Mike Judge
Idiocracy

Yes, it is perfectly reasonable to think that the current world is not the best possible, for many good reasons. But try to imagine, perhaps 500 years from now, how society could be badly reduced. It could be a dystopian future, as some aspects of contemporary society already lead us to suspect that we are already living in that grim future.

This thought crossed my mind after retrieving (on the advice of some film buffs) and watching, on the Disney Plus platform, the film "Idiocracy" directed by Mike Judge (and co-written with Etan Cohen) in 2005. At the time, I hadn't seen the film, which arrived quietly in Italy and was categorized as a slapstick comedy. Even in the United States, the film wasn't a great success, but over time it has become a cult title, somewhat alternative and almost underground. The director himself feared he had exaggerated in depicting the character of the protagonist, a soldier named Joe Bauers (an effective Luke Wilson) equipped with an average IQ. But it is an honest representation of a typical middle-American man, contrasting with what he encounters on his path in the formally science fiction plot.

The soldier is involved in an experiment conducted by the U.S. armed forces to try to overcome a regression occurring in contemporary society. Since there is a noticeable progressive dulling of the populace, accompanied by a high fertility rate among less educated people, the goal is to freeze subjects of average intelligence (the aforementioned soldier and a woman whose profession is prostitution) to wake them up after a year so they can procreate the largest number of averagely intelligent people and contribute to the intellectual improvement of the population. The initial premise is indeed weak (as far as we know, even intelligent people can procreate), but it is sufficient to proceed with the experiment which, due to unforeseen setbacks, sinks as the soldier and prostitute wake up well after 500 years. And the impact is nothing short of devastating since the society of the year 2505 has regressed to almost subhuman levels.

What was feared in 2005 (the year the film was made) is a kind of waking nightmare. In fact, our descendants suffer from the typical flaws of modern society (not just American) taken to the extreme: immersed in a reality oriented towards reckless consumption, those unfortunate people not only take as gospel truth what is transmitted by television but are also engulfed by rampant advertising to the point of wearing shirts covered in advertising slogans. Moreover, they do not articulate sensible words, cannot fully understand basic concepts, and are afflicted by poor mathematical understanding.

Even worse is the administration of justice, while the quality of the dietary regime is at a minimum (fried foods accompanied by energy drinks that replace water both at the table and in the irrigation of agricultural fields). In cities invaded by mountains of garbage, crowds of semi-demented spectators fill the cinemas to watch the box office hit titled "Ass" in which for almost two hours the camera simply frames a plump naked male butt engaged, in passing, in emitting loud flatulent sounds, eliciting general hilarity among the audience. In this general decay, the president of the USA is a certain Dwayne Camacho (brilliantly played by Terry Crews), whose merits include being a wrestling champion, a compulsive canned beer drinker (complete with monumental belches), and also a porn actor (very busy dealing with obliging women).

In all this generalized chaos, the two human guinea pigs unwittingly come from the distant past and are initially very uncomfortable but, after some mishaps with the judicial system, gain the favor of the aforementioned president who, realizing that he is dealing with people much more intelligent than the circulating average, turns to the help of soldier Bauers to mainly solve the problem of the scarcity of agricultural crops.

The happy ending brings the work back to the main tracks of Hollywood mainstream and it is certainly not a forgotten masterpiece. But it is certainly a film that, twenty years after its release, can be seen as a warning to the regression under our eyes. If when he made the film, Mike Judge wanted to satirize certain American consumerist drifts (and not only), besides not thinking much of the then-president George Bush junior, today in 2025 certain parodies are becoming increasingly more of an accepted custom. Just to say, it is no longer the television screen that conditions users, but everything available on the Internet and social media, which have now risen to the rank of semi-divine entities, from which to draw inspiration even if they can convey fake news. And the average intellectual level does not testify to decent trends if one can also find flat-earthers, conspiracy theorists, and so on degenerating.

In the distant 2505, there might be a president like the aforementioned Dwayne Camacho, but already in 2025, there's a character like that in the role of the U.S. president who delights in many asking to kiss his ass. If 20 years ago George Bush junior was not a top-notch president, I wonder if today we are not already plunged into a distressing future.