Revisiting 'Idiocracy' by Mike Judge: As always, more relevant than ever

As our lives grow increasingly chaotic and our society struggles to adjust, we find ourselves frequently referring back to many entries within film and television shows that display some resemblance to our current issues. Often enough, we remember scenes from The Simpsons, Black Mirror for our more dystopian nightmares, and Idiocracy for when the world seems to take a comedic approach to something that's actually quite serious.

Idiocracy stands out rather significantly the majority of the time, however. It's a film that grows in relevance seemingly by the hour. Since its release in 2006, we've looked at Idiocracy as a threatening reality of where we are ultimately headed. And while it takes the most comedic approach to displaying humanity's inevitable decline, it does so with some incredible accuracy.

As are all creations of fiction, there's elements of reality within their core concepts, as they're deeply rooted in our past, and present. In fact, many science-fiction writers have even approached their most famous works as taking an existing concept and merely tweaking it, or simply turning it up to eleven. Ultimately, this is precisely what Idiocracy does: it takes our greatest weaknesses and questions just how far it can go with it.

That said, it's still a comedy film. It doesn't intend to preach or display a harsh horrorific future that may await is if we simply fail to make changes now. To watch Idiocracy and consider it a warning to humanity would be a form of idiocy itself, it's simply a light-hearted comedy that pokes fun at ourselves.

Idiocracy

Idiocracy has a simple narrative: the most mediocre person you can create in your mind becomes a person of interest in a military experiment in which people are placed into a hibernation period set for a duration of just one year. When things go wrong, this duration turns into that of 500 years. Waking up from this hibernation, our everyday mediocre-at-everything protagonist is now the most intelligent person alive.

We like to take a look at our potential future as humans as something of great importance. Where we reach a level in which we have achieved perfect levels of spirituality alongside incredibly technological advancements that have amplified our reach into the universe in ways that rid us of all our problems. While this is something that can be possible, it completely neglects the idea that problems are the driving force of such developments. As we progress alongside technology, we are only doing so in efforts to void ourselves of many inconveniences and problems: health, finance, pollution, and even transport.

Idiocracy asks a very interesting series of questions: at what point does technology remove all of our problems? Does it then serve as something that begins a decline in our ability to pursue solutions to our problems? As machines and the idea of capitalism take reign over our greatest desires, how do we approach our lives with meaning? What really is there to do at that point? There's an idea that we reach a point where our own advancement as humans begins to stagnate and then decline as both our ways of thinking and interests take dramatic shifts.

There's the idea that our capitalist nature becomes a driving force in this dumbing down as we become slaves to corporations with only interests in consuming and becoming mindless zombies incapable of thought. That isn't to say that the film takes an anti-capitalist approach, but that it turns the idea to new heights as aspects of pop-culture and convenience infiltrate our lives more. Our pursuit for total satisfaction has taken a direction in which things that do not interest us are generally seen as negatives. Politicians are turned into celebrities and television has turned into a nightmare in which a screen is riddled with endless advertising and numerous shows playing all at the same time. Our drive for the consumption of media promotes a lazy lifestyle.

Creating balance in life

As mentioned above: Idiocracy isn't a film that intends to preach, but it does hold some lines of dialogue that remind us to create balance in life. To refrain from pursuing ultimate satisfaction in life and to remain curious. For the curiosity in life is what drives us as conscious beings. It tells us that ultimately some sadness and pain can be a positive for us, as it promotes the realisation of the potential of a creative mind that likes to question and improve. While we could argue that this also is the pursuit of ultimate satisfaction, we're reminded that it's the balance of pleasure and pain that keeps us at a steady pace of growth. We shouldn't pursue a total removal of all things bad and ensure we only ever feel good in life.

Taking this into consideration, Idiocracy tells us of the importance of individuality. Where even in a highly competitive society that thrives to achieve total satisfaction, the ones that we consider to be mediocre are far more. We see that we shouldn't simply place all of our problems on others with the intention of having others fix them, and should strive as individuals to approach difficulties and learn from them. By giving up and telling yourself that something is too difficult or that someone else can solve your problems, you're ultimately telling yourself that you are incapable of growth.

Mike Judge is known for creating comedic shows and films that poke fun at our society, he loves to display the circus that we live in while providing very real areas of life that we typically believe are strong in intelligence and seriousness. He takes these environments and shows the regular people in them as they deal with normal issues. There's always some exaggeration present, but that's what makes the entries so great.

Idiocracy wants to remind you that you're simply human. That our society is something that was formed and just forced upon us; that ultimately it serves no weight. There's always a slight degree of nihilism in these concepts, but they take a turn to display the humour in such events. We should learn to both make and accept jokes about ourselves for that's ultimately the best way to announce that there is a problem that we may have to collectively address.

Once we begin to take things far too seriously, it's when we become oblivious to the seriousness of a situation. Our minds become numb and we fall victim to a robotic way of thought and life. This promotes the idea of balance in our lives, as we understand that in order to laugh we must feel pain, and in order to fix our problems we must be fully aware of them together.

A fun comedy

Idiocracy feels like a film that couldn't be made today -- it already displays that method of the world taking things that aren't serious ultimately far too seriously -- and that's simply because it's good. It's a light-hearted comedy that doesn't hold much importance in terms of special effects or cinematography. It utilises a simple use of narration to promote its characters and events forward.

Its runtime is relatively short, and it ends almost as quickly as it starts. It looks dated and cheap in moments, but who cares? It tells the story it wants and it does so very well.