cakes wrote: Tue Apr 15, 2025 5:06 pm It's anti-eugenics, as the elite stop having children, and the dolts have many.

The movie's plot is the consequence or poor and uneducated people breeding. The future is a hellhole because of who had children. It's absolutely about eugenics in that it's a warning about the wrong people having children.

Mike Judge thinks the poor and educated Liberals are the problem. Gee, Mike, I wonder where you fall politically.

I loved OS and B&B and SV but Mike Judge Is Libertarian trash.

It's a comedy, that's just a plot device to get you to the setup. Sure it's a dumb one, but if you think there's any deep social commentary in a quick summary that gets us 500 years into the future, you're missing the forest for the trees.

Like, it is clearly Devo: The Movie. Or are you similarly upset by "Mongoloid" and other songs? Idiocracy is not even particularly detailed about its dystopia, but for sure it's "prophetic" enough in calling out the jingoism and anti-intellectualism that have already led to Trump being in office. The problem is even Trump supporters will call it a "documentary" . . .

gotdamn wrote: Sun Apr 27, 2025 3:33 am It's a comedy, that's just a plot device to get you to the setup.

And in order for it to work you have to buy the premise. And the writer assumes you will if they set it up that way.

gotdamn wrote: Sun Apr 27, 2025 3:33 am The problem is even Trump supporters will call it a "documentary" . . .

i've noticed that too.
anything that makes dumb people feel smart has no right to criticize them also.

Dovira wrote: Sun Apr 27, 2025 5:21 am

gotdamn wrote: Sun Apr 27, 2025 3:33 am It's a comedy, that's just a plot device to get you to the setup.

And in order for it to work you have to buy the premise. And the writer assumes you will if they set it up that way.

This is a movie from the creator of Beavis and Butthead.

gotdamn wrote: Sun Apr 27, 2025 5:58 am

Dovira wrote: Sun Apr 27, 2025 5:21 am

gotdamn wrote: Sun Apr 27, 2025 3:33 am It's a comedy, that's just a plot device to get you to the setup.

And in order for it to work you have to buy the premise. And the writer assumes you will if they set it up that way.

This is a movie from the creator of Beavis and Butthead.

Yes?

pet fever detector wrote: Sat Apr 26, 2025 7:54 pm I loved OS and B&B and SV but Mike Judge Is Libertarian trash.

I know nothing about his politics but I've not detected that from his work at all (unlike, say, South Park). If there's any theme that connects all of his work it's a cynicism of corporations (down to the fuckin' MegaLo Mart in King of the Hill) that nearly prevented Idiocracy from being released at all.

andyman wrote: Sun Apr 27, 2025 8:09 am I think it's worth pointing out that just because dumb/maga idiots breeding may be the cause in Idiocracy it's not necessarily saying that eugenics is the solution. It's clear it's a lack of education that's the problem, not bad genetics.
If anything, like with Judge's aforementioned disdain for corporations, it's taking aim at capitalism and consumerism and their effect on society.

Yeah, I could see one (or even Judge) leaving it at a nature vs nurture debacle. Is the world increasingly full of dumb assholes because people are increasingly raised by dumb assholes?

penningtron wrote: Tue Apr 15, 2025 10:15 am

zorg wrote: Tue Apr 15, 2025 9:09 am Idiocracy is not a Dziga Vertov Group movie, this is an sophomoric satire that accidentally predicted some previously laughable outcomes. From the creators other works, you can tell that he's staunchly sympathetic to the salt of the earth.

Yeah. Claiming Mike Judge is “punching down” is laughably dumb (and so is making bold claims about a movie you haven't seen).

I rewatched Office Space last night (Still pretty funny)....but the resolution to the story of a guy who is working a dead-end tech job is that he winds up happier hanging drywall. So the message is some kind of weird amalgam of slacker/blue-collar pride. It's sort of only a step away from the MAGA's Kid Rockian boat-party ethos.....so, again, I don't see any deep thinking about the bell-curves or whatever happening in Idiocracy, it's really just a broad stroke critique of corporate America's detrimental effects on society. It also occurs to me, but isn't Wall-e this same story...all the way down to forgetting how to grow food?

I really think OS was a satire of corporate culture and the vacuous nature of "knowledge work." I don't see any connection to MAGA, The Nuge, etc.