Idiocracy

If you have been reading my blog for awhile or know me at all you know that I tend to find Anthropology in everything. Also if you know me even a little bit you know that I love movies. So it would make sense that I would find Anthropology in movies. One of my favorite movies and example of Anthropology in movies is Idiocracy.
Idiocracy is a movie that was released in 2006 in select theaters and didn't get much buzz about it. In fact I bet hardly any of you have heard of it. It was written and directed by Mike Judge, the creator of Beavis and Butthead and King of the Hill. So right off the bat you're probably thinking it's some crude movie with bathroom jokes and objectifying woman. Well yes that is true on the surface but beneath it there is so much more.
It stars Luke Wilson as a Joe, literally an average Joe, who volunteers to participate in a military experiment that involves a hibernation process. Joe and a former prostitute go into hibernation but then the military forgets about them. They wake up 500 years into the future to find a world where everything has become insanely dumbed down. In this strange future Joe and the prostitute Rita have become the smartest people in the future and because of this draw major attention to themselves.
The movie continues with them getting arrested at one point, meeting a bunch of people along the way (and learning just how stupid America has become) all in search of trying to find a machine to take them back to their time. Now I won't ruin the movie for you because I want you to go out and see it but I do want to at least highlight some of the Anthropological topics in it.
First we have the concept that America is getting stupider and stupider. At the beginning of the movie the narrator starts talking about how the "dumb" people in society are procreating more and thus raising their children to be just as dumb and creating this huge chain and population growth. There is something to this logic I think to a certain degree.
The movie also addresses advertisement and the media and just how influential they become. In the movie everything is sponsored by something and people seem to do nothing but sit in front of the TV watching mindless shows about people getting injured. It goes into the concept of circular thinking and why people believe everything they hear. All in all it shows what path we may be on if we don't stop with the laziness.
This movie has a great theme behind it and the concept it phenomenal. Like I said it is a Mike Judge production so it does have its crude moment but if you don't mind that the core of the movie is great. If you want to learn more about it visit the IMDB page: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0387808/