• chicken@lemmy.dbzer0.com
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    64
    arrow-down
    3
    ·
    3 days ago

    It’s a fair criticism but imo it’s not too hard to write off that bit of absurd narrated exposition at the beginning and instead think of it as being about anti-intellectualism and broken institutions, since the rest of the movie seems like more of a satire of those things, and the plot doesn’t really land on eugenics as a solution to its problems.

    Mike Judge made a statement about it in an interview:

    We live in polarized times, which means that for every ‘Idiocracy is a documentary!’ take that goes around, there’s also a critique that argues that Idiocracy is a celebration of eugenics. Have you thought about that interpretation of it?

    Well, yeah. I mean I’ve actually read that a couple of times. But to me, I thought the opening made it very clear that whatever side you take, nature and nurture are both covered in that. That guy is clearly not a good father. I mean, there’s a kid with a motorcycle in the front yard, and no one’s paying attention to this. He’s just irresponsibly knocking up different woman, and proud of it. It’s not like he’s a good, upstanding role model for the kid. So I think it’s pretty clear here that, whichever one it is, [nature or nurture], there’s some combination of both. I obviously don’t believe in eugenics. I think you could look at it both ways—you have this couple that’s trying to be so responsible that they end up never having kids. Then there’s another couple who just irresponsibly keeps having them and not raising them right. So, you know, if the other couple adopted the other kids. I’m sure they would probably be better off.

    • jj4211@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      7
      ·
      1 day ago

      Yeah the eugenics take always seemed a weird one. No implications that the family reproducing like rabbits shouldn’t have any children, just that maybe it would be good if they had a reasonable amount of kids responsibly. Also the couple that never had kids despite wanting kids shouldn’t have been so cautious as to miss out.

      • postmateDumbass@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        2
        ·
        1 day ago

        The movie presented a problem within the human experience.

        Eugenics is the fascist answer to the question of existence. Always will be.

      • chicken@lemmy.dbzer0.com
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        3
        ·
        1 day ago

        Well I can kind of understand it, because it pins the cause of a problem of declining population level intelligence on who is having children, which is a controversial idea to say the least.