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Are We Idiocracy Yet?

idiocracy.wtf

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Re: Are We Idiocracy Yet?

#261

Post by ndsipa_pomu »

Intermernet wrote: post #252
bsenftner wrote: post #87

I attended an audience testing screener for Idiocracy before the film's final edit. I could not believe my eyes and ears, I loved it unlike anything I'd seen before, it was the hardest US culture satire I'd seen up to that point. Then the lights came up and the audience started giving their reviews, in an open mike fashion. They all identified with the "idiots" and were indignant insulted, and angry. I remember makin…

Many US citizens didn't get that Starship Troopers was a black comedy. There are serious video reviews taking it seriously as an action movie where the characters are true US heroes. I have a feeling these people are the same as the ones you're talking about.

I agree. RoboCop also belongs to the not-obvious-to-some-satire club.

Re: Are We Idiocracy Yet?

#263

Post by throwup238 »

jfengel wrote: post #166
FlufferTheGreat wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How many felt insulted by Don't Look Up--I'm guessing that Venn is a circle.

I wasn't insulted, but it did feel a bit too on the nose to really work as satire. Idiocracy got there just in time, before things became so stupid that satire wasn't possible any more. You have to exaggerate so hard that it lacks the feeling of cleverness required by satire. The Onion struggles on. They've always been true masters of the form. I wrote my own news satire back in the 80s and quit when I saw The Onion;…

Armando Iannucci - creator of The Thick of It and Veep - has said this in public statements. Politics is so ridiculous now on both sides of the Atlantic that he finds political satire impossible to pull off anymore. His last show for HBO Avenue 5 had to take place on a space liner for rich people with Hugh Laurie as a faux-captain who can’t keep his accent straight.

In Australia the satire Utopia has now predicted several major pointless government projects, including a stadium in Tasmania that no one wanted. https://www.news.com.au/sport/sports-life/abc-comedy-series-...

Re: Are We Idiocracy Yet?

#265

Post by relativeadv »

bdashdash wrote: post #155
bsenftner wrote: post #87

I attended an audience testing screener for Idiocracy before the film's final edit. I could not believe my eyes and ears, I loved it unlike anything I'd seen before, it was the hardest US culture satire I'd seen up to that point. Then the lights came up and the audience started giving their reviews, in an open mike fashion. They all identified with the "idiots" and were indignant insulted, and angry. I remember makin…

I feel Idiocracy is irresistible bait for 'not like the other girls'-types. Everytime this movie comes up, droves of people mention how they get it, while others don't. It's becoming a trope in itself.

It definitely activates something within people. Maybe I'm just terminally online, but there is always _always_ someone who will say "Idiocracy isn't satire, its a documentary."

Re: Are We Idiocracy Yet?

#267

Post by gambiting »

soblemprolver wrote: post #151
thousand_nights wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

i couldn't finish "Don't Look Up", it felt like sitting through a political lecture. all i wanted from a comedy was some laughs.

I couldn't finish "Idiocracy" because the underlying eugenics nonsense made me angry enough not to enjoy the comedy anymore. It made me angry because makes the point that natural selection has become ineffective on humans and thus intelligence declines unironically. There is no joke in that - all jokes build upon the assumption of this being true. If it were true, then decline wouldn't have begun in the 19th or 20th…

That's like being angry at Star wars because the very first title text says "long time ago", and we know humans didn't go into space long time ago duh.

Re: Are We Idiocracy Yet?

#268

Post by mike_hearn »

input_sh wrote: post #45

Not quite sure "Ow My Balls / Jackass" argument should count, the Jackass franchise is older than Idiocracy and was most likely an inspiration for that bit.

There are quite a lot of dubious matches.

Brawndo is considered a match with "Nestlé CEO says water isn't a human right". Beyond that it has nothing to do with agricultural malpractice, the Nestlé guy is just correct. It doesn't make sense to talk about human rights that way.

"Ow my balls" is considered a match because "YouTube's most popular content is often people hurting themselves", which is just wrong. It's stuff like music videos, children's songs and MrBeast. All quite wholesome.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_most-viewed_YouTube_vi...

"Costco law degree" is considered a match because ... there are companies that offer credentials which aren't universities. That isn't evidence of stupidity.

"Trash piles are massive" is considered a match because third world countries have giant trash piles. But they always did. Idiocracy was a film about America.

Even the first match is a giant stretch. Elizondo was only a TV star, and he did that work whilst in office. Trump wasn't (just) a reality TV star, he was first and foremost pre-politics a real estate developer. Quite different levels of challenge and respectability. And I don't think the show he did could be described as reality TV anyway.

Re: Are We Idiocracy Yet?

#269

Post by benterix »

btreecat wrote: post #237
bdashdash wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I feel Idiocracy is irresistible bait for 'not like the other girls'-types. Everytime this movie comes up, droves of people mention how they get it, while others don't. It's becoming a trope in itself.

I like money

> I like money

I'm sorry, I might be a bit stupid but I haven't understood your comment.

Re: Are We Idiocracy Yet?

#270

Post by ndsipa_pomu »

coldtea wrote: post #205
thousand_nights wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

i couldn't finish "Don't Look Up", it felt like sitting through a political lecture. all i wanted from a comedy was some laughs.

Then you need to watch comedies made decades ago.

How about the British "Till Death Do Us Part" from the 1960s/70s?

That had a similar irony in that people complained about the racist character of Alf Garnett, but the series very much used his bigotism/racism as the butt of the jokes.

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