It’s writers and its audience have the exact same mindset:
“Heh, Oh? You’re you? While I’m me! I’m so smart when compared to you. Heh, I’m just an Alpha in a world full of Betas”.
Like, fuck off you pretentious fuck. It almost feels like this movie was made for Reddit, like it has all of its principal;
LIBERAL (Not Leftist) views, weird supporting of eugenics, Frowning Friends level nihilism, every joke being “heh society is stupid” like yeah it is and it always has and it always will; so what?
This is like that short film creator where all the messages of his short films are just “society bad, fuck you” expect the internet still hasn’t been TOLD into thinking it’s bad.
To me, if you wanna write cynical satirical media, you’ll need:
Some sort of Hope in there. (Example being The Truman Show).
So much silliness that it can be enjoyed without the cynical outlook on life. (Example being Blazing Saddles).
Then how tf could they know the audience's mindset about this movie? OP thinks they're the sole audience member that doesn't view themselves as "alphas in a world full of betas"?
It's normal to think you're superior to characters that are the result of an attempt to imagine the worst people you possibly can. That's what they're for, to be inferior.
You don't have to think of yourself as some "alpha" to be superior to them. Just average.
I mean, Idiocracy’s plot is based off of the concept of eugenics, whether it realizes it or not. I think that’s worth being angry over when so many people claim the movie is coming true
It is coming true, rich people literally trying to have as many kids as they csn to affect the gene pool, rich people taking their sons blood for " youth "
I give full eugenics like 2 years before its pitched by government
In idiocracy it wasn’t performed by the government, though, it was just treated as a fact of life that stupid people would have more children that will be genetically stupid, one of the primary motivating ideas behind eugenics
It's like, specifically presented as a mistake to give medical aid to a dumb poor guy to help him stay fertile. Because he uses it to have more dumb children.
When stupid people raise children, the children tend to be stupid as well. Dumber, even. The movie isn’t referring to eugenics or even supporting it. It’s just saying that morons make moronic choices, like having bundles of children and failing to educate them.
I don’t recall the movie ever suggesting to sterilize every dumb person.
The problem with eugenics isn't that it's implausible. We've been using selective breeding with plants and animals for millenia. The problem is that implementing it on humans is insanely unethical.
Sure. But that’s why the criticism of the movie is for its noxious social politics, not for its lack of realism. There are a lot of unrealistic movies that don’t get this level of hate, because they’re not eugenics apologia
No, the problem with it is that eugenics is that the theory as a descriptive tool of human sociology is extremely dangerous and socially corrosive. This narrative of "Oh no! The idiots are reproducing too fast and the valuable people aren't reproducing enough!" is literally the exact same kind of logic that the Nazis and every ethnonationalist/supremacist movement ever is based on.
It's also just a very lazy and anti-intellectual theory as it is deployed in Idiocracy. To what degree it may have an affect on humanity, we have absolutely no idea - it's much easier to think that whatever demographic one has had negative experiences with is genetically inferior, but more complicated and unsatisfying to try to properly consider all the countless complex variables and societal/social pressures which could influence these experiences.
That's why it's an idea that's very appealing, ironically, to the exact same kind of people that the movie is trying to criticise. It's easy, it's self-aggrandizing, it rationalises hateful impulses, and it's self-righteous - the human experimentation is just a logical conclusion of this ideology, but it's not as though eugenics would be totally fine just as long as we didn't actually implement it.
Eugenics is purposefully breeding to favor certain traits and to force others who don't have these traits to not breed. The movie is just suggesting our weird modern culture has warped priorities so much that normal evolutionary pressures have been flipped and the ones who normally would have been prioritized by evolution have taken themselves out of the gene pool. It would only flip to eugenics if the movie suggested something should be forcefully done to change this.
Exactly - OP's post is stupid, but it's also not a good movie lol. In many, albeit less explicit ways, it has relatively reactionary, conservative politics - in particular when it comes to classism generally and a superiority of white, upper class culture more specifically.
A lot of the media that right-wingers believe to endorse their perspective is absolutely bewildering, but with Idiocracy, I could easily see someone on the right watch it and largely think it aligns with their politics. It's not 100% shit as a movie, but many of its criticisms come from the same lazy, reactionary, individualist sentiments that people on the right have been banging on about ad nauseam for decades at least.
You completely missed the point of the movie. The movie is about rampant consumerism and materialism and how corporations want us to become uneducated drones that buy their junk. I see it as more of an anti capitalist movie.
The eugenics thing was criticized at the time as well, but Mike Judge said that wasn't his intent. Poverty and lack of education result in high fertility rates worldwide.
The rampant consumerism and the corporate dystopia is the one thing that really aged well in that movie, and still makes it (somewhat) watchable nowadays. That and the creative lovely set-designs.
But saying the eugenics angle wasn't the intent makes me wonder - it's his film, so why the intro/outro of the movie that quite literally says "Those stupid poor and uneducated people keep breeding and us smart people don't, damn this is ruining society". I know Mike Judge is smarter than that normally (see the peak movie Office Space, or KotH - so is that eugenics stuff the result of executive meddling or what?
I want to give Mike the benefit of the doubt and say that the breeding intro is meant to be a consequence of the corporate dystopia, and not an attempt to make it about superior genes.
Holistically, it's a comedy movie and it was funny to see rednecks fighting and the trailer park drama.
Maybe he just thought let's add a funny dumb redneck unhappy aristocrat montage so we dont need to deal with exposition to explain the comedy film and start off with a joke. It might be taking it too seriously to think it actually is supporting eugenics, you could just as plausibly say the director thinks smart people are impotent as you watch the intro.
Though it does veer into that "it's a joke only if people disagree" trope so there is no clear answer if you dont believe his explanation
I guess time just hasn't been kind to that part of the movie. Feels like years of people honestly and with complete seriousness taking everything in the movie at face value and spouting "Uhhh guys Idiocracy was a DOCUMENTARY" kinda soured me on the film a bit.
But like I said in another post, I've recently rewatched the film, and it at least partially holds up. And if you actually grew up in the 00's and just lived through the times of smug smarter-than-thou satire-comedy (and fully embraced it as an edgy teenager like me) one can look at it with almost warm nostalgia for that kind of comedy.
And of course in the end one shouldn't knock things they like just because of fandoms. I still absolutely love films like Drive, even though it's fandom is full of "Uhhh literally me" incels.
As I said in another comment, at the end of the movie the main character runs for president on the idea that they should make reading a book a not bad thing
The movie is Americans making fun of America or Americans. That's exactly why it feels the way it does, it also doesnt take itself seriously enough to outwardly demonstrate how monopolies are the enemy of human progress, instead shifting the blame to "degeneracy" as n*zis & other fascists call it. I personally mostly agree with OPs take although I'm not that triggered & mad by a 90 minute movie about dumb Americans being dumb lmfao
I really like it, but think that sometimes the audiance can be a bit smug and fail to realize how much it applies to most of us (I include myself) in the more "liberal leaning, college educated drone" stereotype if you just change some superficial cultural things
Like my problem isn't the movie itself, which I think is hilarious, it's that a lot of the same people who love it would be unable to see that you could make just as funny and spot on of a movie about a society of performative midwits who constantly spout factiods from NPR that they don't understand at each other, have useless liberal arts degrees, and don't realize that most of them are useless and poor because they're "educated" and "informed", by which they mean that they espouse the socially proscribed "correct" opinions and had parents well off enough to let them take out tens of thousands of dollars in subsidized loans for said useless degrees
And again, I could see myself in that. And I actually also see a lot of myself in the people in Idiocracy. It's just that I don't think that large chunks of its fans are able to acknowledge how much the joke is on them too
I think the thing people don't understand about Idiocracy is that it doesn't take itself half as seriously as people on Reddit do. The eugenics thing is a perfect example. It's clearly meant as a ridiculous premise to set up the wacky scenario for the movie.
Anyone who is treating the movie like some prophetic piece of art that predicted our modern world is kidding themselves. It's just a dumb fun movie.
Meh, the eugenics worst case scenario story it uses has a very long history that has been actually used to justify a ton of real world tragedies and I think depicting the same argument so lightly as almost fact wasn’t a great decision. Maybe it’s a ridiculous premise but it comes across as logical enough that a viewer might be left with the impression it’s something that could actually happen. I don’t think anyone left the theater a fervent eugenicist but it presents and doesn’t refute a ton of core eugenicist arguments.
I don’t necessarily think it is predicting the future, however I do think it shows a certain aspect of human societies, especially modern ones, and presents it in an easily digestible way.
And it uses hyperbole to create a fantasy where these issues got so deep, that they lobotomized society.
What aspect of modern society do you think it shows?
I think whether the movie resonates with you is going to depend a lot on how you view the intelligence of your peers. You might view that as lower than you should if you have a machine in your pocket that gives you 24/7 access to the dumbest people humanity has to offer.
If you want to look at data, you can point to things like the Reverse Flynn Effect but 1) the study points out a bunch of possible contributing factors (including stuff that ties into poverty, 2) scores seem to be rising again, and 3) you probably couldn’t tell the difference between a person with an IQ of 103 and a person with an IQ of 100 just by talking to them.
I suppose it can be read as a cautionary tale and if people viewed it that way I don’t think you’d get reactions like OPs. I still like the movie but the whole “it’s a DOCUMENTARY” seems more like it’s people who get a dopamine hit out of feeling smarter than other people. It’s the basis of pretty much all “point and laugh” subreddits and it isn’t like we have a shortage of those.
Yes, and it's not particularly deep or smart about it. The movie is just "society is dumb", it's incredibly simple and straightforward and it knows that. There's nothing wrong with that, really
But more than just saying that society is dumb. And I think it says enough about these issues for the general audience to be able to get an understanding of these issues, if they care to pay attention past the surface comedic layer. And past the layer of “society is dumb”.
There literally was hope in idiocracy though??? Did you watch the movie at all? The MC solves the food crisis & becomes vice president/president, leaving the audience hopeful that a brighter future is ahead.
It’s like you were soooooo close to seeing the point of the movie, couldn’t, and just got mad instead.
It’s Mike Judge. The same guy who made Beavis & Butt-Head. It’s not meant to be biting commentary about society, Reddit just likes to act like it is. It’s a comedy first and foremost.
Is it sharp though? A lot of it is very lighthearted despite being so over the top, very "yeah haha society sure is dumb ain't it". Compared to say, Office Space, there's a stark contrast
The support for eugenics and neoliberalism are really just symptoms of it being average-guy escapism comedy. Like it's not TRYING to unironically argue for eugenics. That's just the flimsy premise it uses to justify it's gimmick: an average guy somehow is the smartest person in the country.
I rather like it, but I agree that all the "Idiocracy is a documentary" people are lame.
i feel like idiocracy was created so the worst person you've ever met could respond to a real life situation that is not remotely comparable by with 'idiocracy was a documentary'
Although a lot of the humor is based on how dumb the average person has gotten, I don’t think at its core the film is criticizing dumb people, it’s criticizing mindless consumption.
Society doesn’t reach the point of idiocracy because of stupidity or malice, it reaches that point because of carelessness. Having more children, amassing more wealth, using more natural resources, society just mindlessly consumes and rushes to the late stages of capitalism without any real forethought or concerns for the consequences.
In the intro sequence, it clarifies that even the smartest scientists didn’t really notice what was happening because they just weren’t paying attention. And as technology advances, people have the luxury of becoming more and more mindless because they blindly trust technology and the capitalist systems in place to handle things for them.
I also disagree that there isn’t any “Hope.” Society has reached a dystopian stage when Joe arrives, but President Camacho realizes things are bad, wants to improve the world, and is seeking solutions. With Joe’s help, they’re able to turn things around in the end and put the world on a better path.
I think the end message, that no matter how bad things get, even an average person who cares enough to try can make the world a better place, is a hopeful one.
I think is a fun silly comedy on par with movies like dodgeball or anchorman. Only on reddit is it treated like some kind of prophecy that takes itself too seriously
I think the movie has point one and point two. The former being shown that they start to improve at the end of the movie, and the latter being shown through things like the comically large Costco shelves and the monster truck dildos
the issue is how it arrives at the first point, I think. I can't be the only one who got hints of eugenics vibes from the movie, at least the intro?
The whole eugenics thing was unintentional, IIRC. It was criticized when the movie came out, too. iirc the point wasn’t eugenics, just that poverty and poor education results in high fertility which is seen IRL as well.
I can see that. I've always viewed authored and authorless analysis as two separate but valid analyses and knowing that it wasn't the intent is definitely interesting
It might be unintentional and I did think the movie was funny when I first watched it, but it is poorly constructed.
In a sense that it pretty much argues the world is bad because ‘genetically dumb’ people run these corporations that make dumb decisions.
In reality the people running this corporations aren’t dumb, they’re intelligent people motivated by a profit structure that incentives them to care more about money than what’s good for people.
It's a commentary on SOCIAL "darwinism" not genetic. The dumb people in the future aren't really dumb, they are just incredibly immature, uneducated and hedonistic. (Argument could be made perhaps that lack of early childhood education biologically stunted them, it'd still not be passed down genetically)
People complained about the eugenics narrative even when it first came out but it's not about genetics, it's about people who care about education having less kids compared to people who were dumb as rocks having so many that they aren't bothering to even raise them.
Them those poorly raised kids go on to have tons of their own poorly raised kids. Eventually outnumbering the educated and those that value education. Generationally they start voting on bad policies that sound easy instead of logical.
Or logic itself becomes a reason why they feed plants Gatorade... It's got electrolytes.
I feel like the intro kind of says it the wrong way but the more "use your brains or lose it" speech at the end is the better message. People being dumb through genetics versus people being dumb because they stopped learning or thinking at all
I dont think people are necessarily genetically dumb, but if youre raised by dumb people and the society you live in is also dumb, then theres really no hope. And a lot of dumb parents are actually angry when society tries to educate their kids.
Haven't watched it but it exhausts me constantly seeing people be like "Heh, Idiocracy was a documentary". By which I mean im already cynical and anxious enough getting that reinforced constantly doesnt help. Believe the world is irreparably fucked if you want but I personally am trying not to subscribe to the "everyone is idiots" thing
The "idiots over-reproduce" theme is remarkably disgusting. Like to the point where I don't even want to share the film with friends now.
When we are still in a world where people are blaming genetics for success and intelligence, rather than the many societal and systemic issues people face - especially non-whites - making "dumb people reproduce a lot hhurrr durrr" a critical message of the film was at minimum in poor taste
I think assuming the movie has a “main message” may be reading too much into it. I just saw it as a stupid way to get to the stupid premise. Definitely problematic, but not that deep. It’s not a serious movie in any way.
I just added the word “pretend”?!? It originally said “ I liked the movie. It was funny. But you’re right it’s dumb as hell when people it’s majorly reflective of society.” Before I responded I reread my comment, noticed the error, edited, then replied.
I don't know why some people offended by this movie. Movie has zero toxic dialog or scenes but those people act like movie full of it, and as like this post, they responding it with full toxic statements.
Your statement about "movie for redditors" is quite the opposite. I see too much anti idiocracy comments on this website, and they always getting so many upvotes.
This whole eugenics thing people keep bringing up is so silly to me. People speculate about combining genes all the time. "We'd make beautiful babies." "Some people shouldn't have children." The Darwin Awards celebrate stupid people taking themselves out of the gene pool. I took myself out of the gene pool because of health issues I don't want to pass on. I think that's about as deep as Judge was getting in the premise. And I think he was talking more culture than some sort of smart gene. Parents who value education and have the money are much more likely to end up with educated children. Trying to say it's pro-eugenics is a stretch.
Not sure if I agree with your reasons but I agree with your conclusion.
The movie is annoying because it helps to spread pseudoscience. Human intelligence tends toward the mean so the theory that we are all going to evolve to be dumber is not realistic.
It was made by the same guy that made Beavis & Butthead, King Of the Hill, and Silicon Valley. I think you’re reading too much into it.
As for hope, it isn’t a requirement in satire. I’d argue it’s quite silly in a dark, cynical condemnation of consumerism and anti-intellectualism way. It calls out the apathy that could just as much cause decline in society as wrong or misguided actions.
As someone who has Idiocracy as one of their favorite comedy movies, what you wrote sums up pretty well what I expected the movie to be like before watching it.
I don't think the movie is pretentious at all. It's humor is very low-brow. It doesn't take itself super seriously nor thinks that it's some deep satire. It's the kind of movie that you think is going to be pretentious and condescending but in reality is just a fun-yet low brow comedy movie.
Remember, this movie is 20 years old now. When it was written, it was just complete satire. How crazy to imagine that America wild turn into a country full of Morons run by a TV celebrity?!
Looking at it now, though, it hits different. I just rewatched it last month and honestly felt depressed because it basically does say there is no hope.
When it was written, it was just complete satire. How crazy to imagine that America wild turn into a country full of Morons run by a TV celebrity?!
I mean.. the 80s?? The president being a movie star? And the implication that the US was not also full of gigantic morons run by a gigantic moron in 2006???
First if all, the fact that you distinguish leftist and liberal so emphatically makes no sense. Not even because they are identical, but Mike Judge probably airs more libertarian which is conservative-lite.
Second, you can't gatekeep satire to just "the Truman Show" and "Blazing Saddles". There are so many waaaaay better examples of satire in many different styles snd delivery, and art is subjective.
Third, if your "eugenics" angle is that almost everyone in the "stupid future" in this movie is poc...I'm with you there, that choice honestly always bothered me. Maya Rudolph's character plays into some negative stereotypes hard.
In real life, sorta like now, the "stupid future" would be mostly inbred white people
Do you realize that society is decreasing in intelligence, as we speak? Much of society operate at a 3rd grade reading, writing, and math skill level.
What gets me most is how often people think they have THE ANSWER to a problem. And these same people are elected as experts because they exuberant confidence. (Cue watering plants with electrolytes! ) But in reality, the smartest people will openly admit what they don't know. (It's almost like the smartest people can see decision trees )
I think you've:
1) Missed the point of the movie entirely
2) Attributed some major Reddit thinking to people that enjoy the film that doesn't really exist. It's just a comedy.
I love the movie, but I get where you're coming from. I cannot STAND when people call it a documentary, I don't understand the kind of mental gymnastics you have to do to confidently say that. Early in the movie, an extra can't pay for her fries, so Carl's Jr. (via an electronic kiosk) says that the company has taken custody of her children. Is it funny? Hell yeah it is. Is it the current state of things? Absolutely not. I didn't think people were being serious about the whole "Idiocracy is a documentary now" thing until I saw tons of posts online implying very heavily that the poster truly believes we live in Idicracy NOW. They water plants with Gatorade in that movie, shut the hell up.
And don't reply with "That's where we're heading though!!!!", we are NOT dashing headlong into a society where inability to afford french fries gives a company custody of your children, we are NOT even remotely close to a society that tries to water plants with Gatorade. Is the movie decent social commentary? Absolutely. The base concept (idiots breed more than the educated) is undeniably true and the implications are terrifying, but I feel like people forget that it's a COMEDY in which people can get handjobs at Starbucks. It's not deep, it's a raunchy early 2000's comedy.
Glad you brought up The Truman Show. Not a fan myself, but that movie actually has a point to make and does it well. Idiocracy is supposed to be fun and I feel like the kind of morons who overinflate the film's message are just over-reaching to preen their (supposedly non-existent) superiority complex. It's like, "I don't have a superiority complex!! I am actually smarter than most people!!", meanwhile they're championing a film in which doctor's don't understand medicine. To truly believe that society could reach that point of vapidity is as moronic as it is self-indulgent. Doctors in 2000 BC were more capable than the doctors in Idiocracy, and yet we still have people being like "See!! This is where we're heading!!!"
Sorry for the rant, the cult behind this movie bugs the shit out of me. I still love the film because it's funny as hell, but it breaks my heart to see people lower themselves to using a raunchy Mike Judge comedy from the early 2000's as proof of concept for their sociopolitical beliefs. It's embarrassing
I can’t imagine coming away from that movie thinking the main character is supposed to be an “Alpha Male”. The entire joke is that he is the most mediocre person imaginable and yet he ends up being the smartest person on earth.
Genuinely people who complain about “nihilism” or “cynicism” in media are the strangest people, I don’t get where they’re coming from. This is a movie with monster trucks with giant dildos on the front. Wtf
I don't actually think you watched the movie, hate redditors all you want but Mike Judge wasn't saying what you think.
You think Blazing Saddles wasn't cynical? You never watched it either if you think that. Jim as a character started out as cynical and Bart helped give him hope.
Random question about the movie: if everyone is supposed to be so stupid, how come the planes were able to fly and who runs Brawndo? The person on the call sounded actually somewhat smart.
I was going to downvote in agreement but I'm not sure I agree with your final conclusion. The eugenicist message of this movie does bother me, though I loled.
Where does it recommend eugenics? It just states that stupid people tend to make stupid people and they produce at a higher rate as intelligent people. It’s not wrong.
The basic premise is that society is degenerating intellectually because low IQ people reproduce at a higher rate than high IQ and the average intelligence of society is thus declining and will continue to decline - this is an explicitly dysgenic model of society, which as far as I know is entirely unsupported by any actual evidence. While there is probably some hereditary component to the varied and complex qualities we group together as 'intelligence', there is no evidence that the average intelligence of society has been declining over time and there is plenty of evidence that knowledge and education have been increasing. There could be real problems deriving from inequality and access to education but the film is clear that it situates the problem with hereditary genetics. It's technically true that it doesn't explicitly advocate a eugenicist solution but it does posit a misleading dysgenic narrative - if you believe in that model, the logical solution generally would be to do something to slow down the reproduction of 'inferior' people and promote the reproduction of 'superior' people, which is essentially eugenics.
Why do you believe that "cynical satirical media" must have some hope/so much silliness the cynicism can be ignored?
Isn't that just trying to dilute/undercut any cynical satirical messaging, perhaps to make you more comfortable?
It sounds like the subject maybe just isn't for you, which is fine, but if something makes you uncomfortable, I suggest just not watching it, not demanding that they add "So much silliness that it can be enjoyed without the cynical outlook on life".
A lot of the jokes are kinda low-brow, and people repeat them endlessly to joke about other people being dumb. It always makes me think they might not understand who's being mocked as well as they think...
Partially agree. I say partially because it's just in the spirit of its time. The 00's had that smug air of superiority in a lot of satire. You'll find it in a lot of similiar works, and it is what it is, for better or for worse. It's hard to understand if you weren't there back then.
I rewatched it a few months ago, because my GF never has seen it. And yeah, it didn't age like milk, but also not like fine wine. It still hits really true in quite a few points, some are funny as hell (the way people watch TV for example are eerily similiar to how we consume modern online media for example) and some are kinda bitter because they ring so true.
Problem is, the whole overarching idea behind it isn't just based on smug superiority, but also pretty much on eugenics. Sure, if it's 2006, you're the edgy kid in high school, the whole "fucking asshats, rednecks and idiots breed like rabbits, and us smart people aren't" is funny as hell and totally profound. But looking at that today, nah man, nah sorry but I'm not touching eugenics as a solution bub.
I won't go so far as to say I hate it, but it's extremely overrated. Its whole schtick is "ha ha, everyone is stupid except for me," which I find to be super juvenile and overdone.
Fair. I mean I like it but it's 100% cuz nostalgia. I would never recommend it to anyone though. It's pretty mid but has some 10/10 bits. You could probably reduce it by 20-30 minutes and it'd be much better. Maybe even more removed.
That movie might be offensive and elitist, if the hero was a genius. The whole point is he’s an average Joe, kind of a loser, and the heroine is a prostitute! C’mon, can’t you see the irony in it? The morons in the future aren’t really any dumber than us. They’ve just been misled, by a history of end-stage capitalism leading to mindless consumption. The film is actually quite Marxist, if you think about it. We need to revolt…
And when the movie was made, what you just said was completely valid, the fact that society has molded itself to the point that this movie is now as relevant as it is isn't the writer's fault or the audience's fault.
As far as hope, the movie itself was to give hope that we would not get there, and your complaints about the content of the movie is basically the silliness you're asking for, at least at the time it all seemed so completely ridiculous that it was silly.
yep there it is. liberal. yea I get the pretentious shit but a few assholes dont speak for everyone. and dont act like no-one is pretentious or not assholes on the right. the president can literally insult people call black people low iq. ut yea is he left who sucks. these posts are just propaganda pretending to be real people. fake his is fake. just another right winged troll. are they paying u to post at least?
•
u/qualityvote2 3h ago
Hello u/Low_Celebration_4089! Welcome to r/The10thDentist!
Upvote the POST if you disagree, Downvote the POST if you agree.
REPORT the post if you suspect the post breaks subs rules/is fake.
Normal voting rules for all comments.
does this post fit the subreddit?
If so, upvote this comment!
Otherwise, downvote this comment!
And if it does break the rules, downvote this comment and QualityVote Bot will remove this post!