Brawndo

''Idiocracy'' is a 2006 American science fiction comedy film directed by Mike Judge and co-written by Judge and Etan Cohen. Starring Luke Wilson, Maya Rudolph, Dax Shepard, and Terry Crews, the film tells the story of Corporal Joe Bauers (Wilson), a U.S. Army librarian who, along with prostitute Rita (Rudolph), takes part in a government hibernation experiment. The experiment goes awry, and Joe awakens in the year 2505, in a dystopian world dumbed-down by mass commercialism, rampant anti-intellectualism and the domination of low culture, to find that he is by far the smartest person on the planet.

''Idiocracy'' serves as a social satire that touches on issues including commercialism and anti-intellectualism. The film was not screened for critics, and the distributor, 20th Century Fox, was accused of abandoning it. Despite its lack of a major theatrical release, which resulted in a mere $495,000 gross at the box office, the film received positive reviews from critics and has since become a cult film.

Plot

In 2005, U.S. Army librarian Corporal Joe Bauers is selected for a suspended animation experiment as the " most average" individual in the entire armed forces. Lacking a suitable female candidate, the military hires a sex worker named Rita by bribing her pimp Upgrayedd. When the officer in charge is arrested for running his own prostitution ring under Upgrayedd's tutelage, the experiment is forgotten. Over the next five centuries, societal expectations lead the most intelligent humans to choose not to have children while the least intelligent reproduce indiscriminately, creating generations of increasingly low intelligence.

In 2505, Joe and Rita's suspension chambers are unearthed by the collapse of a mountain-sized garbage pile, with Joe's chamber crashing into the apartment of Frito Pendejo. Wandering around what was once Washington, D.C., Joe finds a population that has become profoundly anti-intellectual, speaking only low registers of English and wallowing in overconsumption and crass popular entertainment. Technology is still advanced but often malfunctioning, driven by garish commercialism or extreme simplicity, such as healthcare workers handling computer equipment akin to elementary education software. Believing that he is hallucinating after a year of hibernation, Joe enters a hospital and realizes the truth. Arrested for not having a bar code tattoo to pay for his doctor's appointment, he is sent to prison after being assigned the grossly incompetent Pendejo as his lawyer.

Rita also leaves her chamber, resuming work as a sex worker, but soon realizes that people have become so stupid that she can charge customers money without actual services. Joe is renamed "Not Sure" by a faulty speech-recognition tattooing machine and takes a rudimentary IQ test. The police take Joe to jail. While in line to be admitted, Joe tricks a guard by claiming that he is meant to be released and runs out the door, successfully escaping prison. He finds Frito, who reveals that a time machine exists to return him to 2005, and Joe bribes him with promises of riches through compound interest on a bank account he will open for Frito in the 21st century. Leading Joe and Rita to the time machine, Frito takes them into a gigantic Costco store, where Joe is identified by a tattoo scanner and apprehended.

Joe is taken to the White House and is appointed Secretary of the Interior, as the IQ test identified him as the most intelligent person alive. President Camacho introduces Joe to the cabinet and gives him the impossible job of fixing the nationwide food shortages, dust bowls, and crippled economy within a week. Joe discovers that the nation's crops are irrigated with Brawndo, a " thirst mutilator" whose parent corporation owns the FDA, FCC, and USDA. When Joe has the irrigation system replaced with water, Brawndo's stock plummets, causing massive layoffs and riots, without any visible agricultural improvement.

Joe is sentenced to die in a monster truck demolition derby featuring undefeated "rehabilitation officer" Beef Supreme. However, Beef's oversized vehicle is crushed trying to enter the arena, and Joe manages to defeat the other vehicles. Rita and Frito discover that Joe's reintroduction of water to the soil has allowed vegetation to grow. Showing the sprouting crops on the stadium's Jumbotron prompts Camacho's presidential pardon.

Joe and Rita decide to stay in the future, although later they discover that they had no choice as the "time masheen" Frito mentioned is merely a childishly inaccurate history-themed amusement ride. Following Camacho's term, Joe is elected president and marries Rita. They conceive the world's three smartest children, while new Vice President Frito takes eight wives and fathers thirty-two of the world's stupidest children. The film ends with Joe's inaugural speech, where he praises earlier civilizations for their technology and expresses hope this society will one day as well.

In a post-credits scene, Rita's pimp, Upgrayedd, comes out of a third suspension chamber and goes looking for her.

Cast

Themes

The idea of a dystopian society based on dysgenics can be traced back to the work of Sir Francis Galton. H. G. Wells