Admittedly it's been a long time since I watched it but isn't the introduction sequence straight-up apologia for the theories behind eugenics? The idea 'what if society got massively more stupid' isn't a bad one for a film but 'the rabbit-like hordes of the stupid outgroup ourbred our elite ingroup to extinction' rubs me the wrong way.
Maybe I'm being unfair to the film because of the fanbase as well. I've always seen it as a mild red flag when someone says it's their favourite comedy, but it's hardly the film's fault it got popular on places like reddit.
Maybe I'm being unfair to the film because of the fanbase as well. I've always seen it as a mild red flag when someone says it's their favourite comedy, but it's hardly the film's fault it got popular on places like reddit.
This is circular reasoning: You don't like the film because of the fanbase which you don't like because they like the film.
There is no "apologia for eugenics" in the intro. You have to actively infer that as a logical consequence ("we need to prevent stupid people from procreating as much") of what is shown ("society becomes stupid when stupid people procreate more than intelligent people"). The reason it is only in the intro and is never revisited is that it is just the setup for the actual movie, not a message in itself (the whole sequence is in fact very dissimilar from the rest of the movie). A more accurate setup would be that we have a culture that selects for primitive behavior and is anti-intellectual, but that isn't as funny as showing Cletus fucking everything that moves.
I think it’s a joke, not an apologia. If one can’t read it as a joke, then that’s on them. It’s a piece of satire forming a work of political and social philosophy, and a middling straight-to-video movie.
Comments
Idiocracy is more like a work of Baudrillardian philosophy though, it isn’t punching down, it’s extrapolating upwards.
Admittedly it's been a long time since I watched it but isn't the introduction sequence straight-up apologia for the theories behind eugenics? The idea 'what if society got massively more stupid' isn't a bad one for a film but 'the rabbit-like hordes of the stupid outgroup ourbred our elite ingroup to extinction' rubs me the wrong way.
Maybe I'm being unfair to the film because of the fanbase as well. I've always seen it as a mild red flag when someone says it's their favourite comedy, but it's hardly the film's fault it got popular on places like reddit.
This is circular reasoning: You don't like the film because of the fanbase which you don't like because they like the film.
There is no "apologia for eugenics" in the intro. You have to actively infer that as a logical consequence ("we need to prevent stupid people from procreating as much") of what is shown ("society becomes stupid when stupid people procreate more than intelligent people"). The reason it is only in the intro and is never revisited is that it is just the setup for the actual movie, not a message in itself (the whole sequence is in fact very dissimilar from the rest of the movie). A more accurate setup would be that we have a culture that selects for primitive behavior and is anti-intellectual, but that isn't as funny as showing Cletus fucking everything that moves.
I think it’s a joke, not an apologia. If one can’t read it as a joke, then that’s on them. It’s a piece of satire forming a work of political and social philosophy, and a middling straight-to-video movie.
You're reading into it too much. It's more likely they needed a comical backstory, and Flagpole Sitta was playing on the radio.