Essential Political Films: Sherin Nicole on IDIOCRACY and NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD
Here’s something that will break your brain: Stupid people think smart people are idiots. Wait for it… Which side are you on? I don’t know either. It’s a conundrum, but “Idiocracy is real.” My friends and I started using that phrase in 2006, back when it meant lampooning American culture and not an omen of doom, doom, doom…
We were reformed art students who worked in design and animation, making us prone to the kind of philosophical conversations the “artsy set” is known for. (I say that with elongated vowels, people.) We theorized two things: No one sees the world with as much acuity as artists. And comedians seem to have the harshest struggle with that clarity. Think about it. Back in the day, comedians tended to be tragic. IDIOCRACY shouldn’t have surprised us. Yet no one knew writer/director Mike Judge and writer Ethan Cohen would become the greatest prognosticators since Nostradamus. No one saw that (or the political climate of 2018) coming. Except for Mike Judge. ’Tis another conundrum.
IDIOCRACY is a silly, slightly gross, and oddly prescient science fiction comedy about how very wrong society can go when intelligence starts to slide; like a mountain range of trash growing for hundreds of years. Luke Wilson plays Joe Bauers, a soldier who artfully avoids responsibility by doing as little as possible. Maya Rudolph is Rita (no last name because misogyny-on-purpose). She’s a sex worker with a boyfriend-pimp who rules her life. The two have nothing in common except for relatively low IQs. She’s street-smart, he’s slacker-smart. Perhaps that’s why the two are teamed up for a secretive Army experiment. The plan is to go into stasis for a year, then be awakened to see how much the world has changed.
Five hundred years later, Joe and Rita wake up. They’ve become the smartest people on earth by attrition. It’s now spelled earf, by the way, and it’s covered in Buttfuckers restaurants [see: Fuddruckers], urban sprawl, and nothing to drink except for a purple goop with electrolytes. Nope, they don’t know what that is in the future either. But hey, chairs are now toilets so at least there’s symmetry.
IDIOCRACY worried me in 2006 because it seemed plausible. We already had criminals pleading not guilty to crimes because they “were shooting reality TV shows.” Intelligence had begun to be a liability; people would fight you if you made them feel dumb. And beverages at the movies were served in plastic buckets so large you could pour a 2-liter into them and still have room for ice cream.
However, IDIOCRACY didn’t become an Essential Political film until 2016. Looking back on it from today’s vantage point, Mike Judge didn’t make a stupid slapstick throwaway, he made a smart satire about “how stupid we peeples r.” Sounds ridiculous, I know, but there are several parallels between Judge’s 2505 and our now: Logic and reason are shot down while lies and nonsense are repeated. Bullying and misogyny are desirable traits in a politician. We’ve gone back to glyphs to express ourselves. Reality TV stars are revered as purveyors of culture. And the kicker, the president is a wrestling enthusiast, former reality TV star who uses foul language and fouler gestures, incites violence, and has inexplicable hair.
You can’t make this stuff up. Except Mike Judge and Ethan Cohen did. And when something this ridiculous permeates real life it is terrifying. It turns out IDIOCRACY is a socio-political thriller and a sounding of the alarm. Judge seems to have read the palms of America and foretold our collective future. That future is dim (all puns intended).
IDIOCRACY is streaming from iTunes and other streaming services.
“It’s been a long, a long time coming, but I know a change gone come.” When Sam Cooke sings these lyrics we believe him. There is something undeniable about the conviction in his voice. It’s the same conviction that graced the Summer Olympics in 1968, when medalists Tommie Smith and John Carlos stood on the podium with black fists raised during the national anthem. Those men weren’t chasing history. They didn’t mean to become symbols; they were seeking justice and truth and an American way that works for all of us. Their convictions made them iconic.
George A. Romero did something very similar, that same year, when he commited the revolutionary act of casting a black actor as the lead in his horror flick. Romero wasn’t chasing history either, he and co-writer John Russo hired Duane Jones because, “…he was the best actor who auditioned for that part.” In that moment, with that choice to do the right thing, NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD (1968) became an Essential Political Film.
Romero, Russo, and Jones went on to craft a black-American hero together. It isn’t widely known that Jones contributed his character’s backstory, demeanor, and fought for a specific ending. The result is Ben, a truck driver who finds himself on the road on the day the dead rise to walk again. Ben is valiant, strategic, stoic, and he refuses all attempts at nonsense — sometimes with his fists. Because of these characteristics Ben saves the day. That would have been enough to make NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD a game changer, because meritocracy is an idea that doesn’t quite hold true in the real world. Beyond examples like the casting of Jones and the content of Ben’s character, it’s most often used as an excuse by oppressors to silence the oppressed.
Yet, the final scenes are where NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD truly leaves a mark. After repeatedly risking himself to save his comrades from a horde of ravenous dead, Ben finally survives the night. Help arrives as the local sheriff and a group of militiamen sweep the area. As a viewer you feel a sense of relief — our guy made it through — but when Ben approaches a boarded up window, the darkened lighting tells us something is wrong. One of the militiamen sees Ben’s silhouette and fires his shotgun, putting a bullet through our hero’s forehead. He’s a good guy with a gun but they kill him and they burn him the same as the monsters.
Fifty years later and earlier this month, armed security guard Jemel Roberson had successfully subdued a violent shooter outside the bar where he worked in the suburbs of Chicago. Those who were wounded that day must have felt such relief when Roberson stopped their attacker. More help came afterward but not for their rescuer. When officers arrived on the scene they shot Jemel Roberson dead. He was a good guy with a gun. A black-American hero. They shot him anyway.
The parallels are painful. It’s the same reason those fists were held high in the summer of ’68. It’s been a long time coming and, much like the shambling ghouls in George A. Romero’s revolutionary film, change seems slow and deadly.
