Idiocracy - new Mike Judge movie in superlimited release

though i can understand if, like adam beales, you have never actually paid any attention to anything hes done before, that the half-assed treatment of maya rudolph & scarface could seem like it (my big draw to the film = mike judge directs film starring maya rudolph & scarface)

I always thought that they should have a throwaway gag "Meanwhile, on the other side of town..." and quickly show a foursome of basically identical black dudes hanging out in their alley sippin' on beers, saying "yep" and then an equivalently imcoherent black-dude ramble from melanin-enhanced Boomhauer.

I don't think it's actively racist in any way. I think it tries hard, in fact, to be progressive -- antiracist. But I have qualms about the ways it goes about this. While I think the show's aims are noble, I think it ends up sweeping the real face of racism under the rug. And for a show that attempts to present a semi-gritty, humane, morally honest view of life in suburban Texas, I think that's a mistake, though a small, harmless one.

I understand that you don't see it this way, and I have no problem with that.

But Idiocracy is another matter. Here, I think Judge isn't really in control of his feelings/ideas about the intersection of race, class and intellect. And I think he ends up shooting himself in the foot. Made it hard for me to enjoy the movie. Why, for instance, do so many white people in the film have Hispanic names? What's the point?

Oh, and strike every instance of the phrase "I think" in ppg 2 of my last post. It'll reduce the impression of moronism by at least 10%.

And out (again).

uh cuz they're actually Hispanic (ie, part of the currently largest and fastest growing ethnic group in the US)?

Honestly, given that the film rather clumsily and literally maps out how the future became populated by the profoundly stupid with no mention of race/ethnicity, it didn't even occur to me.

But the moron-future in this film looked, felt and sounded an awful lot like Tijuana/East LA.

***

Now, you look at a film full of outlandishly stereotypical depictions of moronic Hispanics, where half the seemingly white morons have Hispanic last names, set in a bombed-out, stereotypically third-world wasteland with a suspicious resemblance to certain Mexican/American border towns ... and you don't see even the slightest hint of passive, unconscious racism.

That's fine. I can accept that. But I don't understand why we can't have a civil discussion (hell, even a civil disagreement) about it.

I've been to Tijuana and didn't see a specific resemblance. I mean mountains of trash look the same all over, whether they be in Calcutta or Botswana or Mexico City. The name thing I honestly took no notice of beyond it being a "in the future miscegenation will be common" kind of aside.

Yeah, but that brings up something else. Are Calcutta, Botswana and Mexico City in the state they're in due to the fact that their inhabitants are all morons? I mean, what's the implication?

OTM!

i really, really, really hope there's a director's cut of this (sans fox's apparent meddling with the ending and so on) someday. twenty years from now, maybe, whenever judge gets around to it. i thought it was funny but it could've been much better.

it was just about perfect for dvd where i did a good deal of fast-fowarding through nothing sequences.

Way off topic, but Steven Pinker disagrees.

Come on, man. You're deliberately distorting what I said, apparently just so you can LYAO at some stupidized version of the world (irony alert). Idiocracy is full of Hispanic characters and white characters with Hispanic names. In the movie's future, nearly half of America seems to be Hispanic.

Is that unreasonable in and of itself? No. But it's about the only social extrapolation the film makes, other than exaggerating the general idiocy level of everything.

Why go so far out your way to show that "in the future, miscegenation will be common," (as Shakey put it), when the only real point you're making about that future is that it's populated exclusively by total morons? Morons miscegenate? Is that it? The idea that morons overbreed is stated clearly near the beginning of the film, and the point gets rammed home again at the end. So isn't it possibly even just a little troubling that the film also postulates an America that has become a largely Hispanic nation?

Again, if you don't see it, that's fine. I'm not calling this a hate-movie or saying that you're wrong to enjoy it. But a few of its premises and implications did bother me.

We return you to your regularly scheduled LMAOs, currently in progress...

YES.

I'm glad I haven't mailed this one back yet, I get the feeling it might be funnier the 2nd time.

According to IMDB, the only characters with names at all are Joe, Rita, Frito, Upgrayedd, Sgt. Keller, Judge Hank "The Hangman" BMW, Officer Collins, President Camacho, and Beef Supreme.

I guess you could make an argument that 'Frito' is a Hispanic name, but I sure wouldn't.

That's more-or-less EXACTLY what I've been saying since the start of this whole ugly mess ("...signifiers of non-white race, lower-class poverty and stupidity-to-the-point-of-retardation are all mixed together, as though they were essentially the same thing. Didn't kill the movie for me..., but I found it more than a little off-putting").

Now, I thought the film was a bit more callous in its treatement of Hispanics than the rest of you did. Fine, I'm alone in that. But what Zwan just said has been my main point all along.