Idiocracy
Monday, March 19th, 2007You wouldn’t think to expect subtlety from Mike Judge, the man who brought us Beavis and Butt-head. But it’s easy to forget that this is the same man who also brought us King of the Hill, perhaps the most subtly cruel and satirical show of its kind. Office Space, Judge’s live-action directorial debut, has become a sort of contemporary comedy classic (rightfully so, in my eyes), and it resided squarely in the middle of the subtlety continuum — there were a few hidden jabs here and there, but largely the point was pretty apparent.
This brings us to Idiocracy, perhaps the most blatant satire I have ever seen. With a central conceit like “humanity is spiraling uncontrollably into a genetic cul-de-sac of stupidity,” though, you really can’t afford to wrap your social observations in the stealthy cloak of the understated. And so, Judge returns to somewhat familiar ground, taking us into a future ruled and populated by dull-witted morons who sit around watching TV shows like “Ow, My Balls!” and obsessively consuming drinks with “electrolytes,” despite not having the first clue what an electrolyte actually is. (For the record, neither do I.)
The setup almost sounds a bit like Futurama — an average guy gets cryogenically frozen and wakes up 500 years in the future. But whereas Philip J. Fry eventually learns to adapt to a world of robots, casual space travel and Jewish lobster men, Luke Wilson’s Joe (a deliberately average man) never really comes to terms with his new world, where the top movie is called Ass, and is exactly what the title indicates.
Here’s what happened, as the film’s prologue explains: stupid people breed a lot, and smart people don’t. So the gene pool ends up saturated with trailer trash, while book-reading folk like you and me eventually die out. This is definitely a theory I can get behind — largely because I argued it myself in Sarcastic Voyage some years back. (Just so we’re clear: I’m not accusing Judge and Etan Coen — no, not that Coen, apparently — of stealing my idea. It’s a sound logical argument that’s probably been made by people a lot smarter than any of us.) So yeah, Joe wakes up on a world where the stupid evolved from man.
What follows is a relatively typical formula comedy — Joe’s out of place in this new world. Joe finds new friends. Joe experiences peril, then pulls himself heroically from the peril. Joe gets the girl and lives happily ever after. It’s a more than adequate framework on which to hang the jokes, so I’m fine with all that.
Some have criticized the film’s relatively cheap production values and flimsy special effects. I can’t imagine the kind of person that goes to a movie like Idiocracy and expects Lord of the Rings-level digital wizardry, but to each his own, I suppose. It’s not meant to be a sci-fi epic, people. It’s a comedy. And, Ghostbusters notwithstanding, good comedies do not feature state-of-the-art effects. It really is okay.
Like I said, this movie ain’t subtle, and it’s far funnier for it. Most of the gags (even the relatively innocuous background details) whack you in the face repeatedly. But I really can’t see how it would work any other way. Somehow, as he did with Beavis and Butt-head, Judge has managed to make intelligent social commentary without showing any evidence of intelligence on the surface. In showing us the exploits of the profoundly stupid, he’s making a comment on stupidity itself. And perhaps that’s the subtlest satire of all.
Huh huh, “ass.”