By James Wyche
What's up Munkey Fam, it's your Baltimore representative James aka Spicy. Hope everyone is doing well and staying medicated; this month's theme is the Election! Throughout this entire election season, I've wanted it to end the moment we found out our two candidates. All I'm going to say is I wanted Bernie but we can't have nice things. You're not here for the opinions of one man's political beliefs; there's enough news shows and podcasts for all that. Instead, I'm going to review a movie that I think perfectly encapsulates our political climate and that is Mike Judge's 2006 film “Idiocracy”.
The film follows Joe Bauers played by Luke Wilson, an average Army librarian who is chosen for a government experiment involving being cryogenically frozen for a year. Along with Rita; played by Maya Rudolph, a prostitute who's a part of the experiment solely to save herself from jail time. While they're both frozen, the experiment is forgotten and instead of a year, they're both left frozen for five hundred years. During that time the collective IQ of the human race has dropped so drastically because stupid people have procreated too much and the intelligent people didn't procreate enough. Also, the economy has collapsed, there's another dust bowl and the trash has been piled so high up that it eclipses buildings. The great trash avalanche allows Joe and Rita to finally move for the first time in 500 years. Once Joe realizes that even as an average man he's the smartest person in the room, it worries him. He's arrested and tried for not having a tattooed barcode which is the form of identification in this fictitious America. Joe's lawyer is a man named Frito played by Dax Sheppard and after doing a terrible job of defending Joe, he's forced to get an ID tattoo and is renamed “Not Sure”. Meanwhile, Rita is thriving by realizing that men have become even more stupid thus making it easier for her to make money without having to have sex with anyone.
After escaping prison by literally asking to leave after taking an IQ test, Joe finds Frito and finds out there's a time machine. Joe, Rita, and Frito journey to find the time machine that is located at a Super Costco, which is so big that it has a train system to get around the store. While at the store Joe is arrested after being identified and is taken to the White House. Once there he meets President Camacho played by Terry Crews, he's described as a former UFCWWF competitor and retired pornstar. Joe is named to Camacho's cabinet because his IQ test confirmed that he is the smartest person in the world. Camacho in his “State Of The Union” address said that Joe would be able to solve all their problems in one week.
When trying to figure out the drought crisis Joe finds out that instead of water being used to hydrate the crops a Gatorade-like sports drink called Brawndo "The Thirst Mutilator" is being used. We come to find that the Brawndo company became so powerful they were able to convince people water was bad and the company purchased the FDA, FCC, and USDA. After convincing his other cabinet members to use the water from toilets to put through their irrigation system, Joe is confident the plan will work. Although the next day there are riots in the street because in one day Brawndo's stocks went to zero and a majority of people in this world work for the company and they were fired from their jobs. Joe is arrested and is sentenced to death by monster truck rally.
After defeating the monster trucks, Frito and Rita were able to show on monitors in the arena that Joe's planned work and the crops were growing. It's because of this breakthrough that Joe is voted in as President with Rita as his First Lady. They go on to have kids who are considered the smartest kids and family in the United States. I have never seen this film before but after viewing it there are various similarities to this fictional world to real-life 2020 America.
The president alone being someone from pop culture who rose to power because of the stupid people in society....need I say more. Throughout the movie the channels on the televisions were wild. They had the masturbation network that doesn't show porn, a show called Ball Crunchers which is about a guy just getting hit in the balls the entire time. Also, I saw real comparisons between Amazon and Brawndo in the movie. Brawndo is this all-powerful company that was able to convince people that water was bad and take control of some of the most important agencies when it comes to food and beverage. With Amazon in the real world, it feels like every day a new service is unveiled whether it be Amazon streaming, credit/debit cards, all the way to having your groceries delivered to you. As time goes on I hope checks and balances will be followed a bit more strictly because if you don't think Jeff Bezos could become a Lex Luthor type of villain in the future you're sadly mistaken. It's sad to say but I can see in the future intelligence may fall because in the present day we have technology that can get you any information you want in seconds without having to open a book or do research. This is how "fake news" has become a thing no one wants to fact check anything before posting it online. Also, we all know that dumb person whether male or female that just procreates without any planning or support. Thus leading to more dumb people to be born in the future. With all that being said please Vote this November!