Idiocracy

This week, Jamie and Caitlin wake up after being frozen for 500 years to talk about Idiocracy.

(This episode contains spoilers)

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
On the Beck dol Cast, the questions asked if movies
have women in them? Are all their discussions just boyfriends
and husbands? Do they have individualism? The patriarchy? Zef invest
start changing it with the beck Del Cast. Hey, Jamie, Hey, Caitlin.
Oh geez, we just woke up from being in a

(00:22):
cryopod and society around us is terrible. But it always
has been, so not anything different. But wait a second,
it's probably the Well I'm only interested in pursuing this story.
If it's the working class is fault, well you're in

(00:43):
luck because if the one percent is implicated in this,
I'm walking. Okay, well I'm walking today's movie. That's what
it's about. So okay. Welcome to the Beach Dol Cast.
My name is Jamie Loft, as my name is Caitlin Durante,
and this is our show where we examine movies through

(01:04):
an intersectional feminist lens, using the Bechel tests simply as
a as a jumping off point. And this week you'll
notice is we're releasing this the week of the fourth
of July, uh national holiday that gets more and more
ridiculous with each passing year. The only good thing about
the fourth of July is Joey chestnut that has been

(01:25):
canonically true for decades at this point now. So we've
been talking about this making this episode for a while
and trying to find, you know, kind of either we
were between like, oh, we can find a really classically
jingoistic movie to kind of cover in debunk, or we
can try to find, you know, a famous American satire

(01:46):
to cover for this week. And since we made that decision, uh,
we've just been we've just been losing our rights, Miranda rights,
don't know them, the right to an abortion gone. Just
it's it's you know, if if you're listening to this,
and even if you're not American, you're probably aware that

(02:09):
it's it's particularly dystopian these past few weeks, years, decades,
and so I feel like it's a particularly interesting time
to take a look at the movie. So all that
to say, I just think it's uh for preamble, we
chose to cover this movie before the most recent avalanche

(02:32):
of lost rights, and I feel like it coincidentally ends
up being kind of an interesting discussion because we are
covering the movie Idiocracy today, a movie that has been
discussed a lot in the past, decade, and now that
I've seen it, I don't understand why. But first we
have some housekeeping to cover that being what the fuck

(02:57):
is that Bettel Test you were talk about, Caitlin Rante,
I'll tell you, Jamie loftis. It is a media metric
created by Alison Becktel, sometimes called the Becktel Wallace Test,
and there are many different versions of it. The one
we use, we've we've put our little flourishes on the

(03:18):
test over the years, and our version is two characters
of a marginalized gender have to have names, they have
to speak to each other, and their conversation has to
be about something other than a man, and ideally that
conversation is narratively relevant and narratively meaningful. So this this

(03:39):
week is actually, you know, kind of a doozy as
it pertains to that metric. It's interesting because we are
also recording an episode about the Minions this week, and
by the Minions technically Despicable Me. But I'm very excited
for our Minions episode. But I was watching Idiocracy and

(04:00):
Minions media because I you know, recovering, and this is
a you know, tacit plug for the Matreon Patreon. Of
course we are covering Despicable Me this month. And what
I think is interesting watching Idiocracy and Minions media back
to back kind of is you get two very different

(04:21):
interpretations of what a society of bumbling men would look like.
And Honey, I prefer the Minions every time because at least,
oh about I'm about to it sucks because I really
genuinely love the vast majority of my judge's work, but
at least the Minions are making me laugh. You know.

(04:44):
I can't say the same for Idiocracy. Minions hilarious. Idiocracy
really was bumming me out in a wild way. Um So, anyways,
this is our, this is our, this is I feel
like a classic Bechtel cast at episode of taking something
that everyone keeps saying is good and being like, actually
actually be very good. But guess but you know what

(05:09):
argue with the wall, We're right, Um that's there. That's
what I want to tell to say to a lot
of people. Um, but I will say and we'll get
into this, but just is a little bit of a
preface that, yeah, I see what this movie was going
for and at the time I liked it. When I

(05:30):
saw it in two thousand six as a college sophomore.
But let's talk about it, so, like, what is your
relationship with this? So I saw it when it came out,
because it came out sometime in two thousand and six.
I was in college at the time. I was already
a huge Office Space fan. It was like one of
my favorite movies at the time, so I was already

(05:51):
team Mike Judge and I saw this movie. And at
the time in the mid two thousand's when I when
my critical thinking skills and comedic sensibilities and cultural sensibilities
were not quite as sophisticated as they are today. I mean, yeah,

(06:13):
it's also like, don't be hard on yourself because this
is like part of what's interesting about looking at this
movie now is like how again, it's like, I don't
think that this movie is uniquely pushing this kind of
comedic point of view. I feel like this is this
lines up really closely with like a lot of Bush

(06:35):
era comedy. Is like that we all thought was funny
at the time, right, or at least many of us
A lot of people thought was funny. And then I
also see I feel like this movie is a great
example of how the kind of aggressive apathy of this
style of comedy probably had, you know, not the biggest hand,

(06:56):
not as big a hand as fucking villainous policy see
and disenfranchise, But I do, I do see how you know,
this brand of comedy in its day served to further
polarize people in a way that I don't think was
like really recognized at the time, because how why would

(07:16):
it have been recognized the time? Right? Yeah, So all
I say, don't be don't be hard in yourself. Everyone
was loving this ship like it's true. It's true. So yeah,
I I liked it at the time, but I didn't
really engage with it after that first maybe one or
two viewings in the mid two thousand's. But I'm excited

(07:37):
to talk further. And again, just as a preface, I'll say,
I see what the movie was going for looking at
it through our lens. A lot of it, A lot
of the satire, a lot of the attempted satire, maybe
not executed very well, and maybe just throws a lot

(07:57):
of groups of people under the bus. Anyway, Jamie, what
is your relationship with this movie? Okay, so I am
going to be harder in this movie because it feels
uniquely designed to make me frustrated. Um, but okay, so
I for context. I had not seen this movie before,

(08:18):
but I have considered myself to be a Mic Judge
fan since I was basically a kid. Like I was
very I was kind of a latecomer to King of
the Hill. But I've now seen a lot of King
of the Hill, and I really love King of the Hill.
Not an unpopular opinion at all. It's a great show.
But I grew up with Beavis and butt Head. My

(08:39):
dad was a huge Beavis and butt Head fad. We
had it on a lot. Yeah, shout out. My key
did refine my taste very young. It was all pee
weee and Beavis and butt Head, and I'm eternally grateful
for it. I've got Beavis and butt Head. March. I
watched the new Paramount Plus movie the day it came out.
It's good. I didn't even know that was a thing.

(09:00):
Well I do work for Paramount, so I was like,
I was reminded, But it's really good. And I had
highly like all that to say. I watched all of
Silicon Valley and I didn't even really like it. But
I just feel like loyal to Mike Judge because I
like his work. I like Office Space, like he's made
so much amazing stuff and so, but I had never
seen Idiocracy. All that to say, I went into this

(09:23):
movie expecting to like it because I like Mike judges work.
Really the only thing I knew like the basic premise
of like it's a future American dystopia, and I also
knew and I think that this is like I've kind
of got like more stuff for this later on in
the discussion. But I also feel like this movie just

(09:45):
every couple of hours someone will tweet Idiocracy was a documentary,
like it was their idea, Like that is literally tweeted
every forty five seconds by someone who is like I'm
a genius, and it's like, okay, first of all, i
Q is bunk an issue this movie has that I
have been studying for years. But anyways, part of what

(10:07):
I love about Mike Judge's work is that he has
this like way of showing characters whose like views are
regressive and whose feel King of the Hill is the
best example of it. But like who are like goofy
people who you would disagree with that most people would

(10:28):
disagree with, showing them with context and enough empathy that
you're like, I understand how this person got here, and
it feels like a more productive, empathetic piece of art.
And so I was just really surprised that like Idiocracy
was so heartless in its views and it just like

(10:50):
it just felt like a real I don't know. First
of all, Idiocracy is not a documentary, you fucking dorks. Sorry,
but like for us, of all, not an original thought.
Second of all, not true. I don't know. I just
have a lot of I didn't like the movie, and
I was really bumped. I didn't like the movie from
the first scene because of and you know, hashtag stream

(11:13):
my urine mensa. But like, yeah, the fact that this movie,
I mean, this movie, like it's weird, because I totally
agree with you, Caitlin. I do think that it was
coming from a good place, and I think for its
time it is I don't know, for its time. I
understand why it was considered to be like controversial satire,
and I understand why people saw value in it, especially

(11:38):
in the era that it came out in, which I
mean this movie was being shot and eventually released in
the middle of the George W. Bush administration, when it
did seem like society was heading towards us place a
certain place, and it's also like that wasn't wrong. I

(12:00):
feel like it's it's whatever. My opinions aside. I think
this is like a kind of a very very interesting
movie to look at to see like what were center
to left leaning people viewing the people around them like
at this time. And I feel like this movie really
because it's like we were both you know, I mean

(12:21):
I I was, I definitely just you know, at this
movie came out when I was like in middle school,
so I didn't like hear about it at the time,
but like we both two thousand and six, you know,
we're we're senior citizens. We were there, and I do
remember this a lot, and I would like even kind
of group this. And I know that I'm not saying

(12:41):
like the quality of jokes are the same across the board,
but I would kind of group this in the like
John Stewart Daily Show era of comedy, back when my
aunt would fucking die for Bill Mara unfortunately kind of
comedy of like kind of like god left leaning ish

(13:03):
comedy of which there was a lot at this time,
like even early Colbert Report. Even though I feel like
it's kind of the best of all of it. But
but you know what I mean, like it was a
very specific moment in comedy and like satire, and it's
interesting to look back on. I really didn't like this movie. Uh,
let's talk more about it, shall we? Yeah? Okay, sorry

(13:26):
for like going on. I just was. I was so shocked.
It's so you know, like when you really love a
creator and you have like a creepy little para social
connection to them, and it's like, how dare I not
like this? But I I again, I because it there
was such a big gap between when I first saw
it and now I had just forgotten about all the

(13:49):
incredibly problematic jokes and humor, like let's tacitly endorse eugenics.
I'm not saying like Judge was like actively recognizing that
that is some people are just born inferior. That we
get there, We'll get there. Let's talk about what happens

(14:11):
in the movie because there and there are also were
some like specific jokes that I laughed at. Some things work,
Some of the commentary does work. A lot of it doesn't.
Carl's Junior stuff worked for me, The Brondo stuff, Yeah,
any kind of like commentary on capitalism and consumerism worked. Yes, Um, okay,
here's what the story is about. The movie opens on

(14:33):
voiceover discussing how as we entered we being society entered
the century, human evolution was at a turning point where
intelligent people quote unquote were reproducing less and quote unquote

(14:54):
less intelligent people. And these quote unquotes are from me
and not the movie. So the movie is saying intelligent
people stopped producing as much, and less intelligent people were
multiplying more than ever. Blood pressure is in peril. So
this is this is how the movie is framing this.
And we get like this whole montage where we meet

(15:15):
these two couples. You know, one is more intelligent and
they're coded a certain way. The other couple is you know,
less intelligent quote unquote. They're coded a very particular way.
We'll talk about it, but I mean it's literally like yeah,
like grad school. I mean, not to put you in
a box, but like, you know, people who have been

(15:35):
to college multiple times versus like it's coded as like
quote unquote trailer trash. Exactly. Yes, yes, yes, So we're
we meet these characters and the whole thing is the
characters who are coded poor are reproducing at a higher
rate anyway. Then we meet Joe Bowers played by Luke Wilson.
He is an army librarian who has been selected to

(15:59):
be used as a human guinea pig for a military
experiment in which soldiers will be frozen and then on
frozen at a later date to be used for future
wars or something. I'm not really sure, but it's like
that Chris what was that? Dogshit Chris Pratt? Like Amazon
Prime movie was like the Tomorrow War. He was he

(16:19):
was being deep frozen for Chris Pratt, the Tomorrow War. Yes,
what was that? I know what you're talking about. I
didn't see it. Sorry, Sunny, Sunny. So Sunny's here right
now and he is like looking at me, and I
like we can communicate telepathically, and he is saying, you bitch.

(16:39):
Comma Idiocracy is a documentary because well, yeah, I'm Sunny
the dog fucking loves centrist. He won't back down. He
won't back down. He's like, I tweeted it and I
meant it. Sonny, you were wrong for that. Continue Okay.
So Joe is selected for this experiment because he has

(17:04):
no family, and he's also just extremely average across the spectrum.
They have also selected a woman for this experiment, a
sex worker named Rita played by my Rudolph, and the
plan is to freeze them both for one year uh
and then on freeze them. But Officer Collins, the guy

(17:27):
who is leading this experiment, is fired and the project
is completely forgotten about. So Joe and Rita stay frozen
for five hundred years while oh no, while society around
them descends into shambles. The cryopods that Joe and Rita

(17:52):
were in ended up in a landfill, but a huge
garbage avalanche shoots Joe's Paul Odd into the living room
of Freedo played by Dax Shepherd. Kind of incredible. I
don't have strong opinions on Dak Shepherd, but you're just like,
but you see him in this role and you're like, yeah,

(18:13):
that was good casting. Yes, look when we're not punching
down because his his podcast is like nine times more
popular than ours. So right, relax, good job, Dax. Freedo
is watching a show about a guy who is just
hit in the balls repeatedly to give you an idea
of what entertainment and pop culture is like in this society.

(18:36):
Five years later, So Joe wakes up. He's all disoriented,
and Friedo tosses him out onto the streets, and Joe
stumbles around town. He notices that society has crumbled into
quote unquote idiocracy, where where the restaurant form really known

(19:00):
as food ruckers is now called butt fuckers. Okay, try
as I may. I can't not be like, Okay, I'm giggling.
It's it's not a good joke. It's maybe the laziest
joke of all time. And also because of the strong
no homo energy to this movie, it feels but and

(19:26):
then you're just also like, I mean, I just feel
like you're given so little, so little things that I
was laughing at. Yeah, I would say it's it's not
a very good joke, and yet it's maybe one of
the better jokes of this movie. Like to give you
an idea, Yeah, that's what I like. I just I
feel like the bar is on the floor, and because

(19:48):
it's Mike Judge, the bar is like beneath the crust
of the earth. Like you're just like, but you know whatever,
I think that this is interesting in the frame of
being reactionary. Common terry from two thousand six, We'll get
to how Mike Judge engages with people's modern takes on
idiocracy in a bit, because I think that's very interesting. Um, okay, okay,

(20:12):
but so but fucker's As a restaurant, people mostly speak
in unintelligible grunts. A green sports drink called Brondo comes
out of water fountains instead of water. These are the
things in society now. Joe doesn't feel well. He thinks
he's hallucinating because of the drugs the army gave him,

(20:33):
and he doesn't know that it's five years in the future.
So he goes to a hospital five years of summer.
That's that's how I'm going to start describing global warming summer.
Mm I like it. No, no, no, not to be
joked around about. But yet, what are we supposed to do? Okay?

(20:54):
We laugh, so we don't cry, right, and we still cry,
and we still later at night when we're alone. So
Joe goes to a hospital and sees doctor Justin Long.
Oh my god. We've covered so many movies in the
like mid to late two thousand's where Justin Long like
is just becoming of is becoming an influencer of his time. Yeah,

(21:19):
I've come all the way around. I'm just like Justin
Long kind of a cultural icon, whether I like it
or not. I mean, I've seen the movie Tusk and
it's the best movie ever made. Okay, I haven't seen
the movie Touch, and that's my business. So Dr Justin
Long realizes that Joe is unscannable because Joe doesn't have

(21:43):
this like bar code tattoo that everyone in the future has.
That was like one of the things that I was like, Okay,
that's like it's an easy thing to guess at, but
it's not. You know, yeah, that that worked for me.
So this leads Joe to finally realize what year it
is and that it's like five years in the future.
They're both freaking out and Joe runs away and then

(22:04):
gets arrested because he didn't pay his hospital bill. So
he's taken to court where his court appointed lawyer, Friedo,
the guy whose apartment Joe crashed into, defends him, but
he does a terrible job. Joe tries to plead his
case and explain the army experiment, but no one takes

(22:25):
him seriously and he's found guilty. He is then given
a tattoo like the bar code tattoo, and I D
and then he's made to take i Q and aptitude tests.
Kind of funny when he's called not sure, that as giggling, look,
look it's still my judge jokes that was pretty good. Yeah,

(22:46):
and they call him not sure. The whole movie pretty funny.
So then he takes his tests and then he is
sent to prison, but he's easily able to escape because
he is smarter than everyone there. And he goes back
to Frido house and he's like, hey, Friedo, has anyone
invented time travel? And Friedo's like, yeah, there's this time

(23:07):
machine and Joe is like, okay, you have to take
me there, So they head toward the time machine mcguffin
time machine right. Meanwhile, Rita has also become unfrozen and
is roaming the streets. She's kind of like scamming a
guy out of a bunch of money who is trying
to pay for her sex work. Joe finds her and

(23:31):
picks her up to take her to the time machine.
To get there, they need to catch a shuttle from
a huge costco, but the cops are chasing them because
Joe escaped from prison, and they catch Joe before he's
able to get on the shuttle. Quick quick interlude, Welcome
to Costco, I love you funny, It's funny Yeah. And

(23:55):
then the cops take Joe to the White House because
the results of his i Q test caught the attention
of the highest levels of the U. S. Government. Because
it turns out Joe is now the smartest man in
the world. So President Camacho played by Terry Crews, comes in.
He hires Joe as Secretary of the Interior and announces

(24:19):
that he's going to have Joe fix all of society's problems,
like the failed economy and the dying crops. But Joe
doesn't know what he's doing, and he's still trying to
get to the time machine, so he has the other
cabinet members bring Rita in, and then Joe and Rita
try to run off, but then Joe notices that the
crops are being watered with Brondo, that green sports drink stuff,

(24:43):
and he tells everyone that they have to water the
crops with water. But because this doesn't work immediately, and
because switching to water means that a lot of people
who work for the Brondo Corporation have lost their jobs,
people are furious at Joe and he is sentenced to
one night of rehabilitation, which is actually Joe being put

(25:07):
in a gladiator style arena, like allowing the government to
run you over with the truck, which again is like
some of this entire works. That's funny when you see that,
I mean, it's not, I mean, but it is kind
of when you see that bizarro like shredder monster truck
run over that guy, he just turns into dust. Like

(25:30):
it's kind of wild, and like all the all the
monster trucks are shaped like dicks, and there's just a
bunch of like dick and dildo jokes, and I'm like, sure, sure,
why not? Sure? Why not? Meanwhile, Rita notices that the
crops are starting to grow and Joe's plan is working,
so she and Fredo rushed to the arena. Meanwhile, back

(25:53):
in the arena, Joe manages to avoid being killed by
the monster trucks and avoid being killed by this guy
named Beef Supreme. A lot of very two thousand six
special effects around at this yeah point in the movie. Yes,
and then Rita and Friedo prove that the crops are

(26:14):
growing are growing by broadcasting footage of the crops on
the jumbo Tron so President Camacho pardons Joe and the
day is saved. Rita decides to stay behind because she
was offered a CEO job at Starbucks. So then she
and Joe say goodbye, and then Joe is about to

(26:38):
go off to the time machine, but it turns out
that the time machine is actually just a theme park
ride and not a real time machine cannot go back
into I was disappointed for Joe in that moment. I
was like, that genuinely sucks that you have to live here.
He really does. So he accepts a job as vice

(26:58):
president of the US. He eventually becomes president. He marries
Rita and they have kids and they live happily ever
after in a society that seems to continue to just
descend further and further into shambles. So that was certainly something, Uh,

(27:21):
shall we take a quick freak and have a panic
attack and return. Let's do yeah, and we are back.
Boy oh boy. I feel like, okay, I do want
to start by kind of addressing the elephant in the room,

(27:42):
which I feel like is I mean, I don't want
to say like this movies for me, this movie's biggest failure,
because I feel like that is like a broad statement
like for sure, like its biggest like plot structural failure,
which again and I've heard this so whenever brief context,

(28:06):
beginning basically when Donald Trump's um, I don't know why
full named him, they're like but like beginning when Donald
Trump ever heard of him, he ruined our lives, um,
but beginning when his candidacy became viable. I feel like
that is when the idiocracy as a documentary idea sort

(28:29):
of started coming, and even a little bit before that.
But I think that the big, the big like resurgence
of like idiocracy as a documentary came when Donald Trump
became a viable candidate because a lot of people saw
the Terry Crews character, who is a professional wrestler who
became president, reflected in Donald Trump, who is a failed

(28:51):
son reality star who became president. This completely ignoring the
fact that we already had elected an actor to be
one of our worst presidents in the nineteen eighties. But whatever,
I guess we'll give it a pass. I wasn't around
for the nineteen eighties, so I couldn't bitch about it. Um.
In any case, fifteen was when this started to come up,

(29:16):
So I was surprised when the central conceit of the movie.
And again I've seen this has been more discussed in
the past couple of years. Um, I want to shout
out Sarah z incredible YouTuber and my bud who made
a great video about this will link it in the description,
who kind of unpacks us to a larger extent. But um, basically,

(29:41):
what is at the core of this movie is the
concept that your i Q determines your deservedness to reproduce
and the idea that it's just very like essentialist and
that like this movie, I feel like it's the biggest
failure is it ignores, kind of, with the exception of corporations,

(30:04):
every structural problem that exists and instead redirects that anger
and resentment on poor people. And that is so like
and it's like so many things and again it's like
the corporate stuff is kind of exempt, which I think
is an interesting reflection of like where the writer's minds
were at at this time, because they recognize that, but

(30:25):
they did not really like there's so many things that
happened in this movie beginning with Okay, sorry, I'm just
like already melting up. But like, let's talk about i
Q first. Because that's where the movie starts. It implies
in the opening sequence, a sequence that rivals Midsummer for
opening sequences that make me want to just explode. What

(30:51):
makes me want to reflect a recent experience of mine
put Dr Brauner's on my vagina by mistake. Look, I
did not know that that you are not supposed to
do that. And what a horrifying lesson. Dr Brauner's on

(31:13):
my one clitter is unbelievable. Unbelievable, that of acid. So
I'm not laughing you. I'm just you're ready to laugh
at me because I got into MENA and I did that,
which is further proof that i Q is a false metric.
You don't have to be smart and you don't even

(31:34):
need to be able to read. The thing is like okay,
but like okay, i Q is like it's implied in
the opening sequence of this movie that people with lower
i q s are the source of most societal ills.
People with higher i q s are also being criticized here,

(31:56):
but in a very different way. We're like people with
higher i q s are being criticized for being so
cautious that they refuse to reproduce. And I feel like
both of these takes have aged very poorly, and the
take towards people with lower i Q is much more harmful,

(32:16):
but both of them are harmful, So I mean whatever,
Like I've done a lot of research in the past
about i Q and like I feel like it's pretty
common knowledge at this point, but probably but was not
common knowledge in two thousand and six that i Q
is a deeply basically at this point useless metrics on

(32:39):
every front. It was invented by this French guy named
Alfred Bennet to basically like use in schools for kids
who were like to track their progress every so often.
The idea is that i Q is not permanent. It
was a way of sort of evaluating how schools were doing.
It wasn't a reflection on the individual. What it's heard

(33:01):
in too was it was taken a hold by eugenicists,
which are you know, like which is the school of
thought that your intelligence can be determined by your gender,
by your race, by your class, and that these are
individual essentialist faults on people and have nothing to do
with systemic stuff. And so it's just like without giving

(33:24):
the history of eugenics, but like i Q has been
weaponized against a number of marginalized communities Over the years,
it's been particularly black people have have had i Q
weaponized against them Black Americans specifically. There's a really famous
book from the nineties called The Bell Curve that it

(33:45):
was a very popular book that just argued white Americans
are simply smarter and they should be Like it's a
white supremacist text, but it was very popular. I mean
it just it goes in all this stuff, like your
skull shape determined whether you deserve to liver die it
if you were anything but completely neurotypical, you are somehow
less worthy to not just reproduce but live. So yeah,

(34:15):
like it's it's just been used, it's been taken so
wildly out of context from the reason it was created
that it has literally it's not just marginalized and excluded people,
it's killed people. And it's now just now becoming a
more common knowledge thing and is like that is slowing,

(34:37):
but it's not stopping. And so all that to say,
I'm not implying that I think that Mike Judge knew
the history of this and did it anyways, based on
his other work, I want to give him the benefit
of the doubt and say that this was kind of
just like a lazy writing choice, but that as a

(34:59):
base for your movie about the decline of society is
just like just one of the worst takes you can have.
Like it's kind of stunning, Lee Bad. Here's my sorry
I'm feel about I don't apologize. I've made a podcast
about it two years ago. I don't really want to
talk about it more. But like it's a whole thing.
It is a whole thing, and it's a horrible basis

(35:21):
for a movie, like you said, because there is a
way to make a satirical movie about uninformed and regressive
ideology spreading and leading to the downfall of civilization. There's
a way to do that that's thoughtful and effective as

(35:41):
far as satire goes, and that doesn't demonize marginalized communities
like people living in poverty, for example. But this movie
doesn't do that because it's just making broad statements, like
first of all, just that like some people are mart
and other people are really stupid, and I'm trying to

(36:03):
avoid like ablest language on this episode. It's I feel
like it's going to be difficult because leans into it
very hard. So it's it's doing that. It is also
coding those people in very particular ways, where again the
quote unquote smart sensible people are coded as being upper

(36:23):
middle class wealthy. Again, there's like that couple in the
opening sequence according to the university, but don't like to
talk about it, I renounced my master's degree. Um. They
that couple. According to IMDb, their character's names are yuppy
husband and yuppy wife. So that just like gives you
a sense which is like kind of funny because it's like,

(36:47):
consider who is writing the movie. They would much more
closely identify with the yuppie husband and yuppie wife than
with the poor people. But they're still just like the trio.
There's just a just like a complete void of empathy
for anyone but Luke Wilson in this movie. And sorry

(37:09):
to say his name, Like I was like saying a slur,
but like I what, I just whatever, I just it
just doesn't work for me. So so it's this coding
where you know, it's like the smart sensible people are
rich and the quote unquote unintelligent people who multiply rapidly
are clearly coded as being poor. And again on IMDb,

(37:32):
that couple in this like opening montage their character's names
are trashy guy and slutty girl. There's a whole conversation
that we'll have about like the way women are like
disfranchised or not included at all, which which I will
argue could be solid satire on a view of a

(37:52):
dystopian future, but it doesn't seem like that is what
they're doing. It's exactly. It is hard because this could
easily be an episode that is like five hours long,
and I don't want it because it's a short movie, mercifully,
and we're trying to make episodes that are not longer
longer than the movie. But this movie is hard because
it's it's loaded with a lot of stuff. And so

(38:15):
I think the main things and I would say that
the people who are poor in the opening sequence, and
basically most of the people from the future are coded
in the same way to different degrees of aggression. So
I'm just started talking about everybody there. But it was
like bizarrely very American in that it's making all of

(38:36):
these like bad quote choices seem like they are made
completely by the individual and so that they can be
held complete. And so that is like the way the
systemic but it's like that ranges in so many different
ways where it's like it's not addressed that poor people
have less access to birth control, to sex education in

(39:00):
two abortions if they want them, and in terms of religion,
like tend to be rather religious communities, and so it's
like huge elements that are completely wiped and it's just
made to seem like, oh, well, no, they are just
so chaotically horny that they cannot help but proliferate. Like
it's just like it's so frustrating it is. It's like

(39:21):
it's very I don't know, it's very two thousand six.
And then when you fast forward to the future and
then you see people who, first of all, I just
am like, as a reality TV watcher, I object, and
also I think that that again like ignores it's like, oh,
people want to see people get kicked in the nuts, which,

(39:42):
first of all, yes, none of your business. Second of all,
does nothing to address why those programs appear and why
they're the most easily accessible programs in the fucking country.
And it's like you have to pay to watch the
fucking Soprano or whatever, or like whatever the grad school
crowd is watching, and so it doesn't address any of

(40:05):
the systemic like why are these programs so popular? Could
it be possibly because they are the most accessible programs,
and that is not the fault of the people who
cannot afford to pay for five hundred other channels. Like
it's just it ignores things on every single level. And
then we'll get to like fucking prisons and governments, like oh, yeah,

(40:30):
we are just simply not smart enough to know how
prisons work. And it's like, no, that's how prisons are
designed to work. Like it just makes me. It just
ignores that so many of these issues are by design
and not out of individual failings from people that are
being intentionally disenfranchised. That is the entire premise of them.

(40:52):
Like that's the commentary this movie is making. And it's
so backwards, because yeah, it's like you said, it just
fails to recognize the lack of access and opportunities you
experience when you live in poverty. It fails to recognize
that poverty is a cruel cycle that is nearly impossible
to escape because of things like capitalism and racism and

(41:14):
able is m and all these other systemic issues. It
fails to It suggests that again, like poor people multiply
for fun and not because there are multiple structures designed
to keep poor people poor so that their labor can
be exploited by the ruling class. Like well, and then women,
I mean, and it also like doubles down on and

(41:35):
this feels slightly more intentional at least, but like women
are sex objects only, and I feel like that's maybe
a more arguable point because it feels like they're at
least more consciously making that point and they're just not
doing it very well. But like it's it just kind
of on all fronts. It's just recasting systemic issues to

(41:56):
be personal failings is just like the shittiest kind of
satire for me. And it doesn't even mean that, like,
you know, it's not to say that like individuals who
are being actively marginalized and other can't hugely funk up.

(42:17):
That's obviously true. We've all got parent but that's not
But but that is not the rhetoric of this movie
at all. It's like the systemic issues are not at
the top of this movie. It's like people are just
not smart enough to know better. It's a very two
thousand and six way of looking at the world. So yes,

(42:40):
instead of there being any of that recognition of systemic
oppression and there being any thoughtful commentary on, you know,
the capitalist machine and all of its repressive systems. Again,
this movie just makes fun of poor people and relies
on ablest language and homophobic slurs mostly for the humor

(43:05):
of the movie. And it's like that sort of stuff
is very like very two thousand and six, and I
feel like it's mostly used for shock value. It just
doesn't feel satirical remotely. And it's like, it's just like,
can you believe that we're using these like slurs over

(43:26):
and over and over and it's because poor people suck.
You're just like I hate every part of this, Like
what I hate every part of this. It's real crummy.
Let's take a quick break and then come back for
more discussion and we're back. So sorry, I yelled out

(43:51):
a lot of my frustrations with this movie, I think
in terms of the so we've talked a lot, but
at this point, how the lower classes are made to
seem like the source of all evil, which it okay,

(44:12):
that is the place from which we're coming, but in
the future, it seems like the issues that the writers
have with poor people in two thousand five have become
the entire culture, and so now people with all levels
of money and power behave exactly like how two writers

(44:33):
and two thousand and five, who were rich at the
time of writing it perceived poor people. And again it's like, uh,
I really like my John and I think that he's
made great stuff before this and after, and this is
just a really frustrating piece of work to look at.

(44:54):
This was his flop era. I guess this was his
flop era, but it was later. We'll get to this
in second, like it was later spun to seem like
his his his what's the opposite of flop? His masterpiece?
And that's like because there were genuinely a lot his
top era. Sorry I just thought of that his top era,

(45:16):
but like because there were whatever, the history of this
production was like it became a cult classic, like a
lot of Mike Judge stuff because it was considered too
offensive into like specific audience e to release widely, and
so I feel like it it got this like you know,
kind of like punk credibility before it even came out,

(45:38):
because it was like, oh, this is the movie studios
don't want to release. And I understand that element of
like that is a really quick way to make a
cult classic, especially from someone who's already made cult classics.
But then you watch it and you're just like not
to you know whatever, Like it's it's it's pointless to
have an argument of like, I agree with the student

(46:00):
you because I'm sure the reason the studio had for
not wanting to release him widely I would not agree with.
But I'm also like not upset that this wasn't the
most popular movie in the world, because I don't want
to like its politics are very dated anyways, fastward to
the future. Everyone has the exact opinions of Eton Cohen

(46:21):
and Mike Judge's opinion of poor people in two thousand
and five. Okay, so what this does is, I feel
like in the upper classes of the future, it further
erases again with like the bizarre exception of corporations, which
they seem very aware of, ignores everything else, examples being

(46:44):
the House of Representation, where it's portrayed that the it's
not that the American government is designed to oppress people,
it's that the people in the American government are just
not smart enough to know how to provide justice to people,

(47:05):
which is again, basically no one was talking about this
in two thousand six because it was like these two
writers were considered to be on the cutting edge in
two thousand six and they clearly didn't know. So again
it's like, don't punish yourself in the past, but in
the present moment, it's like, well that is not true,
like they're it's intentional that they're taking our rights away,

(47:27):
there is an end game in mind. It's not that
they're not smart enough to know better, and that that
same ethos is applied to the prison system, which is
again egregious because it's like, Ben need us to tell
you how implicitly and intentionally racist and classist the prison

(47:47):
system is in the US. But again it's the way
that it's portrayed is like, well, we don't know, we
don't know any better, like we're just we're just we
didn't get enough math classes, like to you're just like
this is ridiculous. And the same applies to the way
the police are. Like the police are of the three,

(48:09):
I feel like at least they are shown as like
absurdly violent and absurdly reactionary in a way that I
would agree with. But again it's like portrayed, not because
that is like endorsed and always has been in the
in American policing. It's like it's because the individual people

(48:29):
are so ridiculous and you're like no, but it's they
are empowered to act that way. Like it's just there's
no systemic criticism except for corporations, and so the corporation
stuff weirdly, for the most part, for me, it works, Yeah,
so I think, and that is best exemplified by the
Brondo thing. But there's also like Carl's Jr. Is now

(48:53):
running like child Protective Services, and I thought that was
kind of funny, and the whole the drive thru has
like a gas they can shoot in your face to
like dissociate you, like that kind of stuff. I was like,
I thought that that was like more effective and it
felt very very intentional, like you were an unfit mother,

(49:13):
your children will be repossessed by Carls Jr. Like that
for two thousand six satire. That worked for me, right,
But then there's other stuff where like you can go
to Starbucks and get like an erotic massage, which felt
like shamy of sex work. And there's the whole conversation
to be had about that and also implies that the

(49:35):
lower classes, or just like poor people in general, are
again it like goes into what we were talking about earlier.
I like the way the opening sequence divides classes is
like people with more education and money not horny. People
with less education and the money so horny they cannot
help but have a trillion kids, which is again unfair

(50:00):
to both parties. Like you know, we started like it's like,
you know, people of all classes who are all manners
of horny. Like it's so like obviously reductive of people
like to say that your class determines how your are sexual,
like how much you want to reproduce, Like it's just

(50:23):
like it feels like silly to even say out loud
because it's so ridiculous. And I feel like the future
furthers that logic of like what Mike Judge and Eton
Cohen thought of poor people in two thousand five, which
is that they are like so uneducated that they cannot
control themselves, which again you're just like pull that goes

(50:44):
into the future of like, oh, they just are so
horny they want they want hand jobs as star books.
And it's like not only like you're saying that's shamey
to sex work. But it's also just like reductive of
poor people in the way that the movie is from
moment one, Like it's just just reinforces that. Yeah. So
so some of it works, some of it doesn't. But

(51:05):
the Brondo thing I think works the best where there's
voice over that I'll basically just like say verbatim here
where it is said that water was considered a threat
to Brondo's profit margin, so Brondo came to replace water everywhere,
it's basically except for like in toilets it seems, which
is also pretty funny. But the Brondo Corporation bought the

(51:30):
f d A and then the FCC, enabling them to
say do and sell anything they wanted, which is, you know,
pretty I think a pretty effective commentary on the way
that like corporate takeover is constantly happening in this country
and how you know capitalism is going to be the

(51:52):
death of assault. And then because the way it manifests
in this movie is that they're watering crops with Brondo,
which is full of electrolytes, which is basically just pumping
salt into the ground where plants can no longer grow,
and then it's leading to this dustpol where everyone's going
to starve to death. So and I appreciate that it

(52:12):
took the further step of like, even if you resolved
that issue by using water, that would collapse the economy
because of how the economy was built around one corporate entity,
and like, yeah, that kind of like the corporate stuff
worked really well, and it's it's just wild that they

(52:33):
took that energy to specifically one sector. But again, I
feel like that is very indicative of Bush era satire,
where and I do think that George W. Bush, who
is you don't need me to tell you he's a
war criminal. He's a war criminal. But at the time,
and even I remember my perception of him as a

(52:54):
kid was that he was not smart, and so his
decisions that were actively harming people in America and people
outside of America. Certainly he started sucking wars, but it
was because he couldn't say nucle hear correctly. It wasn't

(53:17):
because of all these systemic issues. And so I feel
like that is a lot of the logic and energy
that this movie is drawing on is like how people
perceived George W. Bush specifically at this time, which is
like he is abusing people in and outside of his

(53:37):
country because he doesn't know better, when the reality is
he knew exactly what he was doing because he was
a nepotism piece of ship who was continuing the war
that his father started. And so it's like there is
no question that like he do what he was doing,
you know. But but it was But what the sat
fire of the time focused on more was like it

(54:00):
was it was just like kind of picking on Southern
American of like, oh, I don't like how he says
this word versus like he is continuing a war that
has nothing to do with what he says it, like
he knew what he was doing. Whatever. This is not
a controversial opinion, Like, no, we're saying this here on

(54:22):
the heready here first on the back podcast, beloved American
President George W. Bush and beloved American painter while we're
at it, um there. Obviously he's a piece of ship.
But I just think that the way and he was
he was considered a piece of ship by a large
portion of the country throughout his presidency. But it was

(54:45):
like the ways that people made fun of him that
I feel like informed the direction of the satire of
this movie. And it just feels like, while it's like
the rage at him couldn't be more justified, the like
the vantage why people are coming in at is like
very misdirected. And I feel like we sort of had

(55:06):
a resurgence of this a lot during the Trump presidency
where it was and it's like, I'm sure we fucking
engaged with us to something like we were certainly there.
Like Trump is like not a smart person, I would say,
very true, but does he know exactly what he's doing
when he's perpetuating systemic issues A hundred and so it's

(55:30):
like not the question of like I don't like this
guy because he don't talk smart enough for me. It's
like like, take a step back, and this movie doesn't
take a step back except for Brando. It's so weird.
It is so weird. So yes, the kind of biases
that the movie is leaning into, as far as like

(55:52):
being antipore, extends to other things such as setism and racism,
because like I homophobia and homophobia, right, I think a
lot of the characters who are you know, quote unquote
idiots who are populating this idiocracy in the year five,

(56:14):
are playing into again not only classist stereotypes, but racist
stereotypes and sexist stereotypes, because a lot of the women
that you see, not that there are many on screen,
but the few women with speaking roles who are in
this movie usually are characterized as bimbos, like the attorney

(56:38):
general or like the women who are hanging around the president.
They are like dressed provocatively and you know, just again
this like quote slutty bimbo type and that is like
again the filmmakers just bias against any sexually liberated woman

(57:00):
or sex worker. And this is this is an element
of the movie that I think could have worked, Like
implying that the future of America is wildly sexist and
hateful towards sex work is I don't even think a
controversial take that is where the is currently headed. But unfortunately,

(57:27):
the way the movie has written just seems to like say, like, yeah,
this society treats women like bimbos who deserve no respect
because that is what they because and like that is
how they are behaving, and it seems like they have
no cognizance of how they're being march. It just doesn't
feel like it's satire, Like it just feels like doing

(57:49):
the thing I feel like, especially with my Rudolph's character, like,
so it's it's weird because I could see someone making
the argument that, well, yeah, the care ters are using
all this homophobic and ablest language because you know, that's
what a devolved society would do, and that's the satire,

(58:13):
that's the commentary. But you don't get to have that happened.
And then I just feel like the commentary is and
actually being made. I mean it's not and it's like
I understand why they thought it was maybe, but it's
also like a you're operating from like even the found
the foundation of the premise is so flawed that it's

(58:35):
like you can't really address specific issues based on the
idea of like well, no one is smart enough to
realize what they're doing. And it's like, well, how could
you address any systemic issue if this movie does not
recognize systemic issues as a concept, Like it just recognizes
all systemic issues as as it applies to poor people.

(58:57):
And then it's like, oh, well, women are treated as
bimbos because there bimbos because and like Maya Rudolph is
not like the other girls, but also she's kind of
like the other girls. Okay, can we talk about my
Rudolph's characters, because I I do appreciate that by the
end of the movie, and I mean the end of

(59:17):
the movie, she is more motivated. She rests, you know,
in the terms of like classic special cast discussion, she
saves the male protagonist of the movie. You know, like
she is active in helping to resolve the conflict of
the film, at least the one that ends up getting presented,

(59:38):
because like half way through the movie, it's like, and
now the conflict is crops and it's like, okay, yeah,
but for most of the movie that isn't even the issue,
So she becomes involved in what eventually ends up like
you're just like becoming the issue of the movie. And
it would have been interesting if that was the whole

(59:58):
premise of the movie, because that was giving me Mary
kay naturally passport to Paris vibes. Um. Okay, be guys
as part at any point in this episode, you were
wrong because that I was like, Okay, they more effectively
resolved a national water crisis issue than anyone, Like I mean,

(01:00:23):
I'm wanting to bring up a movie like don't look
up as being more effective. I don't want to talk
about don't look up because I didn't like it. I
want to talk about Passport to Paris because I did,
like I'm so sorry, and Mary Kidd and actually resolved
France's water access issues in the and they got to
kiss their crushes like perfect story. Could you, even in

(01:00:44):
your entire life, say that, No, I can't. All I
did was the Dr Brauner's directly under my vagina. I
can't do what they do Dr Brando, Dr Brando's acidic
waste onto my and it's it's he said, the injury
with the doctor Broder's issue because the bottle is covered

(01:01:04):
in words. And then I looked after after the throbbing
had stopped, and I will say I was taking a
shower with someone who I liked. Oh sexy. Oh, I
mean speaking of horny ist time. We're all having a
horny time when I when I say, when I tell

(01:01:26):
you this was not recent. But anyways, I read the
bottle hours later and the words, the warning I needed
was there, but it was buried in like weird o garbage. Anyways,
where was that? An idiocracy? Um could have been helpful.
All that to say, like this movie, it starts to

(01:01:49):
make a criticism, but then says like, well, but insert
a press class here is basically like that anyways, So
and then you're just I don't like, it's just bizarre.
It does feel like I don't know I I And
if you were older than us, which might not be
possible we're quite old, um, but if you were older

(01:02:13):
than us, feel free to wait in like my interpretation
and a lot of his reflection because I was like
when our kid throughout the bush years, but my interpretation
of a lot of this just based on like I whatever,
grew up watching John Stewart with my aunt, Like my
aunt was very into this brand of comedy, and so

(01:02:34):
that was primarily through her that I would see it.
And it felt very like allied with Democrat senators and
lawmakers in a way that is largely for a lot
of leftists no longer true. Is like at this point,
I feel like it's very I mean, it was like
not that it wasn't known by people in the mid

(01:02:55):
two thousands, but it is larger known now that like
democrats measures and lawmakers are also largely fucking you over,
but they're just like smiling while they do it. But
at this time it felt like democrats or just generally
center to left leaning politicians were not on the chopping

(01:03:17):
block to be criticized. And that's because that it doesn't
really come up like you do. I thought you got
like a pretty effect of like Fox News early Fox
News commentary here of like it's just like sexy naked
people talking nonsense, which is like that's a lot of
what Fox News is, and like it's it's not based

(01:03:39):
in facts. It's very visual medium. Um. But you do
not get the other side of that because I think
at the time the writers of the movie would have
agreed with like centrist propaganda MSNBC vibes, you know stuff.
I'm I'm de radicalizing my mommy from wowow Jill's working. No,

(01:04:04):
it is working. She no longer brings out her MSNBC
mom mug when I am visiting. I think she's starting
to be embarrassed at it, and rightfully so she listens
to the show. Hi Jill, Hi Jill. Um. I wanted
to go back to read a real quick where so,

(01:04:25):
as you said, she's absent for a large chunk of
the movie, but then she does become active in the
resolution and she helps to again resolve this like crop
thing she has agency in those few scenes, but prior

(01:04:45):
to that, she is almost indistinguishable from the other characters
who are also supposed to be the quote unquote idiots,
because she, for example, she cannot grasp the idea that
her pimp, this guy named Upgrade, would be dead and

(01:05:06):
would have died five years earlier, kind of thing, like
she spent so much of the movie looking for this
character that, Like, it's so frustrating because the movie, I think,
to its credit, does introduce Luke Wilson and Maya Rudolph
as like characters with very different backgrounds who are of
equal intelligence. That is why they're being selected first. And

(01:05:28):
so to fast forward five years and have him be
able to understand the fact that time has passed and
her n to understand that is ridiculous. Doesn't make any sense.
And it's also suggesting. I feel what's being stated here
by the filmmakers is, well, of course she's not smart,

(01:05:50):
she's a sex worker. Like it's just casting judgment on well, yeah,
and it's like and also the only thing that's on
her mind is her loyalty and or fear of her pimp.
And it's like and and this like slowly disappears throughout
the plot, but it's not motivated by anything, like it's

(01:06:10):
just slowly or if it's motivated by anything, it's by
the fact that she's developing a crush on Luke Wilson
for no right. So that's the other thing where she
becomes Joe's love interest. He poop because if a man
and woman are the two leads of a movie, they
legally have to get together. By the end you were

(01:06:33):
alive and two five you have to get married. Heads
have to fuck. Initially, they're just acquaintances because they're both
participating in this experiment, and then when they're both in
five they link back up. He's trying to basically rescue
her and bring her along so that they can time
travel when he thinks that's possible. I would say this,

(01:06:56):
my favorite scene of this movie is when Joe is
trying to makes sense of time travel. That was commentary
on time travel narratives that I thought was the commentary.
That was good. I like that a lot. This movie
does have its moments which almost makes it more frustrating,
and they're like I would keep like a solid seven

(01:07:16):
minutes of this movie and then the rest is trash um.
But yeah, so they link back up and they're they're
trying to escape, and then things start to get flirty
when they're at the White House, and well for it,
before that, he has to pretend like they're going to
have sex with each other so that they can actually
go off and plan their escape. And that, to me,

(01:07:37):
that worked because he's not actually trying to like exploit
her or have sex with or anything like that. That
didn't work for me because I felt like it was
implied that he was inherently of like he's a good
guy because he's not trying to assault her. You're like,
that doesn't mean that it makes anything. They would be together, like, right,
that doesn't justify why they end up together, right, I

(01:07:58):
mean in terms of the plot, right, it makes sense.
But then things do start to get flirty, like when
they're at the White House and she's like, you know,
you don't have to sleep on the floor, you can
sleep in the bed with me, and he's like, and
he so his whole thing, he never understands that she's
a sex worker through the entire movie and possibly through
their entire marriage question mark, and we don't clear. Yeah,

(01:08:19):
he thinks that she's a painter, So maybe you could
make the argument like, yeah, she's not smart enough to
understand that her pimp has been dead for five centuries.
He is not smart enough to notice that Rita is
a sex worker. Question mark. None of it worked. I
did just no. But eventually they get married and he

(01:08:41):
and Rita becomes his first lady because he becomes president,
and it's just like, of course this would happen in
a movie from two thousand six where a man and
a woman have to romantically end up together at the end.
I think it would have been more I mean, there's
so many more interesting ways to take that where it's
like if you're the only to like, even if you

(01:09:01):
are going from the fucking baseline weirdo eugenicis logic that
this movie depends on to happen. I just feel it
would be more fun to see two characters who are
from the same era and are like considered intellectually superior,
like in conflict with each other, which these two never are.
They're never in conflict with each other. I understand that
it's like they have a vested interest in banding together,

(01:09:25):
but it's just like her character has never taken seriously
enough to really develop any sort of side plot of
her own, Like if you just like let go of
the fact that, like if you just allowed her to
understand where she was, things could have become so different,
Like she could have allied with a different side of
the fucking future conflict then Luke Wilson did. They could

(01:09:49):
have been political rivals, they could have been like so
many different things could have happened other than like she
has no idea where she is, and then at the
last second, she's like, I have a crush on you,
Like that's like the most boring thing that could possibly happen.
That said, Luke Wilson's character, like you're just implying, is
also very boring and hard to root for, and he's

(01:10:10):
like such a straight I mean, it's not Luke Wilson's fault,
but it's like that character is such a straight man
that you're like, who fucking cares right, gives a ship?
This man is so boring. And then there's this like
running joke where she is tricking this guy into giving
her money on the promise that sometime in the future

(01:10:33):
she will do something sexual with him, which just makes
her seem kind of like deceitful, and I mean, I
don't always saw honest. That didn't really bother me. I'm
just like, yeah, I think Hanning a future man. I
don't really care because she has to like survive. It
only bothered me because I think that you could someone

(01:10:54):
watching this might draw connection between because she's a sex worker, like, oh,
like this is what sex workers do. They try to,
like I don't know, cheat you out of your money,
or they're dishonest or they're something like that. And that's
what rubbed me the wrong way. Yeah, yeah, I feel
like there's there's a few ways to come at that,
because I was also like, well, she's money and this

(01:11:16):
person is Um has money and she needs to survive.
I wanted to quickly talk about how my judge talks
about this movie now, and by now, I mean sort
of like the way that in The Idiocracy is a
documentary era, so the last eight years. So he said
this in an interview with The Daily Beast. Let me

(01:11:38):
just quickly trick the year on this. Okay, early Trump era, um,
and this is him commenting on what then was already
a very common idiocracy as a documentary tweet vibes God
so boring. Okay, So he he says in quote three

(01:11:59):
or four years ago, I started getting comments about it,
people discovering it, and it just keeps building. Now every
other Twitter comments I get is about Idiocracy and how
the documentary. Now, at first I was thinking, yeah, that's
nice to hear, but then very specific things like Carl's Jr.
Announcing that they were going to have a completely robotic,
non employee store, and that's Carl's Jr. In the movie.

(01:12:20):
Then there's this thing called the Filatio Cafe in Switzerland
where you get blow jobs with coffee, and we had
the Starbucks thing in there. And then Donald Trump being
in the WWF before and talking about his penis size.
It's just one specific thing after another unquote. Now I
will not argue with the like technical factual truth of

(01:12:40):
what he's saying, but like I feel like the reason
people say Idiocracy documentary has more to do with hyper
specifics like that versus the foundation of the world that's
built in the movie that has I would argue, little
to nothing to do with what we are dealing with now.
And also also, I mean to say, Ata said hilarious

(01:13:04):
to think that we're going to exist in five years,
but I kept having that thought. I'm like we're all
going to be fucking dead. The environment will not sustain
life because of how badly we've fucked it up. Awesome, Uh,
but you know whatever, appreciate the optimism, um, but ultimately,

(01:13:24):
you know, like I, I just think it's it's a
bummer because I do appreciate the filmmaker that it's like.
And I wonder if in the future he will push
back on this very persistent idea because I feel like
people are repeated, like I wouldn't really care as much
if this was like a movie that no one saw

(01:13:44):
in two thousand and six and people still like no
one really saw it, because then you're just like, well,
it's a victimist crime, you know. Like, but because people
are continually pushed to this movie as an example of like,
this is what's wrong with America, when I, when I
just outside of the corporate criticism, was not getting a

(01:14:05):
lot of what appears to actually be wrong, right, Like,
just feels like an annoying, distracting, victim blamey approach to
cultural criticism. And I wonder if and it's one thing,
it's like, Okay, if you were a filmmaker in two
thousand six, just reflect on that that's all you can

(01:14:25):
really do at this point, and I would I would
be interested to see if he ever kind of reflects
on the criticism of yeah, because it's very frustrating to
be living today in a society where period period, end
of thought, no, but like our rights are actively being

(01:14:47):
taken away. There's talk of how the Supreme Court is
going to continue to keep taking away the right to
get marriage, like like all this stuff. I was talking
talking about this with my best friend recently about how
like good news days from the past, like couple decades,

(01:15:08):
it's only been good news days because it's just like, wow,
this right that people should have had all along, finally
is a right that people have officially it's been codified, right,
So like, but then you've got your bad news days
where it's like, oh, yeah, Roe v. Wade overturned and

(01:15:31):
now abortion is criminalized and gay marriage might be criminalized,
and you just like all these horrible things and um,
what was my point? So it's just like so frustrating
to like, I mean, and that's just the fucking tip
of the iceberg, just like systemic racism and policing and
all just every societal ill stuff that has never been

(01:15:52):
like significantly legally challenged. Right, It's just like we're getting
a lot of rights overturned, but there's also a lot
of stuff that never even gotten Right, there's this a
whole slew of like oppressive societal issues that we're dealing
with every day. And then for people to compare that

(01:16:12):
to this movie, which just blames poor people for the
decline of civilization, it's very of the age. And I
know that, like sometimes we get criticism for like examining
older movies from a current lens, but I mean, even
in the two thousand six lens, like this was very
much Again, it's like we're not saying that this movie

(01:16:33):
was unusual for its time. And I do vary strongly
feel that like this type of comedy it's time. It's
not whatever. There's like art isn't useless, it's not like
but I do think that you can trace this era
of satire's role in a kind of like unproductive energy

(01:16:57):
with with people that a lot of people recognize and
are like not engaging with. There's not a ton of
like I feel like, I mean, even just like the
fact that Bill Maher is the only person from this
era that is still doing the same ship he was
in two thousand six, and now most of his original
viewers fucking hate him. So I feel like that, like
he is the case study for like people don't like

(01:17:20):
this anymore and the people who like this are like
weirdo doubling down assholes, Like this type of comedy doesn't
really exist anymore in a popular sense, but the fact
that this was popular in its time does leave a legacy.
And the way that like the comedy that we were doing,

(01:17:40):
you know, five to ten years ago, in the comedy
we're doing now will leave a legacy and it's not
all going to be great, And it's like, you know,
the older I get that where it's like you can't
I mean, you can't take back your funck ups. All
you can do is address and not endorse them. And
it feels like that is kind of like what the
filmmakers of this movie have done by not wishing back
against the idiocracy as a documentary thing, right, Yeah, they're

(01:18:04):
just kind of patting themselves on the back for being
like awesome movie. I predicted a coffee shop that gives
out blow jobs, which what's wrong with that anyway? Not
an indicator of the downfall of society. Um, do you
have anything else to talk about? No, I think this
movie had its heart in the right place, but it

(01:18:24):
like it just I really, I think it's aged extremely
poorly and I don't like it at all. Agree and right, Yeah,
Like we understand the cultural landscape informing the media and
the satire at the time, and sometimes it does feel
weird to criticize a movie that's a product of its

(01:18:46):
environment from like almost two decades ago, but that's also
our job. Anyway, The movie I don't think passes the
Bechtel test. I don't think so either. I don't think
women interact at any point, and if they do, I
didn't notice it. But what about our nipple scale, in

(01:19:08):
which we rate the movie zero to five nipples based
on how does it do when looking at it through
an intersectional feminist lens? And I would give this movie
not good. I'll give it a half nipple because I
do think it gets the kind of like capitalist consumersm

(01:19:34):
commentary more right than anything else. But that should have
been one of many things that gets acknowledged and commented on.
The movie ignores and instead blames the downfall of society

(01:19:54):
on poor people. Yeah, and that sucks so and then again,
just like all of the the classist, the ablest, the racist,
the sexist coding of the characters is really shitty. One
half nipple. I'll give it to my Rudolph, whose talents

(01:20:16):
in this movie are squandered, because she is far better
than what this movie suggests. She's the best. Um, I'm
going to give a zero because I didn't like it
to piss me off, So I guess I have nothing
else to say. I just like I do. I do
agree that the corporate criticism is valid. There were jokes

(01:20:39):
in this movie that made me laugh, Like, there are
jokes in this movie that I'll probably return to. It
would be like that was a funny thing. But it's
just the premise of this movie is so frustrating to
me that I and I have no nostalgic attachment to it.
So I'm gonna give it zero. And so I have
no nipples to give, and I, um, if anything to
end not a positive, No, I do feel like you're like, oh,

(01:21:01):
there is actually a huge market right now for effective satire. UM,
and there's I think most of it is happening currently
in TV. But there is a lot of good satire
of American politics and American dystopia that are coming out.
I do want to say that, like it's not that

(01:21:22):
you know, idiocracy being like kind of shitty means that
American satire is dead. It just means like this one
aged very poorly, but the genre has continued. There's no
you know, lack of inspiration to pull from, and it
is a genre that is like kind of gone on,
I think, to to develop and grow in a very

(01:21:43):
interesting way. And also I think that satire has everything
to do with the point of view of who's writing it,
and so having more satire that is not written by
already powerful straight says white Guys is always going to
be a good thing, and that we have a lot
more of that now and there's still obviously room for more.

(01:22:03):
But I do think that this genre like is a
very like satire, like good satire, and like timeless satire
is like really really hard to do. Um true, because
which is why this movie didn't do it. It worked
at the time, it does not work work now. So
zero nipples hated it. Um let's end the episode. Let's

(01:22:24):
stop the fourth of July, just kidding, Abolish the Supreme
Court of Shitty Country. Anyways, and watch z Way. I
think Way is doing some of my favorites. She's doing
some of the American satire right now. Yeah, like she's
the best. Yeah. With with that in mind, satire historically
does not age particularly well. This is not a personal

(01:22:46):
attack or indictment on Mike Judge. This movie did not
age well at all. I don't think it's any any
longer really valuable satire to reflect on where America is at,
and it probably wasn't at the time either, but that's
kind of no one's business at this point because it's
the future. So with that in mind, uh, we love you.
Keep fighting, keep taking care of yourself, and we will

(01:23:09):
be right there with you doing the same. The fourth
of July is a waste of your time. But if
you want a hot dog, bioll means get one. I
think this episode comes out like three days after well
then fuck you know there. Look, there's no wrong time
to eat a hot dog, is what I'm saying. And
so for the fourth of July too, have co opted
hot dog culture in this way I think is a

(01:23:32):
net negative. But you know whatever, all press is good
press for for for the hot dog, of course, so
you can follow us online at Bechtel Cast. On Instagram
and Twitter. You can follow our Patreon ak Matreon at
patreon dot com. Slash Bechtel Cast is currently Minions March
A k A. What was the Gruella um Corrella Stevil?

(01:23:59):
There's two options ends, Yeah, it's either grew la Stevel
or Yeah, we're doing to Steve Corral movies. So we're
doing forty year Old Virgin, a very very popular request.
People wanted to hear us get upset about it and
boy did wait and uh we're also doing a millions
episode which is just I can't wait. Um, so go

(01:24:20):
over there, and we have over a hundred bonus episodes
to listen to, just me and Caitlin, shouldn't the ship
having fun? And and also our March at t public
dot com slash the Bectel Cast for all of your
merchandising needs and otherwise, um yeah, take care of yourselves
and what are your crops with toilet water exactly? Bye

(01:24:43):
bye bye