Stephen Yeargin

We received our latest Netflix DVD in the mail the other day, and unlike most I actually found time to sit through most of Idiocracy

In the movie, Joe Bauers (played by Luke Wilson) arrives in 2505 to an America filled with (and run by) people with the mindset of young teenagers and the cognitive abilities of toddlers. As the “smartest man in the nation”, he must solve the pressing issues of crop failure, a dust storm and a crumbling economy.

Comedies are typically not supposed to make you think, but this one had me a bit puzzled. I still had questions for this hypothetical world.

Was it really 2505? Five centuries is quite a stretch to believe that little had changed in terms of brand names (even though 26th century menu of a Starbucks was quite a departure from a Venti Frappuccino). My theory is that some idiot screwed up on a calendar several years back, and that it was actually no more than 2105.

Where was the rest of the world? Joe is faced with the enormity of fixing the problems of the United States, although only Washington D.C. and the southeast is mentioned. My bet is that a runaway immigration bill outlawed any foreign influence, and the while America crumbled the rest of the world went about its business.

How could they be that dumb? We are lead to believe that the answer lies in “only stupid people are breeding.” But I have to wonder if something leaked into the water supply that limited brain development. The other futuristic characters introduced in the movie were not qualified to run even the struggling society presented. But even then, there had to be a group of relatively intelligent to provide for technology on display. If the capacity to learn were genetic, it was a doomed race.

What was the political system like? I seem to remember the incumbent president won it in a tag team match (not everything in the future was a bad idea). When Joe leaves office (if there were such thing as term limits), his smarter than average heirs would be the next logical choice to lead the nation, or at the very least have an active role in the administration.

Was there an Internet or other repository of knowledge? Based on the way the residents viewed knowledge, I would guess not. But somewhere there had to be written or stored history. My guess is that most of it resided in the world outside of America.

What would be the priorities for fixing society? If Joe were to follow Maslow’s hierarchy, fulfilling the basic need for food and shelter would be paramount. Re-growing the crops was a first step, as at the very least people were surviving in this dysfunctional world. He would then need to rid the country of the controlling corporate interests which had run roughshod through ever level of government. If the rest of the world progressed as usual, bringing in foreign help would speed along some of these initiatives. Somehow re-establishing an educational system would be about as far as he could go in one lifetime.

If you did not see this movie in theaters, it is likely not by accident. Fox Studios pushed this one out to a few meager markets and hoped it would just stay dead (grossing less than a half-million dollars). Still, like writer/director Michael Judge’s other great feature film Office Space, it does not disappoint. Go rent it.