Published: February 2, 2025.
This post is a follow-up/sister post to my Letterboxd review for Idiocracy (2006). It’s not required reading for this entry though, and if you came here from the ‘Boxd, hello!
Something I had touched on in the aforementioned review, but wanted to give a more focused look at, is the notion that Mike Judge didn’t set out to make a film endorsing eugenics (or maybe he did, but I think it’s more likely to assume that it’s not the case). What fascinates me is the way in which you tell a story, or just the stories which you choose to tell, will inevitably reveal some part of your character, regardless of whether you intend to. Now I know this is “Death of the Author” territory, which is firmly trodden ground, but there’s a few auxiliary thoughts I’d like to air.
The most effective propaganda isn’t recognized as propaganda by its audience. I’m using the term “propaganda” here neutrally, in the sense that an artist’s real-world values will always bleed into their work, and if that work is popular, those values will be presented as normal/acceptable.
The top Letterboxd review of Idiocracy (rightly calling out it’s themes) has a whopping 330 comments, more than half being a variation of “this review is dumb stop thinking so hard its just a movie”. The danger posed by anti-intellectualism is that it gives people a mask to hide behind, to deny that art has meaning (unless it suits them). Films like Idiocracy offer a deferral of authority, a “it’s just a movie” while the seeds of hate take root and fester.
My main point here is that everything has meaning. I love dissecting works of art where the creator was perhaps much more revealing of their soul that they had intended. For a more positive example of what I mean, I think Lord of the Rings provides several glimpses into Tolkien’s conceptions of temptation, sin and forgiveness in a way that might not have been directly intentional, but you can get a picture of how Tolkien’s personal spiritual beliefs shaped the way Middle-Earth functions. The Room is another good example for different reasons.
The thought I keep circling back to is “How do we fix this?” What will make the fans of Idiocracy take a critical look at the art they love? Unlike Mike Judge, I don’t think they were born this way, but I do think there is a plague of incuriousness about us. I don’t currently have a magical solution that will prevent people from saying “its not that deep stop thinking about it so hard”, but in the meantime I think everyone should embrace the fact that their art reflects themselves, and engage each other in real human discussion of what they like and why. Corny ending I know, but I didn’t want to end this post on a sad note.