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I fucking hate this comparison.
The government in Idiocracy actually tried. They were just idiots. The bad guy in that movie is stupidity.
When these comparisons started that wasn't even a fair comparison. And I mean like, it was common enough when W. was still in office, among the like 10 people who had seen it by that time.
We have actively malicious state actors who love that you're so willing to believe they're only stupid.
Also Mike Judge is terrified of poor people.
I mean... the bad guy in Idiocracy is actually "inferior genetics" and "the poors", Like... I find it hilarious but holy fuck did that movie do a lot for advancing eugenics among the cultural zeitgeist...
But yeah. President Comacho actually cared and was trying to make the world better. And once Not Sure showed them that toilet water worked, they used it. Rather than insisting on shoving horse medicine up their asses out of spite.
It's an apt reference when talking about the population rather than the government. But you're right. Camacho was an infinitely better president that actively listened to the smartest person in the world. He was surrounded by idiots too, but he tried.
The government of idiocracy is decades after the stage we’re in now, but we seem to be in the prologue part of that movie, if not further in.
Care to clue in those of us who aren't celebrity watchers, and know nothing about Mike Judge?
Mike Judge is the creative mind behind Idiocracy, king of the hill, and office space. A core theme behind the first two is "poor people are stupid and crazy."
The theme of king of the hill is not poor people are stupid.
I would disagree with it being a core theme. But most of Judge's work very much punches down on poor people. Whether it is Beavis and Butthead living in squalor and working at a mcdonald's (and most of their villains being "trailer trash") or many of Hank's "villains" also being "white trash". And a big theme of the first few seasons was Luanne triumphing against having grown up poor.
And... I love Office Space but it is hard to not look at Peter choosing to be a construction worker to be happy as "willful stupidity is bliss".
To my knowledge, Idiocracy is the only thing where he took that farther since the entire movie is predicated on Smoothie becoming Smoothie too soon and the eugenics that followed. Which... I think Idiocracy is funny (even if it is probably too painful to watch these days) but holy shit was that movie pushing eugenics harder than that creepy house Waypoint stayed at for an E3. Especially when the closing gag is something like "Not Sure and Rita had three of the smartest and most beautiful children ever. Dax Shepard had fifty of the dumbest".
If we ignore the wealthy "villains" in King o the Hill like Strickland, Thatherton, Kan, and the occasional rich people through out the show, then sure that could be a correct statement.
There was even an episode where a rich investor from out of state was being an ass and wanted to get the "Authentic" Texan experience but Hank eventually got fed up.
Strickland is 100% "money can't buy class". And there were multiple (?) episodes where Minh and Kahn lost their money and "lived as hillbillies" as it were.
But sure. Feel free to focus on a few exceptions to completely ignore the entire rest of the pattern. This IS reddit after all.
I think you might be doing what a lot of people are. You look at Hank and you say "he isn't rich, he is middle class". And you fixate on when the upper class (like Kahn, even though he lives in the same neighborhood) get what is coming to them.
But you, like most people, ignore how often "the poors" are the villains and are punched down on. Folk like Jimmy and Lucky (although he mostly was comic relief) and so forth.
Which... gets back to Idiocracy. Smoothie and his wife were definitely rich academics. But Not Sure is the very definition of average. He is the everyman. It is just that the world has become so much stupider and so much poorer than he is and...
It's been a LONG time since I watched either of them, so I'll have to rewatch some with that perspective in mind. Seems a bit exaggerated to me, but I suppose it's possible. Thanks for explaining.
Just think of the IQ/reproduction sequence at the start and the kinds of people that were used to represent high and low IQ.