There are a million dystopian fictional futures. There are multiple options for a dystopian future involving stupid people. They follow stupid leaders or they are influenced by the environment. They become stupid because machines do everything for them. World wars wiped out all the smart people.
The predominant reason for the stupidity in Idiocracy is eugenics. That’s the reason. Maybe it’s funny that “everyone” in this stupid world watches dumbed down mass market TV shows (with the Internet this part of the film has dated badly), but the reason they watch them is not some triumph of trash culture, it’s because they can’t understand anything else. The reasons matter, otherwise it’s a different movie.
Eh, Demolition Man is yet another example, perhaps worse, of trying to consider a SciFi Movie premise as predicting the future rather than being a mirror to the present.
Idiocracy arguable is more rational, in that it has a 500 year time period for things to get to the stage they’re at. Lots of unknowns and generations of people being people, to get to that place. Sure, as I said it’s satire, and despite all the jokes that “Idiocracy was a documentary” I don’t think anyone is literally suggesting that people are more stupid, just far more gullible and in greater numbers than we ever believed.
But Demolition Man’s main action happens less than 40 years later, which makes the degree of change in everything from music, language, technology, food, sex, and so forth much less plausible to me. Especially as those who remember and were active during Spartan’s era continue to hold power and position within the current society. My head cannon (and if you have to use this phrase, it’s near 100% chance you’re overanalyzing something that was never meant to withstand scrutiny) is that there was a massive die-off shortly after freezing, and a massive repopulation and social engineering experiment immediately thereafter. That’s why there are so few comparatively ‘old’ people left, and that the prior culture was nearly exterminated, along with almost all previous freedoms as too dangerous to be allowed, with the acceptance and understanding of the survivors.
That theory making it absolutely dystopian, and the movie being seen as the consequences of the first full generation of the New-Type society struggling, perhaps cracking under the artificial restrictions. Thus causing the antagonist to jump into the bug-nuts scheme of using Simon Phoenix in the first place.
When they start using water on the crops, we have a scene where the CEO of Brawndo calls the President, because their automated systems had noticed the drop in sales, and immediately laid off all their employees, triggering a stock market crash.
At the hospital, the diagnostic systems are all automated. The people only know (mostly) which electrode goes in your mouth, and which in your ass, or which button to press on the big keyboard of pictograms. The “doctor” does nothing more than (poorly) read out the diagnosis the computer gives him. The doctor also says his wife’s sister is “tarded”, but now she’s an airline pilot. That suggests even planes are mostly automated.
Others have mentioned the food dispensers, which are all automated.
There are still people “inventing” things, but those things are still stupid. Like, monster trucks with giant dildos on them. But they’re so stupid, they made one too big for the door.
If so many systems hadn’t been automated, they’d have died off years earlier.
We never learn this, but the systems at Brawndo are pretty clearly programmed to maximize profit, so maybe they kept pushing the humans to expand their market share, and eventually, the humans suggested just taking over for water everywhere. The AI only cares about sales and profit, and would never stop to consider tertiary concerns like environmental collapse.
That’s like saying Soylent Green is a reminder to people to avoid the evils of cannibalism. Seems more like a lesson on the dangers of destroying the environment.
Time Machine with the Molochs and Eloi, hard to say. More like a complete separation of two cultures where all empathy and recognition was destroyed.
The lesson I read, from the movie itself, is that smart people shouldn’t forget or neglect having children. That’s why the people are stupid, and the movie never really deviates from that.
Otherwise, it’s a bunch of fun bits and a satire on an average man from today going into a stupid future where he can be dominant with few skills. But the reason given in the movie is in fact the reason.
So last February I found myself walking into the local ER with (what turned out to be) a pretty massive pulmonary embolism. Check-in is apparently no longer a process involving speaking to a person, instead there’s this kiosk where you pretty much do the pictograph thing. Trouble is, my chest hurt a little, I could breathe just fine, I just couldn’t stop gasping. So, do I push the lungs button? The heart button? What if it’s something else…hell, I don’t know what’s wrong because I’m not a freaking doctor. Anyway. The situation got me laughing because I was in Idiocracy at that moment. Life was being surreal, and my sholeaces had started to glow–I knew I was hosed and that the system was going to be the actual death of me. 20 minutes later the triage nurse called me over to start actual intake. She scolded me with “holy crap, sounds like a PE! Why didn’t you say anything?!” Which, I guess, means I’m too stupid to operate the pictograph thing.
Any future where you don’t have a choice is a dystopian future. Sure, people looked happy and there was no graffiti in 2032 San Angeles. But underground there were many who ate rats and were happy for that food. Within the reality of this film, you don’t need to ask yourself who would do that and why. All you need to know is they exist. Compassion isn’t the plan to get these people out of the sewers, don’t forget.
I deal with a lot of hopital employees lately. Next up is the Radiology dept. for a myocardial perfusion study. The Radiology guy is a complete flake. I scheduled the appointment 3 full months in advance, been rescheduled twice so far. I have talked to the guy and he is not smart enough to trust delivering my mail. You might think that I am exagerating and you would be wrong. Fortunatley it is not an invasive procedure. One month to go. I hope that there is not a Kill Patient button for him to push.