The New York Times ran an article last July asking readers, "What is the Definitive Movie About America?" The film chosen most often by more than 3,000 respondents was Mike Judge's dystopian comedy, Idiocracy.
"The single film readers chose most often was 'Idiocracy' (2006), Mike Judge’s scathing critique of the United States cloaked in a futuristic tale. Some commenters seemed almost sad to list it, linking it to their feelings about the country today, while more than one described it as a documentary," notes the Times.
Film writer Etan Cohen (Tropic Thunder, Men in Black 3) also describes it as "a documentary."
"It's fun and distressing to talk about 'Idiocracy' these days," Cohen said. "It's become this phrase people throw around for talking about how the world is right now, and it's beyond anything we could have thought. The only thing we thought might come true is people wearing Crocs all the time, and even that seemed impossible."
This month, the movie turns 20 years old, and it's interesting to look at what Judge's hilarious vision for a future America looked like.
The premise is simple enough. A military librarian, played with perfect vapidity by Luke Wilson, volunteers for an experiment in hibernation that went disastrously wrong when the military base where it took place was shut down. After several centuries, Joe and a prostitute frozen with him, Rita (played by Maya Rudolph), wake up to find a very different America from the one they left.
The new America is populated by largely uneducated, unsophisticated, and ignorant people. Nothing works because no one knows how to fix anything. The masses are gullible beyond belief. The President (played by former NFL player Terry Crews), Dwayne Elizondo Mountain Dew Herbert Camacho, a former professional wrestler, porn star, and reality TV-style personality, learns that Joe is much smarter than everyone else and promises he can fix everything wrong with the country in a week.
Some of the corporate satire was spot on. Literally everything in the Idiocracy world is sponsored, including the Secretary of State, who is brought to you by Carl's Jr. Crops are watered with the sports drink Brawndo ("The Thirst Mutilator"). Citizens insist on watering crops with an energy drink because "It's got electrolytes," rejecting plain water despite a basic agricultural failure.
Cohen was in his mid-20s when he started writing the film with Judge. As an MTV intern, he was a freelance writer on "Beavis & Butt-Head" ("Best college job ever," he said) and later "King of the Hill." "He remembered that I had written some of the more offensive 'Beavis & Butt-Head' episodes and so would be the kind of guy to collaborate with. I hope he was right."
Judge's original concept, Cohen recalled, was titled "3001." "The fun part of writing with Mike was we could consider any part of the culture we thought was going south and that went into the movie," he said.
Rather than making "some kind of statement," Cohen said, "I drew on my twentysomething id" when writing with Mike. "It was things I actually liked, but turned up another degree, like the show 'Oh, My Balls,' which was something I would have genuinely watched."
It was the satire of corporations that contributed to the limited release of the film. As star Terry Crews later revealed, several real-world brands (such as Starbucks, Fuddruckers, and Costco) allowed their names to be used in the movie, expecting standard product placement. When executives saw how brutally the film satirized them, brands pushed back, prompting Fox to minimize its release to avoid advertiser conflicts.
Director Mike Judge noted that the studio panicked after early test audience reactions came back negative. Fox executives felt the premise was difficult to market in a standard 15-second TV ad, especially given that social media didn't exist at the time to help generate buzz.
Remembering how Judge’s previous film, Office Space, tanked in theaters but became a massive financial success on DVD, Fox decided to meet its minimal contractual obligation for a theatrical release and rely entirely on home video and word of mouth to recoup costs. The film made millions of dollars after being released on DVD, and when available on major platforms, it periodically breaks into overall top-viewed lists — for instance, charting in Netflix's U.S. Top 10 movies.
On review aggregators IMDb and Rotten Tomatoes, Idiocracy has drawn hundreds of thousands of ratings. It's safe to say that the film has made more than 10 times its $2.4 million budget and the paltry money spent on publicity and marketing.
Is it really a "prescient" film, as former Fox President Tom Rothman, who greenlit it, claims? In some exaggerated ways, it is. And the left finds much in the dystopian world of Idiocracy to compare to Trump and his supporters.
Judge wasn't planning to make a political movie. Instead, like almost everything else in America, it became political once the two sides began arguing over it. I like to watch it for the laughs, not because it skewers the left or right.
In that way, Judge made a highly successful film.
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