Release Date: January 25, 2007
Director: Mike Judge
Starring: Luke Wilson, Maya Rudolph, Terry Crews, Dax Shepard, Anthony Campos, David Herman, Justin Long
Favorite quote: “The years passed, mankind became stupider at a frightening rate. Some had high hopes the genetic engineering would correct this trend in evolution, but sadly the greatest minds and resources where focused on conquering hair loss and prolonging erections.”– Narrator
Look at the above quote. Are we sure we’re still talking about a movie? It doesn’t seem like real life to anyone?
It’s Election Day in the States, folks, and I join millions of people in hoping that today marks the end of a long, national nightmare! Normally, I don’t delve into politics, but today I feel like I absolutely have to. Because I am hoping that today, I can help sway my fellow Americans toward the only candidate that makes sense this election. Today, I hope I can make you all understand that only ONE person can lead this great nation. Today, I hope to make you see that only ONE individual can represent every one of us, because he IS one of us!
I wish we could vote for Dwayne Elizondo Mountain Dew Herbert Camacho! He is our ONLY HOAP!
I mean, can you think of anyone better?
You think that’s a joke. But in Florida, our ballots allow a person to write in a candidate for president. You have no idea how strong my urge to write “President Camacho” in was. I actually had to STOP DRINKING VODKA AND SOBER UP just to vote seriously! That’s how bad it is!
(Then I think of the other people in Florida who didn’t stop drinking and seriously want to write in “David Duke.” Then I hit the bottle harder.)
Mike Judge, he of Beavis and Butthead and Office Space fame, penned Idiocracy along with Etan Cohen. The premise – a man wakes up after 500 years to find that humanity has become stupider – is nothing new. Author Cyril M. Kornbluth explored the premise in a short story entitled “The Marching Morons”, all the way back in 1951.
Thing is, that premise is resonating much more now with the passage of time.
In 2006, Idiocracy was sheepishly released to only 6 markets, utterly bereft of marketing. Fox felt hosed after disastrous test screenings and sat on the movie for a year. They didn’t want to release the movie, partly because of the biting commentary and nasty depictions of several recognizable corporate entities (including Fox News!). Fox hoped to just make it a straight-to-DVD release; they were contractually obligated to give it a theatrical release. They did, in the most half-ass way possible.
Now, ten years later, many consider this movie to be less a satire and more a “future documentary.” Even Etan Cohen himself said as much, reversing almost ten years of denial that this was a satire of modern life.
I never expected #idiocracy to become a documentary.
— Etan Cohen (@etanjc) February 24, 2016
I don’t care. The movie is still a laugh riot for all of the stupidest reasons.
The man out of time in Idiocracy is Joe Bauers (Luke Wilson), a sub-standard Army librarian in 2005. He becomes a test mule for a top secret experimental program that seeks to preserve their best soldiers cryogenically. He is partnered with Rita (Maya Rudolph), a prostitute, for this experiment and put into cryogenic hibernation. But, due to scandal at the Army base where the experiment is being held, they are both forgotten. They awake 500 years later to a world that is much different…and much stupider! Suddenly, Joe and Rita are the smartest people on the planet.
Cousin Jose was the person who introduced me to this movie, and I watched it about 17 times in a row after he did. The premise is so silly, so utterly insane, that I couldn’t stop laughing at it. Idiocracy takes the basest, most deplorable aspects of humanity and amps it up to eleven.
Except that it doesn’t seem that funny anymore when juxtaposed with current events. This movie – once shunned by its distributor – has become a focal point to many in social media spaces. Some argue that it is one of “the most elitist and anti-social movies ever”; others wonder if one of our candidates is the herald that brings this movie’s events about.
No one exemplifies the sheer lunacy of the premise better than THE ONLY PERSON WHO MAKES SENSE TO LEAD OUR COUNTRY!!!
Dwayne Elizondo Mountain Dew Herbert Camacho (Terry Crews) is the icing on this horribly hilarious cake. After tests prove Joe is the smartest person in 2505, President Camacho sends for him, anointing him Secretary of the Interior and tasking him with solving all of the world’s problems.
Personally, I don’t care. You can call it a “celebration of eugenics” or a “little but misunderstood” all you want. I think the movie is funny as shit, and that’s all it needs to be for me! For those that want to turn Idiocracy into some kind of case study or political message, I think you need to sit down and chill.
Sometimes, it’s okay to poke fun at something, even if it’s a little too close to home.
For those who have not watched Idiocracy, I sincerely hope that you remedy this.
Sorry…it’s HOAP!
