Idiocracy

Considering my last post, I coincidentally watched Mike Judge's Idiocracy last night. Judge is the creator of such luminous creative enterprises as Beavis and Butthead and Office Space.

I loved it. Now, much of the humor is absurdist and rather low-key, so I could definitely see someone watching the movie and not chuckling more than once or twice. What's really radical, however, is the movie's portrayal of the phenomenom of dysgenics (the idea that with the absence of natural selection on humans, the least fit are outbreeding the most fit).

Idiocracy presents a world in which morons have overrun the earth while the intelligent have bred themselves out of existence. Entertainment, advertising, and puerile appeals to the lowest common denominator are common place. The opening two minutes, in which an intelligent couple prudently and responsibly plan to have children when they can afford them, is offset with a Jerry Springer-esque couple who are breeding willy-nilly with abandon. I wanted to applaud.

The main character, who has an IQ of 100, is propelled five hundred years into the future due to a failed army experiment, and finds himself to be the smartest man on earth. Robots/machines left by prior generations essentially run the machinery of the world, while the humans are so stupid they believe that a gatorade style sports drink should be used to water plants.

Reality television, scatological humor, and the devolution of society are all lampooned brilliantly. The studio apparently was horrified by the final film, probably due more to the satirical presentation of franchises such as Starbucks, Costco, and Carls, Jr. than to its controversial underlying (and sadly true) message: idiots are outbreeding geniuses.