Idiocracy: World of Today

This month we celebrate the movie that everyone calls one of the most prescient films ever made. A work of art ahead of its time, a misunderstood work that could only be appreciated in hindsight.

We all know the story and if not, you should watch the film. The work of the legendary Mike Judge, the film tells of a grim future filled with an uneducated, over-populated civilisation that operates at the lowest base instincts. A world where garbage is piled into mountains, people drive off of broken bridges, and nuclear reactors run amok. No one is any longer intelligent enough to be able to operate any of the societal levers needed for our current world to continue to operate at a level we all take for granted.

"

Judge wasn't telling us our future — it was showing us an exaggerated world of our current situation.

The film seems prescient because people often fail to comprehend their own current reality. It takes someone outside of their own little world to point out the obvious — what we often fail to see while we're living through it. Judge wasn't telling us our future, it was showing us an exaggerated world of our current situation.

"

Artists use lies to tell the truth, while politicians use them to cover the truth up.

The film follows the long tradition of truth telling and condemnation wrapped in an easily digestible fairy tale of fiction for people too delicate to accept the plain truth. As pointed out by "V for Vendetta," another film that uses a tale set in some near future or alternate reality to critique the current establishment: "Artists use lies to tell the truth, while politicians use them to cover the truth up."

Both films were released in the depths of the Bush/Cheney regime and the Middle East quagmire of the 9/11 wars. While "V for Vendetta" tells the tale of authoritarianism and false flags to control a frightened populace, "Idiocracy" tells of an even more insidious and institutional decline in civics and critical thinking. More than that, "Idiocracy" gives us the answer to why and how we ended up with the Bush/Cheney regime.

"

Watching it in 2026, it unfortunately seems quaint and dated — a thing of the past.

"Idiocracy" is set 500 years in the future, but watching it in 2026, it unfortunately seems quaint and dated — a thing of the past. Much like "The Wizard of Oz" or "Alice in Wonderland," "Idiocracy" was a mirror being held up to its audience and damning the political elite — as dangerous an undertaking today as it was in the days of Frank Oz, Lewis Carroll, or even Jonathan Swift in "Gulliver's Travels."