Welcome to Costco, I Love You

That is the line chanted by a mindless, obese greeter at a Costco superstore in the dystopian future as described by Mike Judge in the 2006 film Idiocracy. Judge has appreciated past success with Beavis and Butthead, King of the Hill and Office Space. But I bet you didn’t see Office Space at your local AMC 30. You probably rented it yrs after it had been made, just like me. Maybe you saw it on Comedy Central one of the 4 times it’s aired daily. The reason for this is that Office Space was marketed by a group of morons and was a commercial failure at the BO. But the DVD and cable release has shown that this film is truly brilliant, and that critical reception is congruent with my praise.

Similar acclaim was given to Idiocracy. This movie is about the dumbing down of culture and proliferation of morons in society who do little more than procreate. The world of 2505 is shown as a mass commercialized sea of zombies and incompetents. A few of the more memorable lines involves the changing of Carl’s Jr slogan from "Don't Bother Me. I'm Eating." to "Fuck You! I'm Eating!”, handjobs offered at Starbucks and a gigantic Costco that has a law school in it.

Part of the message here is admittedly hackneyed: People on average are very stupid. Show me someone with an IQ of 100, and I’ll show you a stupid, uniformed person. Mass consumerism and neglect of art/culture creates a hollow and not very worthwhile existence. It’s impossible not to sound like a pessimist if one expounds these viewpoints. They also happen to be true. I think that’s what really killed Idiocracy.

First, people don’t want to go to a movie that constantly reminds them of their own stupidity. Additionally the movie scolds people for being superficial, thoughtless puds. The problem there is that being a superficial, thoughtless pud is such a HUGE part of our culture now, so you’re only insulting your core audience here, Mr. Judge.

The second thing I can think is similar to the Office Space story. Just for Judge to get to that boardroom and sit down with the Hollywood execs he has to interact with a multitude of Idiocracy-like people. The Adam Brody character in Thank You for Smoking immediately comes to mind. The whole Hollywood system of screening audiences and test trailers is not tailored for a creative person like Judge. I bet he had to endure lectures from advertising “geniuses” 20 years his junior, and then have the expert at product placement at Fox Studios tell him that you can’t really make fun of a corporate sponsor. Especially when that corporate sponsor is owned by a larger, conglomerate monster corporation that will be paying for the film in the first place (again, 20th Century Fox).

The movie industry itself is filled with these Idiocrats and they continue to make movies for them. The same yr Idiocracy was finally released RV, Flyboys, Basic Instinct 2 and Date Movie were also sent to the theaters. I don’t think that Idiocracy was the best movie of 2006. But it certainly wasn’t the worst. And it definitely deserved better than what it got from Fox.