a way with words. Other people…have not way?”