Idiocracy
So I’m writing my paper on the dystopian future presented in the Mike Judge (Office Space, Beavis and Butthead, King of the Hill) film Idiocracy. A lot of people probably haven’t heard of this film, since it was buried by Fox, its distributor, because Judge and Fox executives disagreed about a lot of the content in the movie and disagreed about how to market and package it. In the plot, a perfectly average soldier and a street prostitute are chosen by the army to be frozen in a time capsule to test new human hibernation technology. The project is scrapped, and the two find themselves 500 years in the future. The plot of the movie is rather inconsequential, but the dystopian future that the two find themselves in is very interesting, as is the movie’s explanations of how the future got to be so dysfunctional. The premise of the movie is that the mean intelligence of humanity slopes rapidly downward because smart people don’t breed nearly as much or as early as unintelligent people do. Because everything is so automated, dumb people thrive in the world. In the future, everything is sexualized, corporations run the government, the English language has deteriorated into a mix of “hillbilly, inner-city slang, and grunts”, the average intelligence of people is extremely low, and people no longer have the ability to perform basic functions such as waste management and food production. People who talk “smartly” are derided as “faggy,” the number one show on television is “Ow! My balls!,” and all that people eat and drink are Brawndo (a Gatorade-like drink) and Carl’s Jr. The House of Representatives is the “House of Representin” and the President of the United States is a professional wrestler/porn star. You get the picture.
The aspect of the movie I’m discussing in my paper is that unlike in other imagined dystopias we have read about, this dystopia is built by the intelligent classes for the superficial comfort of the dumber and dumber masses. In works like Brave New World, V for Vendetta, and Children of Men, the people in power manipulate the masses in order to gain power. In Idiocracy, the world is hand-crafted to require no intelligence, and instead provides comfort and pleasure to the masses. I wonder what you guys make of this vision of dystopia, where there isn’t so much a threat of terror or a quest for perfection, but rather a shockingly “plausible” deterioration of society due to neglect, superficiality, and a glorification of violence, sex, and most importantly, INSTANT gratification. I can think of some factors that would prevent this extreme manifestation of dystopia from happening, mainly that those in power would prevent it. Anyways, what does everyone else think about the premise of this movie’s dystopia?
katie wrote:
I must admit, I’ve considered that exact potential future, and in some ways it seems much more plausible than the other dystopian societies we have studied. The slow devolution of the human race represents a force of nature, rather than a political upheaval, and according to history, nature is much more likely to be successful in its changes than revolutions are.
However, I am inclined to agree with you that there are a good number of forces preventing this unfortunate future. To me, the most influential of these forces is the government and society itself. In our world, intelligence is valued, and it is the intelligent who tend to gain power. There are very few idiotic, uneducated CEOs, politicials, judges, &c. The people who are “pulling the strings” (in America, at least) are smart, and as such, the idea that the race would be allowed to devolve into an evolutionarily previous form is unlikely. As long as the intelligent continue to be the ones trusted with running the country, society is going to call for the intelligent.
While there is already some evidence that the world has begun to cater to the last intellectually endowed, education is becoming more highly valued each year. College enrollment rates are sky-rocketing, and more and more jobs require a bachelor’s degree. In our highly competitive world, education is key, and because of this necessity, the masses won’t become stupefied: if they wish to succeed and survive, they must be thinkers.
Posted 03 Dec 2007 at 10:42 am ¶
sean wrote:
What Idiocracy seems to be is a dystopian future minus the Utopian elements. Most dystopias are societies where a privileged few enjoy tremendous benefit, and either a minority or majority are marginalized and forced to do all the unpleasant work (Zardoz, BNW, even Indecision to some degree). This is the dystopia without the separation of labor or benefits. Even the White House is a shitbox in Idiocracy.
Posted 03 Dec 2007 at 12:13 pm ¶
hammad wrote:
I find it interesting that there is no incentive to act intelligent in Idiocracy. Society is catered towards the pleasure of the masses. But this begs the question: doesn’t a society, even a messed up society, require some intelligent people to preside over the masses and maintain even a little bit of order? Don’t there have to be some smart people to make sure that the automated society remains automated? I guess I just think that without some form of control, society is bound to collapse entirely, not simply remain dysfunctional.
Posted 03 Dec 2007 at 8:14 pm ¶
dayne wrote:
By no means is Idiocracy a perfectly intelligent movie. It mixes low crass humor with blunt criticism of society. However, I do think that within it, the weaknesses that Hammad and Katie find in that dystopian theory are addressed. In Idiocracy, the smart people that create everything automated and such are replaced by the increasing masses of the ever-breeding “dumb people.” The movie crassly shows this by showing how an intelligent couple keeps postponing having their first child (the markets aren’t right, it’s not the right time, etc) and how a trailer park man has a double digit number of children by multiple women, breeding kids who continue to breed. That’s why the dystopia in Idiocracy is what it is, a dysfunctional dystopia. The machines and such in Idiocracy’s future stop working, and humankind is doomed.
To address what Katie said about the value of intelligence in society, I have to pose this question: is intelligence really valued in America? Obviously, it is. But, there are valid points to be made. Our president is a smart man-alumni connections and such aside, he did go to Yale and Harvard Business School, and he had a higher grade point average at Yale than John Kerry, who was derided as being too intellectual to vote for. However, he’s voted for because he sells himself as a Texas cowboy you can have a drink with, and his social and international policies frankly ignore the process of logical thinking itself. I personally enjoy hit movies such as Jackass and love watching Family Guy. Sure, college competitiveness has skyrocketed, but the process of education itself has become increasingly regulated, standardized, and in effect, regulated. When I was in Korea, I noticed something. Workers at McDonalds, at an average bank, on the street corners selling snacks, at the administrative office at the College I stayed at over the summer, all had something in common; they were far more competent than the average worker here. This is obviously just an observation, but in America, there is definitely a culture of stupidity.
The theory in Idiocracy is that the intelligent classes simply finish their work of placating and exploiting the lower classes, but simultaneously simply become extinct due to lower reproductive rates. Simple as that. I don’t think this can completely happen in the real world, and I doubt that director Mike Judge does either. But the point of the movie is that our society is becoming increasingly anti-intellectual.
Posted 03 Dec 2007 at 10:19 pm ¶
Sparky wrote:
Hammad, I think you brought up a good point. I was wondering, where did this new spiffy illness diagnoing machine come from, who was building the new buildings for business, and who came up with and maintained the iq test? If the time machine was invented by a really smart guy so it keeps breaking, why are there other things invented by really smart guys which seem to be ketp under maintance. I think the “new” technology is in direct contrast to buildings which are toppling over and tied by ropes. This rasies the question of where are they hiding their engineers? or if it’s all automated, why don’t we see that in all aspects of society?
What struck me was how it was commenting on society today. Presidents do read off teleprompters. They normally do not make their own speeches, and when they do things get out of hand. When things get our of hand what is done? You bring out a gun and threaten people with it. The comment about everyone getting laid at the White House will no doubt bring certain events to peoples minds. In that case, is this almost an over the top commentary on our society today being a dystopia? just a thought. . .
Posted 12 Dec 2007 at 11:42 am ¶