Idiocracy

I loved Idiocracy since the first time I watched it. I thought it was hilarious because of all the lowbrow crude humor. Over time I began to notice similarities between the film and actuality and have come to the conclusion that the sequence from the beginning of the film might actually become reality.

The way that things are going not only will humans will become as stupid as the movie suggests, but the planet will also be as overheated and filled with trash. This may not be fact but I believe that a large population of people, especially in the United States, have become a lot dumber and more ignorant.  Is the gun toting, obese, motorized scooter riding, American shown below too different from the Americans shown in the movie? I think not. If more people do not begin to lower the amount of trash thrown away, then the Earth might be pretty close to the Earth depicted in the movie. The combination of these two things, the stupidity and wastefulness of humans makes me draw a similarity between Idiocracy and Wall-e. In both movies, humans were a lot dumber than they are now and the earth is covered in trash and waste.

I noticed that Idiocracy had something to say about gender roles as well. In the movie women were probably as dumb as the men, as evidenced by the Attorney General, and were also used for sex constantly.  Every major corporation became some kind of sexual enterprise. Rita, as a prostitute, could be fine in a world like this.

I know people like money now, but that feeling seemed to be exaggerated in the movie. Frito would constantly be distracted by any kind of money talk.  Even thought the dollar had depreciated greatly, Frito still wanted some and would get tricked in to doing something for imaginary money quite often.

I don’t like or want to say this, but I think the rap genre of music and current television could start a trend similar to the one shown in Idiocracy. Neither uses particularly correct English, and all that is shown or heard is either violent or about sex, money, or women.

The humor in this movie is really childish and crude. The show Ow My Balls is slapstick humor that teenage boys would like, it crude but can be funny. Same goes with the rehabilitation one can even see similarities between that and NASCAR or WWF. This childish humor is an example of schadenfreude, pleasure derived from the misfortunes of others. Some laugh at Ow My Balls because we know it hurts to get hit in the balls and its funny because it’s not happening to us.

This movie is really funny (at least to me). But it does make me fear for the future. I can actually see Idiocracy happening in real life. It may sound terrible but its true. I hope that we can escape this grisly fate and we can if we promote literacy, recycling, and shy away from things that dumb us down.