I understand what you mean but I'm always frustrated when I see Idiocracy brought up in these discussions. Idiocracy is fine if you view it as a light satirical comedy but if you take it seriously to talk about politics it has very sinister undertones.
For one thing it's extremely classist, throughout the movie popular culture is seen as fodder for dumb people while high culture if for clever people. Beyond that it also says that, effectively, dumb people and poor people are the same thing (as exemplified by the "white trash" segment at the start of the movie) and that dumb, poor people are bound to breed dump, poor people (and apparently they do that a lot) while clever people would breed other clever people (but they don't do it because... reasons). So social determinism taken to the limit.
What are examples of clever people? Darwin, Beethoven and Da Vince.
Examples of "degeneracy"? A girl in skimpy clothes, wrestling and a... woman with boxing gloves? Because clearly "panem et circenses" is a novel concept.
Then we go to say "with no natural predators to thin the herd, we began to simply began to reward those who reproduced the most and left the intelligent to become an endangered species". So we're now talking full-on eugenics. Also Beethoven was well known for fending packs of wolves in his youth, proving his evolutionary superiority.
And I'm this point I'm literally one minute into the movie and I could go on and on and on. At best it's elitist, at worst it's much darker than that.
If you like the movie as a funny comedy then be my guest, but please stop bringing it up in political discussions. If anything it's a symptom of the very thing you're decrying: a dumbed down, unnuanced caricature of political discourse.
For one thing it's extremely classist, throughout the movie popular culture is seen as fodder for dumb people while high culture if for clever people. Beyond that it also says that, effectively, dumb people and poor people are the same thing (as exemplified by the "white trash" segment at the start of the movie) and that dumb, poor people are bound to breed dump, poor people (and apparently they do that a lot) while clever people would breed other clever people (but they don't do it because... reasons). So social determinism taken to the limit.
I mean just look at this intro: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YwZ0ZUy7P3E
What are examples of clever people? Darwin, Beethoven and Da Vince.
Examples of "degeneracy"? A girl in skimpy clothes, wrestling and a... woman with boxing gloves? Because clearly "panem et circenses" is a novel concept.
Then we go to say "with no natural predators to thin the herd, we began to simply began to reward those who reproduced the most and left the intelligent to become an endangered species". So we're now talking full-on eugenics. Also Beethoven was well known for fending packs of wolves in his youth, proving his evolutionary superiority.
And I'm this point I'm literally one minute into the movie and I could go on and on and on. At best it's elitist, at worst it's much darker than that.
If you like the movie as a funny comedy then be my guest, but please stop bringing it up in political discussions. If anything it's a symptom of the very thing you're decrying: a dumbed down, unnuanced caricature of political discourse.