I saw an interesting movie yesterday called Idiocracy. It's from the guy, Mike Jud.ge, who did Office Space and featured a couple of the same actors. I had not realized that the same guy also did Beavis and Butthead; Idiocracy is a bit closer to that in tone.
Idiocracy is simultaneously one of the dumbest and brightest movies I've ever seen. I guess that's the power of satire, to point out and confound. I was actually surprised to see it garner as high as 68% on Rotten Tomatoes. The original title was "The United States of Uhh-merica" and that paints the right picture.
The premise is that the people of the present are of one of two extremes. Those with genius IQ marry, but never get around to procreating because of timing of careers or the market or whatever. Opposite that, the animalistic people with IQs of 75 procreate in the back of cars quite effectively, having a dozen babies with a dozen like-minded partners.
Fast forward several hundred generations. Evolution doesn't favor the intelligent over time, according to the narrator. It favors sheer numbers.
The completely average main characters are propelled 1000 years into the future only to find that they are the smartest people on Earth. They find a crumbling civilization in which normal conversation is akin to Jerry Springer on 'ludes. Of course, average joe from 2005, Luke Wils.on, applies a little logic and saves the day.
Really, the concept makes SIF even more poignant. I sure would like to have propagated my genes a bit more for the sake of society. heh
1 comment:
That reminds me to update my Netflix queue...
Thanks for the film tip Cricket!
(BTW we watched John Waters' A Dirty Shame which was good escapism in its own little weird way ;-)
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