My Dirty Little Secret

I have a dirty little secret and I’m going to share it with you.

I love B-grade movies. I search for them and while some are simply awful trash, some are unappreciated gems.

Anyone who has read my essays will find I refer to the movie Idiocracy from time to time as a humorous and crude look at where humanity can go.

It is politically incorrect, absolutely unwoke, filled with stereotypes that in current times will trigger and offend.

Perhaps the best way to describe it is to borrow the plot outline from Wikipedia and simply let you read it.

‘Idiocracy is a 2006 American science fiction comedy film directed by Mike Judge and co-written by Judge and Etan Cohen. Starring Luke Wilson, Maya Rudolph, and Dax Shepard, it follows an American soldier who takes part in a classified hibernation experiment, only to be accidentally frozen for too long and awaken 500 years later in a dystopian world where dysgenics and commercialism have run rampant, mankind has embraced anti-intellectualism, and society is devoid of such traits as intellectual curiosity, social responsibility, justice, and human rights.

In 2005, U.S. Army librarian Corporal Joe Bauers is selected for a suspended animation experiment as the “most average” individual in the entire armed forces. Lacking a suitable female candidate, the military hires a prostitute named Rita by bribing her pimp Upgrayedd. When the officer in charge is arrested for running his own prostitution ring under Upgrayedd’s tutelage, the experiment is forgotten. Over the next five centuries, societal expectations lead the most intelligent humans to choose not to have children while the least intelligent reproduce indiscriminately, creating increasingly dumber generations.

In 2505, Joe and Rita’s suspension chambers are unearthed by the collapse of a mountain-sized garbage pile; Joe’s chamber crashes into the apartment of Frito Pendejo. Wandering around what was once Washington, D.C., Joe finds a population that has become profoundly anti-intellectual, speaking only low registers of English and wallowing in overconsumption and crass popular entertainment. Technology is advanced but often malfunctioning, driven by garish commercialism. Believing he is hallucinating after a year of hibernation, Joe enters a hospital and realizes the truth. Arrested for not having a bar code tattoo to pay for his doctor’s appointment, he is sent to prison after being assigned the grossly incompetent Pendejo as his lawyer.

Rita also leaves her chamber, resuming work as a prostitute, but soon realizes that people have become so stupid that she can charge customers money without actual services. Joe is renamed “Not Sure” by a faulty speech-recognition tattooing machine and takes a rudimentary IQ test, then tricks a guard by claiming that he is meant to be released, and simply runs out the door, successfully escaping prison in one piece. He finds Frito, who reveals that a time machine exists to return him to 2005, and Joe bribes him with promises of riches through compound interest on a bank account he will open for Frito in the 21st century. Leading Joe and Rita to the time machine, Frito takes them into a gigantic Costco store, where Joe is identified by a tattoo scanner and apprehended.

Taken to the White House, Joe is appointed Secretary of the Interior, as the IQ test identified him as the most intelligent person alive. President Camacho introduces Joe to the cabinet and gives him the impossible job of fixing the nationwide food shortages, dust bowls, and crippled economy within a week. Joe discovers that the nation’s crops are irrigated with Brawndo, a “thirst mutilator” whose parent corporation owns the FDA, FCC, and USDA. When Joe has the irrigation system replaced with water, Brawndo’s stock drops to zero and half of the population lose their jobs, causing mass riots.

Joe is sentenced to die in a monster truck demolition derby featuring undefeated “rehabilitation officer” Beef Supreme. However, Beef’s oversized vehicle is crushed trying to enter the arena, and Joe manages to defeat the other vehicles. Rita and Frito discover that Joe’s reintroduction of water to the soil has allowed vegetation to grow. Showing the sprouting crops on the stadium’s Jumbotron, prompts Camacho’s presidential pardon. Joe and Rita decide to stay in the future, although later they discover they had no choice as the “time masheen” Frito mentioned is merely a childishly inaccurate history-themed amusement ride. Following Camacho’s term, Joe is elected president and marries Rita. They conceive the world’s three smartest children, while new Vice President Frito takes eight wives and fathers thirty-two of the world’s stupidest children.’