Idiocracy: My understanding is that Fox passively-aggressively released this into six theaters across America, then rhetorically shrugged its shoulders when asked why it was a flop. What we have here is social satire of the Swiftian kind masquerading as light comedy. The premise of this film is as follows: Since stupid people tend to breed more prodigiously than smart ones, the world will eventually breed out smart people, leaving morons to grow food, handle the economy, manage the justice system... you get the idea. Into this world comes a perfectly average army grunt from our times, the victim of a military hibernation experiment gone horribly wrong. (Luke Wilson-the less famous one) He comes paired with a prostitute. (Maya Rudolph) who finds that in a world where Starbucks sells handjobs instead of coffee, she makes out very well indeed. The rest of the movie deals with their struggle (well, Luke's struggle, really) to come to grips in a world where the crops are dying off because the main source of irrigation is a sports drink and not water. ("Water? You mean, like, from a toilet?")
With such a broad target as the dumbing down of our existence, however, creator Mike Judge gives us a film that is both savage and soft-centered. It feels both drawn-out and too short. I suspect giving the audience a feel-good message at the end (..."and so, Joe finally discovered that in the end, it was better to lead than to get out of the way"...) helped sell the film to Fox, but couldn't get it an audience. Kinda dumb move, all around, really.
While I'm here, I might as well point out that bemoaning the dearth of intellect in our culture has been going on since the early 50's, at least. There's a somewhat famous sci-fi story called, "The Marching Morons" by a C.F. Kornbluth which Mike Judge pretty much replicates except for the ending. And later, the Simpsons gives us an episode wherein it's revealed that Homer's stupidity is caused by a crayon in the nose poking his brain. Once the crayon is removed, Homer develops an above-average intellect. However, repelled by the crass, pandering nature of the mass culture, Homer decides to put the crayon back in his head to retain his pre-smarts bliss.
Yeah, if you're someone who put in the time to get an education and enjoys making an effort to discover new media to enrich your life, I suppose the onslaught of pandering garbage that's out there makes you want to turn up CBC Radio and take your glasses off and rub the bridge of your nose in despair. Let's not forget, however, that a little over a hundred years ago, deep thinkers honestly thought that the proletariat had no soul. And saying "Nigger" in polite company was OK. And a member of the British Parliament loudly denounced a bill to outlaw child prostitution on the grounds that if he wanted to find succor between the thighs of a ten year old girl, who's business was that between his and God's? And.. you get the idea.
My point is, people are, in incremental ways, slowly getting smarter. Yeah, yeah, not fast enough to please me, but still... And in this time, where the U.S. is stuck in a military quagmire that no one with more than two digits in their I.Q. and major stock in Haliburton thought was a good idea even in theory, when major oil companies claim there's no such thing as 'global warming', where armies of Creationists drag their knuckles across the pavement, where Paris Hilton hasn't been dragged from a nightclub and burned alive, where I can be called a 'fag' for following the traffic rules by my fellow motorists...
Hope burns eternal...
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