It’s basically a comedy with the subtlety of a guy repeatedly screaming “I am beating you with a sledgehammer” as he hits you with a sledgehammer.
The joke is that everyone is dumb and the future and its painfully spoon-fed to the audience ad nusuesm. And now 15 years later everyone constantly brings up that movie when ever something happens and its the most over commented thing I’ve ever seen. It makes me hate the movie more. Its the peak movie for pseudo intellectuals.
That’s the thing: there’s nothing to interpret. The movie depicted a intellectual stunted world…and the world has moved toward the movie. That’s it. That’s the whole thing. There’s nothing deep about it.
The problem with comparisons between the movie and real life is that there are still plenty of people of intelligence behind the scenes making our lives miserable.
The world of idiocracy is basically the result of accidental eugenics. “Smart people” don’t have babies, so only dumb trailer trash has babies, so the world gets dumber. That’s not how the real world works, people who were born to families living in trailer parks or low-income housing have just as much of a chance to be smart as those born to the rich… as long as they have the same opportunities. For the most part, they don’t, but there’s a minority that still gets grants and scholarships and just luck to become the “smart elite” that don’t exist in the world of Idiocracy.
This is a bit of a controversial topic that’s surely bigger than this thread, but I’m going to leave it here anyway for other people reading this.
You talk about trailer parks/low income families vs rich families, but I think that Idiocracy is not about income, it’s about being dumb. Part of which is just cultural (ignorance), but part of it seems to be intelligence. And as far as I know, there’s no evidence that any kid can become as intelligent as anyone else with proper raising and education. Research seems to pretty clearly show that IQ is heritable to a significant degree, and while it can be needlessly lowered in many ways (like malnutrition or high stress in critical development phases), in the absence of these issues no enrichment is able to raise it.
Despite how controversial it is in some circles, the Wikipedia article on the topic seems to be pretty good.
However, since the movie really is not deep, it’s possible that its whole point was just that the idiocy is cultural, and in that case the above obviously doesn’t apply. I’m just saying what it seemed like to me.
IQ isn’t even a good metric of intelligence, just of the ability to do well at IQ tests.
The point of the movie is to show how stupid people are everywhere, and it’s their fault that the world is going to shit. Which is an elitist, shitty argument. It completely ignores the direct involvement of those with a vested interest in keeping people ignorant of the world around them.
Sure, you can make an argument that a certain level of intelligence is inheritable… but not to such a degree that is implied by the movie, or by how people interpret it. Sure, you may not have quite the same ability to quickly consume and interpret information… but most everyone has the ability to do it eventually. It’s just a matter of how much you want to. Many people, especially those in the American culture presented in the movie, have been trained to not do that, and that’s what people see when they look around and find idiots all around them. The unfortunate truth, though, is that those who judge others based on that vapid criteria suffer from the same lack of intelligent thought. They don’t put any effort into interpreting the world around them, and thus just assume those around them are a bunch of idiots who cause all the problems in their life.
This is an unpopular opinion because it is a wrong opinion. True about the subtlety part tho
The point is that the movie is extremely stupid and yet still we can find parallels between our world and this dumb movie. Our reality is fucking dumb. Nothing pseudo intellectual about it.
It’s on the same level as Office Space (another Mike Judge movie), it just has a lot of moments in it that people see in their own lives and can point to the movie as art imitating life imitating art. No one has really ever called either movie cerebral or claimed they were deep, they’re just really relatable to alot of people. Given that he also worked on King of the Hill as well, that’s been kind of common thread through alot of his work, comedy for the “everyman”.
Except in this case, instead of art imitating life imitating art, it might be life imitating art imitating life? :-P
No one has really ever called either movie cerebral or claimed they were deep
Ii definetely disagree on that point, there were plenty of folks on reddit who treated this movie like it was a documentary and that it was required watching for understanding the faults in our actual society
That being said, I agree with everything else you said, some people just aren’t good at separating “I like this” from “this is important”
Absolutely it’s as subtle as a safe dropped onto your head. The point made isn’t made any less valid by being exaggerated - satire does that sometimes.
And Idiocracy being deep is not something I hear a lot, where in the world has that been a common take?
If you think fans of this movie are pseudo intellectuals, I think that says a lot more about you than them
“ad nusuesm”
Op is an idiocracy
Fuck you, I’m eating
It wasn’t trying to be subtle and wasn’t trying to be deep. The people who like it now are those that can relate to seeing the world lean further into the jokes about society getting stupider.
Nobody is trying to be intellectual when they bring up this movie.
And before I forget: Welcome to Costco, I love you.
I’ve always thought of it like this: the concept of the movie is great, and pretty prophetic. All of the worldbuilding and exposition falls under that. But, as for the plot, it’s pretty forgettable and doesn’t stand out too much. Frankly I don’t even remember what Luke Wilson’s character does in the film – I just remember the film’s concept.
But, it’s got electrolytes!
You’re not wrong. I don’t think anything Mike Judge has ever done should be necessarily labeled as deep. I think there is still some funny commentary in it.
Mike Judge is legendary at character development. I’d have him as my first choice in designing a town of misfits or a group of people for a sitcom or a film.
For the plot and overall structure, I’d look elsewhere.
Has someone actually told you they think this movie is deep?
You are correct this is a unpopular opinion. The movie is good. You just don’t like that you don’t understand why other people enjoy it. BAD BOT!
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