3 Movies, Part 1.

So, I watched Idiocracy, Menace II Society, and Bowling For Columbine in one sitting friday night, more or less for the first time and also more or less at random. The interesting thing about these three movies is that all three of them examine basic issues in our society: the media, violence, and racism. I'm going to do three posts, one analyzing each movie, and this is the first one, duh.

Without giving away too much, the first film is based on the premise that because of a lack of natural predators, human evolution has come to reward people who reproduce more, as opposed to people possessing intelligence, sociability, etc. The film then illustrates this by showing us an "intelligent" couple discussing why they don't want to have a kid right now, then flashes to the obvious "trailer trash" couple in a domestic dispute about how the wife is pregnant again. Hee hee. The next couple minutes are spent detailing "Clevon"'s production of more and more kids while the smart couple continues to not reproduce. Then a bunch of other shit happens, and this one dude ends up in a coma-like state until the year 2520, when the world is populated by idiots.

Problem is, to this movie, "idiot", clearly means poor white, black, or hispanic person. Everybody walking around is clearly a "redneck", "jig", or "cholo" stereotype. Now to all of you this might not seem odd, but think about it. Basically, the nightmarish dystopia predicted by this film involves the domination of public life by the marginalized population groups currently excluded from it, except on the terms of the dominant culture. What I mean by this is that when mass media is utilized by people from outside the cultural mainstream (rich white people), it's only in a way that's acceptable to people holding the purse strings. In this movie, the president is a porn star and professional wrestler, and Costco functions as a bunch of different businesses. Cause y'all know, poor folks love some Costco.

You know, this is oddly similar to that Pat Buchanan book where he predicts the demise of civilization if white people disappear. Except "smart" people are used as a proxy for middle to upper class white folks. So basically, the message here, to me, is that if you don't fit into "society's mainstream American dream", you need the aforementioned group to police you to make sure you don't fuck the world up. Now, had idiotic soccer moms, suburban teenagers, and golf buddies been included, I probably wouldn't jump to these conclusions.

Cuddly. It's also pretty funny and everything, but you guys know me, I can't ignore shit.