I just watched the movie Idiocracy on Comedy Central

[indy legend]

I know it's just a silly movie but I thought it was so incredibly spot on as to the world we can look forward to in a few more decades of republican rule and corporate control. If you haven't seen it I highly recommend it. While it's stupidity will make you laugh it should also scare the hell out of you as to how accurate it describes a world led by the tea baggin fools of today and the future they long for.

[Jkid]

1. Good, get the DVD version. It's a lot better than the cable version.

[RaleighNCDUer]

7. Yup. You lose a little - something - in the bowdlerized version

shown on TV.

[Echo In Light]

2. It's a documentary (that had a bigger budget until Fox got wind of its harsh critique of the US)

[DCKit]

18. +1

Faux Snooze is so there already.

[Echo In Light]

24. 20th Century Fox studios scaled back the budget & all but dropped it

"Judge had the balls to dream up the ultimate progression of the idiocy that not only exists in our society but thrives, thanks to our own encouragement. Dumb is what we want, and dumber is what we'll get. And this no doubt scared the hell out of Fox. Instead of playing nice and delivering a safe and sound yuk-fest along the lines of Talladega Nights or Deuce Bigalow, Judge threatened to roll a hand grenade right inside the moneymaking-brainwashing machine. Try as they might, Fox could not successfully cut together a two-minute trailer for this very funny film that made it seem anything but depressing and repellent. It can't be done. How can you market a film that's all about how viciously horrible and destructive marketing is?"

[sufrommich]

3. That's a great movie, lots of uncomfortable laughs. My favorite

is the evolution of the Fuddruckers sign.

[abluelady]

4. Ironically,

a tea bagger type told me it was scary! Go figure. I will have to make sure I watch it.

[Greyhound]

5. I wish it had been funnier, but it is eerily prophetic. n/t

[Donnachaidh]

6. in a few more decades? Have you watched Spike TV lately?

Idiocracy is HERE -now-.

[TheDebbieDee]

9. I agree with you. And I'm being totally serious.

[redqueen]

13. Yep...

the only difference is the cause isn't genetic... it's social. It's just popular to be anti-intellectual.

[Taitertots]

8. I just think of the Duggars when I see it

The stupidest people are breeding at the fastest rate.

[Maru Kitteh]

41. Actually, the Duggars have been fairly brilliant, making them the exception

Millions more are out there doing half or less as well (baby numbers wise) and pulling in a mere fraction of the income the Duggars have managed to garner - or worse yet, with no income at all.

I think of my idiot nephew and his pre-vasectomy litter of 7. He's always really hated working, so conveniently, he's managed to bullshit his way through enough doctors to win permanent disability. We're so proud.

[ChoppinBroccoli]

10. As A Movie, It Was OK, But It Contained A Message.........

..............that I've been telling people for a long time. When I started spending most of my time at my local County Courthouse, I noticed a phenomenon. Namely, that the intelligent, reasonable people had 1 or 2 children and stopped (or couldn't have children at all), while the ignorant, unwashed masses always reproduced at alarming rates. It was literally EVERY DAY that I would see some big, fat WT housewife roll herself out of the passenger door of a pickup truck with about 3 different child-conveyance devices and about 5 other older kids who walked behind her with dazed expressions on their faces.

This movie finally put that idea out there for public consumption. The intelligent, reasonable (i.e. liberal) people reproduced in an intelligent, reasonable way. Meanwhile, the ignorant mouth-breathers pump out kids like it's a contest with no thought to whether or not they can afford them (financially OR emotionally), without much caring who raises them (they usually have WT boyfriends who enter and exit their lives about as often as a roll of toilet paper), and really only getting by on government assistance. But that doesn't stop them from turning right around and teaching their "Dirty Dozen" hillbilly spawn that the government is bad and liberals are evil. And that pattern is now established. So when this generation dies off, the intelligent and the reasonable are now outnumbered 10-to-1. And it gets worse with each passing generation.

Quite frankly, we're being outbred. And the ugly truth of the matter is that WHENEVER you appeal to the ignorant, you'll win every popularity contest by a landslide. I have another theory that surmizes that roughly 90% of the American population is so willfully stupid that I don't know how they find their way home at night (which probably also explains why GPS has gotten so popular).

[AngryAmish]

21. Umm, ever hear of Carrie Buck?

Cause this idea has been around 150 years. It is called eugenics.

[Atman]

26. A Bush family favorite.

GHW Bush was big into Eugenics. I think that is part of what the intentional bankrupting of the country (and first, the response to Katrina) was about; a big giant social experiment. The Bush's have wanted to do this for years.

.

[Marr]

28. The problem is, that's not genetic.

Intelligent children are born to average parents all the time. And vice-versa.

[AngryAmish]

32. Do you deny that intelligence is heritable?

[Marr]

37. I certainly do.

Are you suggesting that some populations are inherently more intelligent than others? If you believe intelligence is an inherited trait, then you must.

I believe that social class has a major impact on intelligence, but it's not genetic. It's a matter of resources, access to education, environment, etc.

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

11. It's a movie filled with ironies.

1. It's a pretty stupid movie.

2. Because it's a pretty stupid movie, it mocks its own audience.

3. One has to dumb oneself down in order to enjoy it.

4. The plot involved eugenics, making itself particularly dumb.

5. The best parts of the movie celebrate stupidity rather than mock it.

[indy legend]

14. You are right. It was a pretty stupid movie but after a few minutes

I couldn't change the chanel, and while you are right in that it kinda celebrated idiocy it also, I thought, had a message (weather intentional or not)about the direction the right and the corporatist want to take us. I'm sure that was lost on it's target audience but looking at it from a progressive's point off view I thought it was eerily accurate. If the left blow the opportunity it has right now to change things and loose this country to the right for another 30 years I'm afraid in 2040 this will not be as far fetched as it might have looked in this movie.

[tom_paine]

16. Idiocracy's society was much more benign than What We Are Becoming

Make no mistake about that. Whether it's Far-Right Corporate Totalitarianism or Teabagging Good Old Fashioned Barbaric Totalitarianism, which are our remaining choices, it seems.

Of course, as a comedy, you couldn't have Tea Bagging Christofascist Brownshirts dragging everyone who had an independant thought or was a "liberal terrorist" off to a Relocation Camp or anything.

Too much reality is bad for comedy. Idiocracy has just enough benign unreality so that the comedy isn't impaired.

What We Are Becoming, I'm afraid will not be nearly so benign as Idiocracy, which is a damned funny comedy.

Will they drink Brawndo in the Relocation Camps?

[ChickMagic]

35. Hey - Brawdo is good!

It has electrolytes!

[lame54]

29. since your first premise is completely wrong...

all the others fall like dominos

[Echo In Light]

31. The sole motivation was simply to call all of us "dumb" for enjoying the movie

... if I had to guess

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

36. Maybe if it were wrong, but it's not.

It's a pretty stupid fucking movie.

[ChickMagic]

34. Enjoy your big ass fries!

It's coming...

[notadmblnd]

12. Including the great garbage avalanch of 2505?

President Dwight-Mountian-Dew, Camacho better do something beside Drink Brawndo THE THIRST MUTILATOR about it!

[spanone]

15. it's a documentary

[Bigmack]

17. I laughed... I cried...it changed my life! nt

[Initech]

19. Brawndo's got electrolytes.

[lame54]

30. What are electrolytes?

[Initech]

33. They're what plants crave!

[DirkGently]

20. Ow my balls

it was funny. Sad, but funny. I have to disagree with the suggestion that the film celebrated stupidity. Seemed like pretty solid satire to me.

[jmowreader]

22. There are a lot of things in that movie you couldn't put on television

Like Carl's Jr's motto, "Fuck you--I'm eating!"

The new name of Fuddruckers--"Buttfuckers."

The cigarette billboard--"If you don't smoke Tarryltons, fuck you." (And the Surgeon General's warning: "Warning: The Surgeon General has one lung and a voicebox and he could still kick your sorry ass.")

I liked the Healthmaster Inferno 5000 diagnostic machine, but you'd think they would have anodized the three probes in different colors so you knew which one to shove up your ass.

[JuniperLea]

23. The reality will eventually be more bizarre than this "fiction"

But yes, it's scary as all hell. I run into people just that stupid every day. If we don't do something quickly, our world will be far creepier than the movie.

[Atman]

25. The opening demographics sequence is frightening...and too true.

When Fox originally tried to release the movie in theaters, it ran into all sorts of problems. As with all major releases, they tested it and audiences didn't know what to think. They didn't know whether they were being mocked, or if they just didn't get it. They tried several different different advertising angles, and the movie just scared people, no matter how they presented it. I think it was largely stupid, but also very prophetic.

What they found out in the focus groups was that people thought it was about them...but if it was really about them, then they wouldn't actually "get it." It was at once brilliant and very stupid. And I loved it, just for the opening demographics scene.

.

[Marr]

27. They really tried to bury that movie when it came out.

I can't imagine any reason besides it's mockery of mindless consumerism and anti-intellectualism. Doesn't make much sense otherwise. It's got a famous leading man, and the creator's previous movie, Office Space, is a huge cult classic.

[Gabi Hayes]

38. what they did was almost unprecedented. BUT....you can actually buy Brawndo!

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/04/magazine/04wwln-consumed-t.html?_r=1&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss

http://www.brawndo.com/

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uxieMOdo6IU&feature=related

[Gabi Hayes]

39. I know it's wiki p, but I've read this all elsewhere, and it's footnoted (with electrolytes!)

Idiocracy was released as scheduled but only in seven cities (Los Angeles, Atlanta, Toronto, Chicago, Dallas, Houston and Mike Judge's hometown, Austin), and expanded to only 125 theaters, not the usual wide release of 2500-3000 theaters.

According to the Austin American-Statesman<7>, 20th Century Fox, the film's distributor, did nothing to promote the movie — while posters were released to theatres, "no movie trailers, no ads, and only two stills..."<8> and no press kits were released.<9>

The film was not screened for critics.<10> Lack of concrete information from 20th Century Fox led to speculation that Fox may have actively tried to keep the film from being seen by a large audience, while fulfilling a contractual obligation for theatrical release ahead of a DVD release, according to Ryan Pearson of AP.<11>

That speculation was followed by open criticism from Ain't It Cool News, Time Magazine and Esquire Magazine.<12><13><14> In The New York Times Dan Mitchell argued that Fox might be shying away from the cautionary tale about low-intelligence dysgenics.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Idiocracy#Release_issues

[arcadian]

43. T.J. O'Handjobs

Just found that little gem.

:rofl::rofl::rofl:

[lunatica]

40. It inspired me to create Cool Text about it

[bigmonkey]

42. It's based on "The Marching Morons" by C. M. Kornbluth.

A pretty famous science fiction story. And it does have a eugenics message, which is the only thing I had against it and the movie. What I find funny in the movie is that people still have the skills to broadcast television. The one character even saves the day by using a video camera.

[whopis01]

44. What do you mean silly? That is one of the best horror movies ever. n/t