I'll admit it - today was nothing new. I woke up intending to run but it was bucketing, so I dozed. I taught students, I voted and had a quick gym session, I taught more students, I had a mini panic about wedding music, I played for a wedding, I got soaked on the way home. I wore boots for the first time this year and had Indian for dinner (actually the 2nd time this year, both occasions the breaking of a fairly long Indian-drought). However, last Friday night I watched Idiocracy, so tonight is the review.
I wasn't sure I wanted to admit to having watched this movie. It is a very blokey movie. I'm not averse to blokey movies... but this was rather - ah - juvenile. So if you're into something slightly more upper class, or something you can show to a prospective partner or in front of your parents, don't choose this movie! That said, I laughed a lot... Plus, my brother and several of his friends keep referring to it and I felt rather out of it.
Idiocracy starts in the present time, where the Average Joe is frozen (with the Average Jane), and circumstances unfold to leave them frozen for many centuries. They unfreeze in a time a few thousand years in the future. I found the situation a lot like Wall-E, seeing a future highly likely based upon today's reality and trends. Wall-E has the human race fat, not knowing how to use legs, finding all information from technology. Idiocracy finds the human race stupid, as the smart people of today (according to the movie - not saying this is true, necessarily) - tend not to have kids, or reproduce much later, but less smart people... well, they keep having kids. And so the outlook is a future of less smart people.
Which means the Average Joe of today has become the smartest person, by a long shot, in the future. He, with his fantastic IQ, is seen as the saviour of their world, sent to alleviate the starvation brought about by crop failures etc. Ooh, does this sound familiar? How about, when his solution (let's water the crops with water, not with something akin to Gatorade) doesn't have immediate effects, he even says "I just wanted to help you. I didn't say I was the smartest person on earth, you did. I was trying to help you live in a better world"...? And then they try to kill him. Of course, the crops finally show some signs of growth just in time for him to be not killed so we don't have the total gospel parallel, but still.
I was also reminded of one of the Thursday Next books by Jasper Fforde, in which most of humanity is becoming stupider, more easily entertained, because our attention is being drained by the time travelers (it totally makes sense if you've read the books, honest). And the Simpsons episode where Lisa has the 'dumbening', loses interest in higher matters and contemplates the easy, brainless, happy option. These all have that idea of our intelligence, our interest in higher matters, being zapped. And I know these are all fictional scenarios - but think about it. How often do we read a book instead of watching tv? Paint a picture instead of watching youtube videos? Make music, or at least listen to music (real music), instead of playing inane games on our smart phones? Are we actually turning ourselves into the Idiocracy of the future?
*Edited: also see the next post (April 30) for a bit more on this.
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