Several commenters told me that I needed to watch the movie 
I’m so glad I’ll be dead in 500 years.
If you haven’t seen it, basically, it’s a comedy about the fact that stupid people are out-breeding smart people at such a pace that in a few more centuries, the average IQ will probably be about 70. The main character is put in hibernation by the Army in the 21st century and wakes up in 2505 to find that he’s by far the most intelligent human on earth and that people have become so lazy that toilets are built into living room recliners.
So stupid that judges ask for the prosecution’s case by grunting, “Why ya think’ee done it?” and the official charges include “Being a Dick.” Frankly, I think we’re a lot closer to all that than 500 years.
Anyway, I loved the movie. Loved it so much I came this close to seeing about donating my ovaries to an egg bank, but then I remembered it’s not so much genetics as it is how you raise the little spawn-bots, so a better plan would be to simply take over Earth.
I think Mike Judge (writer) has been in my brain; I would so write movies like this. My favorite detail was a billboard that said:
If you don’t smoke Tarryltons…
Fuck You!
Heh.
I decided I need a whole new category to document the cold, painful truth of this movie’s thesis and I shall very cleverly call it “Idiocracy.” And is the first entry:
Just a few drive-thrus down from where the last Southern fast-food import tried its luck with Minnesota tastebuds, the state’s first Sonic drive-in restaurant has for the past two weeks been pulling thousands of cars a day into lines that are sometimes hours long.
On Sunday afternoon, the lines for burgers, fries and slushes at Sonic on Suburban Avenue in St. Paul were actually a bit shorter — only about 25 to 35 minutes — but the enthusiasm was just as strong.
“We’ve driven by it twice,” said Lorray Jonason of Oakdale, admitting they were previously driven away by long waits.
“This is the third time we’ve tried and the first time we’ve stayed,” said her husband, Reed.
Yes. Perfect. I can’t possibly think of any better way to spend a few hours than waiting in line for a fast-food burger. God bless Amurrica!
I am SO glad you finally watched the documentary on the future of this great nation. I should have mentioned earlier that this was a Mike Judge production. Anybody who can come up with Boomhower and Beavis has definitely blasted a hole into the space-time continuum, although it’s a portal through which I don’t necessarily desire to peer.
You can see the edited version weekly on the “Prophecy” channel.
I love this new category so much it’s giving me a geekasm … or maybe an idiogasm … you know, ala “Go away! ‘Batin’!”
Heh, gotta see that one! I’ll see if I can find it online when I get home from work.
I was just thinking about that movie as I filled my gas tank this morning while watching TV. Is the American attention span so short now that we can’t even pump gas without getting bored, and must have television in every gas station? I know, I know, it’s just another vehicle for advertisers, but really, I can occupy my mind for the 10 minutes it takes to fill my tank. Annoying.
Mike Judge…
Beavis and Butthead
King of the Hill
Office Space
Idiocracy
The man is grade-A genius, and that’s a cold fact.
Rachel, be warned – if you create an “Idiocracy” tag you’ll wind up sticking it on a thousand different posts…
Sounds like “Idiocracy” is based on The Marching Morons” by C. Kornbluth.
Genetics/Nurture…both are needed. You still need to have kids, Rachel. It’s the demographic, you should do your part!
;-)
Hey take it easy on Sonic! I essentially grew up at Sonic. My big brother used to take me there to get me out of the house when I was little, and it was THE cruising hot spot in my hometown. Its where we tried to meet girls and impress them with burn outs in our old pick-ups. :-)
Ahhh…the good ol’ days!
MG
Fortunately, stupidity is not, in most cases, genetic, by all available evidence.
It’s far more environment than genetics, and average IQ is, last I checked, rising rather than falling – and “stupid* people breed more” is not a new phenomenon.
* Where “stupid” is really being used as a shorthand for “poor” or “rural”, inaccurately. That and progressive/elite bias against breeding – after all, “overpopulation will destroy Baby Gaia!”
(Hell, it’s if anything more culture than intelligence that keeps first-world people from having more kids – smart Mormons have more kids than dull coastal Progressives, because the former have a culture that encourages progeny, and the latter one that discourages it.)
I wanna drive by with a bullhorn and yell:
“Hey idjits!
Enjoy your EXTRA BIG ASS FRIES!”
Sadly, the reference would likely be lost on these Ass watchers.
Rachel
Check your email.
Gary
I was good with Sonic for quite a while. Shoot, one of my 2nd cousins owns a pair. But their ads these days are belligerently annoying, and when I try to go there they come back to my mind and annoy me all over again.
The IQ thing was explained to me thusly: The sum intellect of humanity is a constant. The population is growing.
Hi Rachel,
I love this movie too. I reviewed it a while back if anybody wants to see my take on it.
Wendy
Waiting in line for Sonic? Seriously? OMGWTFBBQ!!!
The only thing I will eat from that place is their tater-tots. The rest is just, well,
>ewww!!!
We have no Sonic where I live (greater Seattle area). However, we make up for it by having a Starbucks on every other block.
Same thing happened when Krispy Kreme opened up here. They had to have a cop directing traffic. They’ve since closed shop.
And then there was IKEA. That place was a mad house for a few weeks after it opened.
Apparently, there’s not a whole lot to do up here…
Idiocracy was hilarious and depressing at the same time. The characters reminded me of the 20-somethings I worked with last year: culturally and functionally illiterate and painfully inarticulate.
Yes! “The Marching Morons” is it indeed. There was even an old-time radio show production of it, on a program called “2000 Plus”. Now I’ve got “Idiocracy” on the top of my Netflix queue. I expect to be amused and appalled simultaneously. Sort of like watching the sheep at a rally applaud St. Barry for removing his coat.
People aren’t really becoming more stupid, they are choosing to shut down their minds with respect to judgments, political and moral. Please, please listen to Evan Sayet, a comedian turned conservative, at this YouTube address. He describes perfectly what is happening with Obastard. It’s a cult of indiscriminateness.
The reality is that a fast-food burger is about as close to true gourmet food as one can get; otherwise we wouldn’t be overrun with associated franchises coast-to-coast and around the globe. Personally, I find well-prepared food from local high-end restaurants a pleasure worth pursuing. On the other hand, that doesn’t prevent overwhelming Jr. Whopper urges from claiming my attention from time to time. As the food police assail the burger joints, music critics once disparaged Glenn Miller. My money’s on popular taste over effete elitism any day [except when it comes to rap/hiphop, jackass movies, import cars, that fine young Irish lad Barry Obama, and a few dozen other assorted topics].
The Sonic story is another bit of evidence that cements my theory that people and raccoons are a lot alike. We can both easily be lured and trapped by anything shiny and new. Besides, Sonic sucks (brought to you by Carl’s Jr.).
As they say, the future belongs to those who show up….
We have a Sonic literally next door to our house; it’s adjacent to the rear of our property. So it’s a two-minute walk away. I haven’t eaten there for four or five years. (The Chinese takeout place across the highway gets frequent business from us, despite being three times as far away.)
Lucy wrote:
You have TV at your gas pumps? Seriously? We don’t have anything like that in North Carolina.
No TV’s around me either in Ohio. However several of the stations do have those little speakers that start their pitch right as you begin filling up. Thank God it has a mute button.
I eat at Sonic for the onion rings. I make the best onion rings but at Sonic I don’t have to do all the work and they’re pretty cheap. Since Sonic is just about the original small, mid-western, franchise they’re pretty much a dime-a-dozen around here. I don’t know anybody that would wait in line for one.
Pat Berry is now responsible for a raging case of Tso’s chicken craving rumbling my stomach in spite of the fact I just had lunch. I know what’s for supper. That and fried dumplings.
Along the lines of Kornbluth’s Morons on the March I think it was Fred Pohl who had a series of books on consumerism where the companies had consumers so locked in that they had actual wars over it. It seemed to me there was a little of the IQ argument there as well. It’s been a good 25 years since I last read any Pohl so that memory might not be quite right. If any one else remembers I’d appreciate a heads up. I might just have to see if I can dig out any of my old paperbacks from back then.
Sounds like the gene pool could use a little chlorine.
SONC is in my son’s UGMA account.
I hope the tubbies line up around the block. My son’s college edumacation is on the line here folks!
LOL
Yours has a mute button that actually works?
Okay I don’t mean to be too serious, but I was quite disturbed by Idiocracy. It was kind of amusing but if you look at the subtext of this movie, it’s all about making sure smart people breed and dumb people don’t breed. Same as Margaret Sanger, H.G. Wells, and their admirers, the Third Reich.
And I couldn’t help but wonder what happened to the rest of the smart, starving world when America gets dumb. I don’t think they’d wait around at our borders while we water corn with Gatorade and scratch our butts.
Sorry to invoke Godwin’s law here. I make a sad doggy face.
No TV’s or blaring speakers at gas stations here either. I feel so deprived.
I have so many favorite lines from the movie it was hard to pick just one.
I also love it that the lawyer went to law school at Costco.
ha ha ha
That future may be bleak. but you have no idea how many times I wished President Bush would come out and tell the House of Representin’ to “Shut up and sit yo monkey ass down.”
I think my irony meter just pegged. As some have noted, “Idiocracy” is a version of Kornbluth’s short story (The Marching Morons)…heheheheh…I guess it could be called a dumber version.
The short story is much better. Really. :D
Yeah. Sometimes they have taken some pretty heavy pressing to register though, since they’re not the normal buttons, and more the ones with the little airbubble type.
Can’t see waiting in a long line for fast food… isn’t that, like, negating the whole point?
Anyway, no Sonics out West, but when I go down to CA I make sure to visit an In’n’Out for a Double Double Animal Style, Fries Well Done, and a vanilla shake (I don’t use any of the “secret menu” shake options, I’m a purist regarding the really important things).
But wait for more than, oh, three minutes to place my order? No way. If I gotta wait I’m going to a place to sit down where I can have a beer or margarita while I wait. Yeah, I’m implacable. Or something.
When In ‘N Out and Krispy Kreme first opened in Reno, we experienced a similar phenomenon. The novelty wore off after a month or so. Krispy Kreme is now out of town (thank goodness – their donuts were terrible) and In ‘N Out built at least one more location around town. I’m fine with that, though – I actually like In ‘N Out.
Stupid people have been breeding more prolifically than smart people for quite some time; even so, we’re definitely more intelligent collectively than we were in the 19th century.
A Sonic in St. Paul?
I wonder if anyone has informed Lileks?
Nearly every station I go to here in San Diego has televisions, and no mute buttons :o( Albertson’s grocery stores also now have televisions in some departments and checkout lines. It’s a little frightening. No Sonics, though, so I guess we are a little deprived.
We don’t have Sonic in my neck of the woods (Manchester, England, EUSSR) but I tried it a few times when I was in SC recently. Hey, at least it’s better than Krystal…
Incidentally, does anyone want a sperm donation through the post? I have an IQ of 139 and only charge $9.99 per yogurt pot.
DearRachel,
Do those commenters that frequent In N’ Out Burger have an In N’ Out Burger bumper sticker on their car?
With the “B” and “r” in “Burger” removed??
jest askin’
mike
Idiocracy is a scary,SCARY movie.
Since we’re a baseball family, we spend more time at Sonic than I would like after practices and games. I will say that they have some really good salads and wraps!
Even though I don’t like fast food much, I will pull over for Culver’s. Their custard kicks Blue Bell’s ass so far down the road it ain’t funny. That’s a yummy northern creation that would go gangbusters down here in the South.
We ate at Sonic once. Never again.
NevadaDailySteve: See also H. Beam Piper, Null-ABC.
It sure is! And few people think about the Hitlerian solutions such a world would require.
Wait at Sonic? Why bother? In two hours I can grind my own burgers and grill up a monster stack w/ bacon and the works, probably at around 1/5 the cost. If I have to get a burger on the road it’s a Triple Whopper. When back in San Diego I make a twice-weekly trip for an In N Out 4×4 w/ grilled onions and fries well. I recently discovered Culver’s here in Cornland which is also very tasty–double deluxe butterburger with bacon and chili-cheddar fries (yes, I’m a wee tubby, why do you ask?).
I’m sorry, was I ranting ’cause now I’m just hungry.
Just finished watching it!
“Duh…I thought the nookilor reactor was in Georgia?”
“Georgia is in Florida, dumbass.”
“Hey, I know – let’s pour toilet water on it.”
Hahahaha! Although it is a bit scary and depressing at times, I’ll admit. The same thing is happening over here as well, though. Just google the name ‘Jade Goody’.
The high-IQ sperm is still available to anyone who wants to swap it for a whole buncha money. I like money.
Sinister political implications are the least of the problems with this movie.
I understand the point this movie is trying to make. It tries to make a statement about the gradual dumbing-down of popular culture, but it does it in an extremely clumsy way. The society we see in Idiocracy could never actually exist.
– If the year 2505 is supposedly the “Stupid Age”, why is there so much highly advanced technology (digital tv screens, video cameras, computers, flamethrowers, those massive vehicles in the “rehabilitation” arena, etc.) all over the place? It can’t all be leftover tech from the Not-So-Stupid Age because it mostly looks new and it seems to work just fine.
– In the year 2505 everyone has a barcode tattooed on their arm coded to their personal information which is kept in some computer database. Who created this system? Who runs it? Who makes sure it works properly?
– Tons of corporations exist in 2505. If everyone’s as dumb as a brick, who runs them?
– Planes can be seen in the year 2505. If there aren’t any smart people left, who flies them?
– The stock market exists in 2505. Who keeps it running if there aren’t any smart people left?
– Who makes the clothes? Who programs the computers? Who runs the tv networks? Who manufactures the guns?
– If everyone drinks some stupid sports drink instead of water, how is anyone still alive?
Ironically, the movie ends up sacrificing intelligence and basic logic in favor of rather low-brow humor (if you don’t believe me, watch it again and try to keep track of how much incredibly unsubtle phallic imagery you see) while simultaneously complaining about the way popular culture sacrifices intelligence and basic logic in favor of low-brow entertainment.
I admit, Idiocracy is a funny movie. But it’s NOT a nuanced cultural commentary or a grim prediction of things to come. Not by a long shot.
[That is actually almost verbatim what I would have written if I’d had more time to review this movie. The exact same issues plagued me throughout – how do they have all this technology if what’s his face is the smartest person alive? Not possible. It actually almost ruined the whole thing for me and I kept waiting for them to address it, assuming they’d get to the part where the very few smart people left alive were totally in control because they were the creators and maintainers of all this technology. I guess a movie about dumbness has to be dumb on a pretty big scale. – Rachel]
I have to say, I love me some Sonic.
Mmmmmm…..tater tots!
When I want to torture my sister in Scotland, I go to Sonic and photograph the entire adventure. If only I could email her the aroma of hot tater tots.
Apparently good (or even mediocre) burgers are not readily available in Ayrshire.
She usually responds by going to a fish n chips shop with her camera.
Mightysamurai, you’re totally right, of course. I wondered too who actually designed the machines that could scan the tattoes on peoples’ wrists.
I just ended up enjoying it in the way I enjoy Star Wars – I know that lasers really travel at the speed of light and don’t really make “dweeeuh!” sounds (that was an approximation) , but I still saw it as a sort of social commentary on how we can take over the universe and make everything make sense again, even if we all have to wear supposedly ‘blast-proof’ armour that is somehow vulnerable to arrow fire from hyperactive teddy bears.
Yes, there are so many holes in the plot of of the movie. But that doesn’t detract from the fact that 10,000 years ago someone with a low IQ would have been torn apart after thinking “oooh, pretty kitty!” and then trying to cuddle a sabre-toothed tiger, whereas now, the same person would be able to reproduce at will, expecting the government to pay for their sprogs to run into trees and get tramp stamps at age 12.
I’m not saying that I disagree with you, because I don’t – I’m just saying that let’s not get too caught up in the minutiae, here.
Small nitpick, but I don’t think they ever referred to them as “lasers” in any of the movies. And the Expanded Universe gives the impression that the guns in Star Wars use some sort of plasma (or something) and not a focused beam of light.
True, but one would think (or at least I would think) that a commentary on this phenomena should be relatively free of the very errors and dumbing-down that it criticizes.
Like I said, I get the point the movie is trying to make, and I agree with it in principle. I just think it could have been handled a bit more elegantly.
Yeah, you’re right, mightysamurai. I do have the paperback Star Wars Technical Manual that refers to ‘turbolasers’, but a bit of intartubez searching about stormtrooper rifles (I want to buy a replica on ebay but I’m still saving up for an Aliens pulse rifle replica) reveals that the word ‘laser’ is inaccurate in this context.
By the way, did you know that the Aliens pulse rifle was really a modified Thompson SMG with a shotgun attached? I only found that out the other day. Gawd, I bloody want one now!
I’m just lucky that Rachel doesn’t have a Nerd Filter on her site, otherwise I’d have no hope of ever leaving a comment. She’d probably be relieved at that, though!
OMG!! BABE!! You’ve never seen Idiocracy?!?!? We’re SO watching that!!!! (and getting ridiculously sloshed on red wine!)
Ok…so I’m a little out of it after a long, HOT day and when I read that little snippet at the end, I missed the fact that there was a link to an actual news story. I thought you were high lighting a part of that movie. Then I realized it was a true story and my jaw dropped. Sometimes there are no words…the mind cannot form them in its disbelief.
In my job I meet all kinds of people from all over the world and I have to agree with you, Rachel, I don’t think it’s going to take 500 years.
I’m putting that movie on my Netflix que.
Oh and the little televisions at gas stations? When I lived in Seattle, they had some at a BP at the beginning of the pass. It played Bugs Bunny cartoons when I was last there so it wasn’t too bad. But yes, it was weird to have t.v. at the gas pump.
Oh for gawds sake, sam!
Suspension of belief. It wasn’t meant to be elegant, or an “actual” future reality. It was meant to be funny. I thought we all got that …
Get to ‘batin! Watch some Ass. You needz some, oh worthy opponent!
All hail mightysaumrai : )
Oh yeah, and sam — it’s the aliens and their super computers running everything — we’re the marching moron minions, and our lords aand masters are munching popcorn and enjoying the stupid channel!
I prefer Butt:f*ckers hamburgers personally…
“Idiocracy” – it’s here.
I LOVE this country!!
Sunny for President: it’s got electrolytes.
Hey c’mon, Rachel- Sonic has TATOR TOTS! That has to worth the wait.
The Space Merchants (with, imagine that, C. M. Kornbluth) along with Gladiator-at Law.
Wa-wa-wabbit twacks! And watch out for “Honest John” Barlow…
“Now you know why he built that bomb” has become a secret code phrase between me and my husband whenever we observe a particularly choice bit of idiocy.
Mighty, Rob…
Gotta go with the other posters here – you must read “The Marching Morons”, like, yesterday.
CMK was the genius – he built the entire back story (something Judge left out) in just a few paragraphs.
Judge a genius? Not so much.
J
As a Minnesota native who’s going back to Minnie this summer, let me just say, we won’t be going to Sonic. The food at Sonic is just shy of dumpster-quality, although we do go to Sonic here where we are almost daily. Why?
The drinks. They have five million trillion bazillion drink combinations. For a guy who’s given up on caffeine, Sonic is my Mecca, my Santiago de Compostela, my Nirvana. I can still get a diet drink in a ridiculous five gallon drum and a straw sans caffeine and be on my way.
As for Sonic burgers, five words from Oregon Trail come to mind: “You have died of dysentery.”
Waiting in line for hours to go to a fast food joint no longer surprises me. I too saw people waiting in line for hours just to get a new krispy creme donut.
Rob: What pulse rifle “replica” are you saving for? All I’ve been able to find is a ridiculously expensive kit for converting an airsoft Thompson into an M41A.
“…and the U.N. un-nazied the world – forever.”
I LOVED Idiocracy! My favorite scenes:
-> The giant skyscraper with the digital clock on top, flashing 12:00 like a broken VCR.
-> The Emergency Room nurse who uses one of those “keyboards for illiterates” (used today to order your McBurgers) to point to a picture of where it hurts and get a patient admitted and seen by a doc.
The Sonic story reminds me of when the McDonald’s opened up last year in the town nearest us — except that it’s the only drive through in town. Period. The next closest drive through is 40 minutes away!
It’s suspension of disbelief, and that’s kinda the problem. Idiocracy doesn’t allow for very much suspension of disbelief. The movie ends with more questions than answers, and that is the opposite of suspension of disbelief.
And if the intent of the movie was just to make you laugh, there are much simpler ways to go about that. You don’t need $25-$35 million to make people laugh. Jackass: The Movie did it with only $5 million (and made over 100 times as much money).
I would, but I usually find most “pure” science fiction crushingly depressive.
However, the Wikipedia summary provided by Ray shows exactly where the creators of Idiocracy went wrong. If they had included the “Elites” in the movie, everything (well almost everything) would have made perfect sense. But because they didn’t include the Elites, the audience spends the entire movie wondering when they’re going to explain how everything still works. That’s very bad form when you’re making movies. You don’t want your audience coming out of the movie with more questions than they had when they went in.
The creators of Idiocracy could have easily addressed these questions if they included the Elites. But if they had, it wouldn’t have been a comedy anymore. At best they would’ve had the kind of hyper-cerebral sci-fi that tends to bore the piss out of most people and depress the crap out of the rest (plus a small minority that actually enjoyed it). And at worst they would’ve had a freakish hybrid of depressive-yet-intelligent sci-fi and entertaining-yet-simplistic comedy.
mightysam.
Um. Wow.
I wish you a happy place in your suspension of “dis” belief. I kind of know “dis”, but made a poorly-defined effort to play on the very words you used …
Ahm dum leik dat.
Have a lil’ joy-joy. No verbal murder-death-kills for a bit — maybe just a day.
Don’t make me do a partridge family and/or peter pan demotivator for you … I’ll do it! Come any closer and I WILL! I will PRY YOUR EYELIDS OPEN through the sheer force of my will and you WILL be compelled to click and laugh. There will be blood (and hate) …
And my apologies for transposing those letters in your name when I was castigating you, that was a total typo … no hard feelings?