Don't Look Up, currently out on Netflix, seems to owe a fair amount to Idiocracy. And/or to the ways in which American culture morphed into Idiocracy over the last several years.
I'm seeing more references to Idiocracy now on social media because of Don't Look Up's recent release (compared to, say, how frequently Idiocracy was mentioned last month). There's a lot of problems with Don't Look Up that make for it not being an example of greatness or even very-goodness, but one thing in particular in comparison to Idiocracy are the movies' protagonists. In Idiocracy, Not Sure is a pretty average guy—maybe even a little dumb. This is what the writers of Don't Look Up missed out on. Idiocracy is smart people writing about about a dumb-to-average "hero" because the egos of those involved (the creators and their audience) don't require him to be bigger than they are. In contrast, Don't Look Up is a movie written by people who are as smart as Not Sure is dumb, trying to write for characters who are supposed to be smarter than the writers themselves and the people who are supposed to enjoy the movie the most.
Some reviews called Don't Look Up smug and sanctimonious—and they're right. With Idiocracy and Don't Look Up, the humility and lack thereof, respectively, when comparing the two accounts for a lot of why Don't Look Up is worse than it should be. (Given what Don't Look Up tries to do, it should do it better than Talladega Nights does, for example, but it doesn't.) Also accounting for a lot of what made Don't Look Up a not so great way of cribbing from Idiocracy is that Idiocracy was taking aim at the zeitgeist, whereas Don't Look Up is a very safe movie to make.
That is, it seemed like it was genuinely an expression of frustration/dismay/astonishment by it's creators to give it's audience a bit of...not quite catharsis...solidarity perhaps?
The target audience is fucking exhausted with the never ending deluge of bullshit we're being faced with.
No one's walking away from watching it feeling superior. That's the thing, it's describing a situation that we all lose, but only some even acknowledge is even happening.
It's actually pretty soul crushing.
You're not reading me. That sense of exhaustion is as appropriate as the smugness that it's being used to justify.
> Considering that film is an art form, it "only" being an expression to it's intended audience is just fine. There's no obligation or advertisement to be anything more than that.
This only makes sense as a defense if we can say that it tries to do something, does it, and doesn't do anything else. The problem is that the movie and those reacting most positively to it in public certainly pretend that it's more than it is.
So it's wrong in the measure of a thing that it does what it tries to do at minimum, but it's also wrong in that it doesn't do anything else (what it tries to and nothing more).
What it does do, unintentionally, is showcase (to exhibit without examining—again, unintentionally) what's wrong with the people who are supposed to be on the right side—a lack of self-awareness and sense of culpability while standing opposite the people on the wrong side stupidly chanting, "don't look up". Each group has enough in their reserves to provide enough stupid juice to take down everyone when pooled together.
> No one's walking away from watching it feeling superior.
That's simply not true.
Asking genuinely inquisitively: Why do you think the sense of exhaustion is inappropriate?
> This only makes sense as a defense if we can say that it tries to do something, does it, and doesn't do anything else. The problem is that the movie and those reacting most positively to it in public certainly pretend that it's more than it is.
What do you think the public is pretending it is? (Or re-articulating it, if you feel I'm not understanding you?)
The level of discomfort it engendered was off the scale. The depiction of the political and media is so close to reality that I ended up fast forwarding through it and at this point have paused watching as continuing is just too uncomfortable.
So from that point of view, and at least for me I would say that the movie is a success, job done. Unfortunately I don't think I'm the person who needs to receive this message. I don't need to be told that the world is going to shit at a faster rate than ever. I don't need to be told that most (all?) media, main stream or otherwise only succeed in rating somewhere between barely acceptable and blatantly corrupt on an ethical/truthfulness scale. The only way I can continue to exist with some degree of happiness is to simply try to ignore the majority of what is going on outside my bubble. I don't think I'm alone.
That said, I'm really interested how this movie has been perceived by those who think everything is wonderful. Are their world views so different that they have any ability to understand that this is not a comedy set in a different world, where politicians and media are clueless to their own ignorance and stupidity? Do they understand that this movie is holding a big bloody mirror up to the Western world and giving a giant wake up call. Unfortunately given how a lot of people seem to have reacted to the last couple of years, I have to think that they would just look at themselves in the mirror, adjust the makeup and wonder how those stupid scientists can not understand that they are messing with the latest media fed delusion.
Now I'm going to close my door again and pretend that the world really is wonderful. Have a nice day.
Can't for the life of me figure out the appeal.
I mean, sure, people are morons, but everyone everywhere had to be CARTOONISHLY stupid and incompetent in the flick to make the plot work.
That worked for Idiocracy because that was the projected future. A warning.
DLU needs that level of dumb TODAY.
And yes, I lived the last 5 years, and I'm deeply cynical of humanity... but even I thought it was all a bit too much.
Can you give an example of something from the film you thought was so cartoonishly stupid?
Personally I was okay with it but some of the bits (like the vapid news show or how the titular Don’t Look Up meme comes about) were too much for me.
I wasn’t engaged or entertained so I thought it was terrible.
I think Idiocracy was great because it was funny and used the future to allow you to see and imagine how it came to be that way. Don’t Look Up exaggerates the present in a way that feels familiar but misses the mark somehow.
I’m likely the target audience for the movie based on my left of center politics, but I suspect some will say it’s a great movie because of political tribalism and never watch it again because they know it’s actually not very good.
Just my opinion.