jdiiufccuskalAre We Idiocracy Yet?
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 making eye contact with Mike Judge like "WTF!" It was an early screener and I think that reaction was a surprise to the film team. I own a copy and watch it more than once a year. One of my favorite hard satires.
> They all identified with the "idiots" and were indignant insulted, and angry.
That is sort of the point of the movie. It is a satire, but it is also a documentary packaged as a satire and the wrapping paper isn't all that thick.
Eh. I don't really see anything wrong with that. Every industry flubs things because the people creating the product aren't the same demographics consuming it. No big deal IMO. I think it's just a product of your typical Hollywood filter bubble. The Average American(TM) isn't so stupid as to not see the glaring "left to it's own devices middle america would turn the whole country into white trash, also with literal trash everywhere" undertone even if they can't quite put their finger on it.
You could make essentially the same movie about how impenetrable and unaccountable bureaucracy and abstraction of responsibility away to 3rd parties is going to make society grind to a halt (e.g. trash piling up because all disposal methods have been declared not environmentally friendly enough, etc, etc) and someone who just doesn't give enough shits to ask permission can be the hero of the story and frame it to offend all the people who specifically identify as the opposite of the dumb people in idiocracy.
That said I think it's a great movie and they struck a good balance.
You intentionally or unintentionally described the plot of Wall-E