Can You Teach Idiocracy?

Teaching is, sometimes, about trying new things. Mixing up your routines keeps students interested—even if the changes make your days uncomfortable and require more work.

As a break from our slog through Hofstadter’s Anti-Intellectualism book I allowed my UIC Honors students to select a related film for screening. They chose Idiocracy, so I went with it—despite having never screened it.

We made the best of it, warts and all. Because of our context, I created a guide for critical thinking about the movie. See below. Since this was the first time I’ve screened the film in class, and since this was my first attempt at a teaching module on the film, please feel free to give me feedback.

For their part, the students were entertained by the film (if occasionally horrified).

I confess that I was slightly embarrassed to have allowed the screening. The humor was lowbrow (at best): raunchy, politically incorrrect, misogynist, etc. I joked that they shouldn’t tell their parents that we wasted time screening this particular movie. They laughed, and took it all in stride better than me. They did, however, appreciate the study guide. Our post-film discussion was much better than expected.

The film’s raw humor broke a monotony that had developed around our discussion of the Hofstadter book. The students seemed to see anti-intellectualism in broader terms, and wanted to discuss how today’s context was both different, and similar, in terms of larger themes and topics. They agreed that religion, politics, business, and education still mattered to anti-intellectual phenomena. But now they wanted to discuss, per the guide below, journalism, science, law enforcement, the environment, and entertainment.

Despite my reservations, I judge the screening a success. Even so, I still want your feedback on the study module. – TL

————————————————————

Idiocracy (2006): Then and Now

Critical Notes and Issues for Discussion

by Tim Lacy

————————————————————

General Note: A spate of commentary on Idiocracy appeared in 2016, during the presidential campaign. The campaign influenced some of the critical points that appear below. These entries are organized around general themes, and contain some relational note between the movie and the present, as well as a provocative question.

————————————————————

1. Media
   1. Journalism critics feel that some network news programs focus, and rely, on dismissive commentary, stunts, and caricatures rather than just reporting news. The move is toward subjectivity and playing towards specific audiences rather than universalized, objective journalism.
   2. Has journalism declined in your lifetime?
2. Communications
   1. Cultural critics note that electronic communications rely on subjective visuals and memes rather than articulate, objective commentary. The focus is on speed and feel rather than rationality. Critics note that billboard advertisements has “coarsened” over the years, using more swearwords. And more of those words appear now on radio and television. Social media seems to reward more visceral, “dopamine”-inducing reactions.
   2. Does the movie speak to your everyday observations about how people communicate?
3. Entertainment
   1. Critics note we haven’t yet slipped into making public executions consumable goods. But entertainment on TV and film seems to have slipped into more mindless programming, so says Susan Jacoby in her 2008 bestseller, The Age of American Unreason.
   2. Are we entertained, now and in the recent past, in ways that correspond with what Idiocracy predicted? For instance, what of the Jackass series of programs and videos? Wipeout? America’s Funniest Home Videos? American Gladiators? What of “televised” gun assaults? We have a long history of being attracted to sex and violence on film.
4. Science
   1. Critics have noted that government support for scientific research has decreased more rapidly in recent years. Or at least there is more political support for an alternate or anti-science agenda. This corresponds with the movie’s criticism of supporting science for virility drugs and hair loss prevention. But currently science is still supported by our society in a way that doesn’t correspond with the extreme decline depicted in the movie.
   2. What do you make of the way science is portrayed in the film and how you perceive science to function now?
5. Environment
   1. Garbage is a prominent part of Idiocracy. Some have compared this to the Pacific Ocean’s floating garbage heap, and huge dumps in counties like China, Guatemala, and the Philippines.
   2. Are we headed toward the dystopian garbage future portrayed in the film? How so, or not?
6. Business
   1. One commentator observed that a coffee shop has opened in Geneva Switzerland that promises oral sex alongside caffeine sales. That is Starbucks in the film. And there is “Brawndo–The Thirst Mutilator” in the film, which comes out of public “water” fountains. Private industry, in the film, has taken over basic public functions.
   2. What of the privatization movement in the U.S, in relation to selling water rights, or even parking meters? What of regulatory capture, and the movement of corporate officials from businesses to government agencies? Are we too friendly to business interests, under the guise of practicality and simple political interests instead of a larger notion of public good?
7. Law Enforcement
   1. The film shows police relying on heavy offensive weaponry and electronic surveillance rather than local knowledge and protection. The justice system is critiques as being about the criminalization of everyday activities and being poor. Cops in the film are portrayed as mindless.
   2. Is this in any way fair or comparable?
8. Politicians & Politics
9. 1. In 2016, during election season, many commentators (see Bibliography below), critiqued Donald Trump’s background as a reality television show star/host, and WWE fan, as similar to how President Dwayne Elizondo Mountain Dew Herbert Camacho achieved office in the film. The noted issues such as bragging, insults, and showmanship.
   2. Is this characterization and comparison fair?

Overall Questions:

1. Does Idiocracy speak to the kinds of anti-intellectualism discussed in Richard Hofstadter’s Anti-Intellectualism in American Life? Why or why not?
2. How has time changed the issues that comprise what we define as “anti-intellectualism”?
3. What would Hofstadter think of Idiocracy?
4. Do you think the movie’s creators would’ve done anything different if they had knowledge of RH’s book?

Bibliography

• Culture, and Movies. “The Idiaccuracy of Idiocracy: When Life Imitates Art for Better or for the Actual Worst | National Post,” March 1, 2016. https://nationalpost.com/entertainment/movies/the-idiaccuracy-of-idiocracy.
• Friedman, Megan. “Director Mike Judge Says It’s ‘Scary’ How ‘Idiocracy’ Has Come True.” Esquire, August 19, 2016. https://www.esquire.com/entertainment/movies/news/a47841/mike-judge-idiocracy-2016/.
• Stein, Joel. “We Have Become an Idiocracy.” Time, May 12, 2016. http://time.com/4327424/idiocracy/.
• Trumbore, Dave. “Is Donald Trump the Herald of ‘Idiocracy’?” Collider, September 1, 2016. http://collider.com/donald-trump-idiocracy/.