Idiocracy (2006)
100 best Science Fiction films
Popular Mechanics list
#94. Idiocracy (2006)
Forgive me,
I do love this film, but whenever I think about it, I feel a desperate need to rant.
SF is ripe
with Political Satires that are not especially Ideological, the best example in
cinema is probably “Invasion of the Body Snatchers” (1956), a pointed warning
of the dangers of a Conformist Tyranny, but whose Tyranny? Is it an anti-Communist
or anti-McCarthyist parable? Critics still debate the point. “Idiocracy’s” Satire
is similarly Politically pointed, but it also refused to blame its crisis, the Dumbing
Down of the USA, on one side or the other.
Of course,
that was almost twenty years ago. Today “Idiocracy” is now hyper-Ideological, a
reflection of how badly we have a Nation has already Fallen, and I personally
hold one man to blame for this, or, as I wrote in 2016 (ten-years after the
film’s release):
“Once upon a
time, stupid people had no leader of their own, they had to follow their
betters or be left behind. Because of that, we never really knew how many
stupid people there were because they were mixed in with other groups defined
in some other manner. We tracked regional demographics, economic demographics,
the youth vote, the women's vote, the black vote, etc. In each category, there
were stupid people to be sure, but the stupid wasn't the defining element
because those self-interested demographics were looking for smart leadership.
So stupid Liberals were forced to follow smart Liberals, and stupid
Conservatives were forced to follow smart Conservatives.
“Donald
Trump changed all that, he gave the stupid a leader of their own; the stupid
are no longer obligated to listen to their betters anymore. Stupid is now its
own Demographic, and now we can reliably count them, and...
“OMG, it’s
HUUUUUGE!”
Mike Judge Co-Wrote
with Ethan Cohen and Directed this film, and he’s never held back in any of his
feature films or TV shows. He’s disgusted with what we tolerate from others,
but what separates him from other pissed-off Pundits is he’s mostly pissed off
in what we tolerate within ourselves. His films have Villains only because it’s
hard to tell a tale without an Antagonist, but his stories are mostly about the
failures of his Protagonists, and he probably brought that idea to its greatest
articulation here.
It’s a story
of a DoD-funded Cryogenics Experiment goes wrong: Based on Standardized Testing
it is determined that Joe Bauers (Luke Wilson), is the most completely average
person in any of the USA’s Armed Forces, and therefore a perfect Guinea Pig to
be frozen for a year with Prostitute Rita (no last name and played by Maya Rudolph).
How Rita got recruited for the Project is was a little more complicated than
Joe.
Ooops, did I
say one year? Someone goofed and the two were in the freezer for 500 years.
The Protagonists
wake into a USA transformed into a Dystopian Nightmare, but far more cheerful
version of Hell than in the novel “The Sleeper Awakes” (1899) by
H.G. Wells. Wells’ novel was clearly an inspiration here, but Wells’ Ideological
stance was clear, Socialism vs a Conservative proto-Fascism, and a noble
Revolution Betrayed. In “Idiocracy,” there’s no Left-v-Right, not a whole lot
of Betrayal, nor any Revolution. Everyone is just plain dumb. EVERYONE. An
important plot point is that everyone believes Electrolytes are good for you,
but no one remembers what they are, nor bothers to look up what they are
supposed to be used for.
(Does this
sound at all like Trump’s pushing Quack Cures during the 2020 CV19 crisis? And
saying drugs approved for one purpose should be applied to another purpose,
without any evidentiary support?)
It's also a
World Rule by Corporate Hegemony, but “Rule” needs qualification, because there
seems no one actually “In Charge.” Clumsy Automation actually Rules while Corporations
dominate our vison, demonstrated by their intrusiveness: Everyone’s clothes
sell something or other, Court Rooms are adorned with billboards, a member of
the President's Cabinet repeatedly mutters "brought to you by Carl's
Jr." because he gets paid every time he says it, and the President himself
hawks an energy drink full of Electrolytes called “Brawndo.” Maybe out of
desperation, the Biggest Mega Corporations have expanded into other Industries,
using their Brand Recognition to kill small businesses with cut-rate services: Starbucks
is a big player in the Sex Industry and you can get a hand-job with your latte.
Costco runs a large Law School.
(From the
moment Trump entered the Oval Office in 2017, and even more so after he re-entered
in 2025, he smugly dismissed the relevance of Part 2635 of the Standard of
Ethical Conduct for Employees of the Executive Branch: “An employee may not use
their public office for their own private gain; for the endorsement of any
product, service, or enterprise … or for the private gain of friends,
relatives, or persons with whom the employee is affiliated in a nongovernmental
capacity.” Trump shamelessly hawked multiple hundreds of products from his
bully pulpit, perhaps the most notoriously using Press-Conferences to promote
one of his recently opened Hotels in 2017, and later and even-more aggressively
marketing Tesla cars, a company owned by his Advisor Elon Musk, in 2025. Though
Trump has not promoted energy drink Brawndo, it still entered the Real-World as
an Entrepreneur bought the license for the name and sold 10,000-plus bottles
on-line and in brick-and-motor stores.)
(Additionally,
Carl’s Jr. is a Real-World Fast-Food chain and was then-owned by Andrew Puzder.
Puzder expected to become Sectary of Labor in the first Trump Administration but
faced Bipartisan Opposition because he was accused of “mistreating his workers,
opposing the minimum wage and supporting automation in the workplace … [as well
as] the employment of an undocumented immigrant as a housekeeper and his
failure to pay taxes for her services.” In the second Trump Administration,
Puzder has been nominated to be Ambassador to EU.)
The film differs
from other Dystopian landmarks, like George Orwell’s novel “1984” (published 1949)
because Ignorance really is Bliss for these slack-jawed masses, described by
Critic William Norman Griff as, “torpid, barely ambulatory, imbeciles,” and
they are truly satisfied in their lack of ambition or responsibility, totally devoted
to their base of entertainments (the most popular TV network is the “Violence
Network” and the top-show is “OW! My Balls!” closely followed by the “Masturbation
Channel” which brags they’ve been "Keepin' America 'batin' for 300
years!"), unhealthy diet, and being baby-sat by Automations that barely
work and no one understands anymore. Musician Gerald V. Casale, of the Rock
Band Devo, praised how the film satirized the “instant-gratification-obsessed
target audience using the limited vocabulary of the terminally stupid.”
The Classic
of Literature that this film is most similar to is Anthony Burgess’ novel “Brave
New World” (1932), but in Burgess’ Dystopia at least Hell was kept clean and
tidy, Writer/Director Judge’s Hell is a dump because no one bothers to take out
the trash.
Writer
/Director Judge said “Idiocracy” was inspired by watching two women fighting
and swearing in front of their kids at Disneyland. “And this was in [the
year] 2001, so then I started thinking about [the movie] ‘2001’ [1968]. What if
instead of this pristine high-tech world that [Kubrick] had envisioned, what if
it was just like ‘The Jerry Springer Show’ [TV Talk Show first aired 1991] and
giant Walmarts, and what if that had been the movie made in the ’60s? So I
thought that’s what I would do. And a lot of it was kinda based on stuff that
was already happening.”
It’s a plot point that in 2505 the most popular movie in
America, and the winner of eight Academy Awards, including Best Picture,
consisted entirely of a man’s bare-ass farting for 90 minutes. That movie-within-a-movie,
of which only a few minutes were actually made, was screened before of a test
Audience of 250 “juvenile delinquents” recruited from a Reform School. Judge
noted, “They just start laughing … And they just keep laughing.”
He turned to his Director of Photography, Timothy Suhrstedt, and asked why
they were even bothering making the “Idiocacy” movie “Couldn’t we just
release this?”
In “Idiocray’s”
third-act, we see the Proles satisfaction collapsing as the food starts to run
out and President of the USA doesn’t know how to deal with the crisis.
(Sound like
the price of eggs anyone?)
Now it’s up
to Joe, our Hapless Hero and, by default, the Smartest Man Left Alive in the World,
to fix everything even though the Proles insist he "talks like a fag."
But first Joe has to survive the brutalist Security Forces who are hunting him
down for lack of proper Identification.
(Does this sound
like Trump’s Weaponization of the Police and Courts, Voter-Suppression, and Mass-Deportation
Policies anyone?)
But fear
not, the brutal Cops are just as Dumb as everyone else, so even they blow a lot
of things up unnecessarily, but aren’t really that hard to escape from. Prostitute
Rita fares better than Joe: Joe’s old job was as a Libarian for the Military, while
Prostitution seems to have granted Rita the Street Smarts that Joe lacks.
Rounding out
the three main Characters is Dwayne Elizondo Mountain Dew Herbert Camacho (Terry
Crews) whose resume doesn’t include Public Service but he’s introduced as “five-time ‘Smackdown’ champion,
porn superstar, and President of the United States.”
(In the
Real-World, Trump had no Public Service background either, he was a Casino
owner with six-Bankruptcies and a Game-Show host. Though never a Wrestler, a
big part of his power-base flowed from his relationship with World Wrestling Federation
Chairman Vince McMahon. Though never a Porn Star, his First Lady, Melania, is
famous for her Soft-Porn photo shoots. Trump even starred in a Soft-Porn, though
thankfully kept his clothes on, in a scene from the Playboy VHS tape “Video Centerfold” (2000, which
was the same year he ran for President the first time, but no one remembers
that run because he dropped out long before November).)
Fictional
President Dwayne gives his State of the Union Adress in the Chambers of the
House of Representin’ firing automatic weapons in the air, and all the while the
crowd cheered him on.
(Trump has proven
himself dumber than fictional President Dwayne. There’s an internet game from
2015, “Who Said It: Presidential Hopeful Donald Trump or ‘Idiocracy’ President
Camacho?” Could you pass the test? Which President actually said, “Listen,
you motherfuckers, we’re going to tax you 25 percent!” During the Real-World State
of the Union Address in 2025, Trump ranted about Taxpayer money being using to
create “transgender” mice, but it was actually “transgenic” mice, a totally
different concept and used for things like finding Cancer cures, yet half of Congress
cheered that on too.)
The film’s
prologue is essentially a stand-alone Comedy skit and many consider it a Modern
Classic. Before introducing the main Cast, we see a parade of minor Characters
demonstrating that, as Critic William Norman Grigg summarized, “Smart people …
reproduce arithmetically, but dimwits multiply like tribbles” (a reference to
an episode of the “Star Trek” TV show, first aired in 1966, and that episode,
“The Trouble with Tribbles,” was aired in 1967). This sequence is
side-splittingly funny, but has some not-incorrect detractors: It represents a Dysgenics
philosophy, basically a pro-Eugenics argument wherein there are obstacles to
the Best and Bright reproducing but the worst of us are unrestrained in their
procreation. The term was coined in 1915 by David Starr Jordan arguing Wars
kill our very best of our young men, while our worst avoid honorable Service
and Live Long and Multiply.
(Trump and
his Grandfather (who built his fortune on Prostitution) were both Draft Dodgers.
Trump has five kids by three Baby-mommas and his Aide Musk, who also has no Public
Service background in either of his two nations, and has at least 14 children by
at least four different Baby-mommas).
Though this
films Dysgenics argument doesn’t include the Racism and Anti-Immigrant Paranoias
of the “Great Replacement Theory” …
(Trump’s and
Musk’s Social Media have supported Great Replacement pretty explicitly.)
... it’s still
smug and mean-spirited. It basically says the World might have been saved if we
restricted the Reproduction-options of the lower-Educational and Socioeconomic
Classes, reflecting a near-universally held prejudice: We see our own (better) kind
are being pushed to the side by the hordes of whomever we view as Undesirables.
I’m not going to dismiss that complaint against this film, but let’s face
facts:
It wasn’t my
side that elected the Rapist over the Woman, the Convicted Felon Over the
Prosecutor, and the Traitor over the Patriot, in 2024.
Though film completed
twenty-years earlier, in 2004, but it wasn’t released until 2006, then placed
in very few theaters with some major markets were completely ignored, got no
marketing, not even a press kit or screening, no trailer, and predictably Bombed.
The studio, 20th Century Fox, which had been good to Writer/Director
Judge in many ways (almost all his projects had been financed by them) also had
been bad to him in the past: They mishandling of his first feature-film “Office
Space” (1999) and it Bombed in theatres but went on to be a Cult favorite, just
like this film did. The comparison between the two does falter though, because
“Idiocracy” came after “Office Space’s” late-arriving success and was treated
even worse by the studio. As Critic Joel Stein observed, “Abandoning ‘Idiocracy’ seems
particularly unjust, since Judge has made a lot of money for Fox."
Many have
suggested more Conspiratorial Motives for Fox’s bungling, like the Corporate
Bosses recognizing the film was directly insulting both their Sponsors and the
core Audience of Unrepentant Morons.
Fox is owned
by Rupert Murdoch, in many ways Trump’s Political Kingmaker. The film was made
too early to argue it was an anti-Trump stance that made Murdoch seemingly try
to kill it, but what we see in retrospect does give one pause. Judge himself observed,
“I should’ve made it 10 years later and set in the present.”
A decade after
its release, during the fateful year of 2016 Presidential Election, Tom
Rothman, then-Chairman Sony Pictures publicly spoke in “Idiocray’s” defense, “You’re
gonna see it. How absolutely. Terri-fy-ingly. Prescient it is. Right
now? ‘Idiocracy’? One of the great documentaries of our era!” But it shouldn’t
be forgotten that in 2006, he was the guy most responsible for Fox screwing-over
the movie over.
Writer/Director
Judge, himself, apparently believes that “Idiocracy” was a little too optimistic
“I’m no prophet. I was off by 490 years.”
The 2006 reviews
were mixed, with the LA Times recognizing its brilliance while Entertainment
Weekly not-so-much. Apparently, it more admired In Brazil despite it not
getting a theatrical release there. Brazil was then-Ruled by Luiz Inácio Lula
da Silva, famous for Vote buying Scandal …
(ahem, like
Musk did that in 2025, apparently legally)
Making his Country
the Plastic Surgery Capital of the World …
(ahem, look
at the before and after pictures of Trump’s daughter Ivanka and third wife
Melania)
Racist
diatribes against White people (note: Lula da Silva is quite light-skinned) …
(Trump was
the same-only-different, leading the National Racist Campaign of Birtherism by questioning
the legitimacy of a Black President and, repeatedly, shamelessly, pandering to
White Nationalists)
Protecting a
notorious Terrorist from Prosecution …
(Like Trump’s
2025 his Pardons of the 1/6 Terrorist and Traitors, who are rebuilding their Personal
Arsenals as we speak)
And was eventually
Tried, Convicted and Jailed for Corruption charges, but still got Elected again
after his release …
(Trump was
returned to office in 2025 before spending a single night in Jail despite a
31-count Felony Conviction, and then promptly killed all other pending Felony Criminal
Indictments upon his re-Election.)
The Brazilian
News magazine “Veja” recommended the film despite its difficultly to obtain.
Critic Alexandre Koball of Brazil’s “CinePlayers.com” gave the movie a score of
5 out of 5. Another CinePlayers Crtic wrote, "Idiocracy is ...
a movie to make you think, even if for five minutes. And for that it manages to
stay one level above the terrible average of comedy movies released in the last
years in the United States."
Now jumping
in time again, back to 2016 again, with Writers Judge and Cohen, and even President
Dwayne Actor Crews, were preparing anti-Trump Campaign Ads based on this film.
Coen, “Our jokes would be like, ‘I’m going to build a wall around the earth.’” But
unfortunately, Fox still Held the Rights and screwed them again, so this never
happened (enjoy your Brawndo though).
Cohen again,
“Writing Idiocracy was just following your id. Now unfortunately our id has
become our candidate for President.” Elsewhere, “I never expected #idiocracy to
become a documentary so soon.” And finally, “The most dangerous contrast to
Trump is that Camacho actually realizes he needs advice from other people, and
knows that he’s not the smartest guy in the room." He added that he'd vote
for Dwayne over Trump because Dwayne was "not racist."
Judge added,
“[Fictional President] Camacho almost seems like a more pleasant person.”
That same
year, Journalist Ali Vitali managed to get a Trump-supporter at a Rally on tape
after the Trumpanzee had just violently shoved a Black Protestor in the face.
The Trumpanzee then explained his while he chose Trump, “He’s no-bullsh-t. All
balls. F-ck you, all balls. That’s what I’m about.”
And so
speaks the voice of the End of the American Century.
Trailer (not
assembled until video release):
Idiocracy (2006) Trailer | Luke
Wilson | Dax Shepard
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