A comedy by Mike Judge, starring Luke Wilson as Joe Bowers, a totally average soldier who is volunteered for a suspended animation experiment, along with a hooker named Rita (played by Maya Rudolph), who refers to herself as a painter and refers to her pimp, Upgrayedd, as her “boyfriend/manager”. The experiment is supposed to run for only a year, but they wind up forgotten for five hundred years. When they finally emerge, they discover that due to 500 years of world culture gradually dumbing down to the Lowest Common Denominator, society has become very crude and very dumb. Joe and Rita are now by far the smartest people around, and the world’s looking at them to solve some very serious problems. …The film wasn’t granted a wide theatrical release, and as such did not do well in theaters. Since its DVD release, however, the film has become a Cult Classic.
Arson, Murder, and Jaywalking: “The economy was in a state of deep neglect. A great dust bowl had ravaged food supplies. And the number-one movie in the country was called Ass.”
Asskicking Equals Authority: President Dwayne Elizondo Mountain Dew Herbert Camacho, porn superstar and five-time Ultimate Smackdown wrestling champion!
Autodoc: There are semiautomatic medical stations; the probes have to be inserted by person. Brain Bleach happens when that person gets confused on which probes should be used on which hole …
Berserk Button: Do NOT interrupt Frito while he’s watching Ow My Balls! That is NOT OK!
Big OMG: Joe’s reaction when he finally realizes how long he has been hibernated.
Bilingual Bonus: Frito Pendejo. In Spanish, Frito means fried, and ‘Pendejo’ is roughly the equivalent to ‘dumbass’ in English.
Bittersweet Ending: It turns out that the ‘Time Masheen’ was merely a theme park ride and therefore Joe and Rita are stuck in the year 2505. However, Joe climbs the ranks in politics, eventually becoming the President of the United States, and marrying Rita, with whom he has three children. In the “House of Representin’”, Joe makes a passionate plea for people to stop viewing being stupid as the norm and as cool, and it appears the society is on its way to betterment, even though stupid people are still having too many children.
Black Comedy Rape: The Cabinet is not-at-all subtle about how they will treat Rita if Joe stops vouching for her.
Boxed Crook: Convicts are given an IQ test and put to work, which is how Joe, with his whopping 100 IQ points, becomes Secretary of the Interior.
Brick Joke: After Joe spends the whole movie calming Rita down and finally convinces her that she is safe from Upgrayedd, he appears in a third pod at the end.
A Child Shall Lead Them: The Secretary of Energy looked like about thirteen, drinks heavily, and had gotten the job by winning an unspecified contest. Not that he seemed any less capable than any other Cabinet member …
Compensating for Something: The monster trucks in Monday Night Rehabilitation—the Dildozer and the Ass-Blaster.
Crapsack World: Idiocracy depicts the future America as a horrifically dirty and overcrowded wasteland where humanity is crude, impossibly dumb, and hostile. In addition, America is suffering from dustbowls and starvation (due to crops being irrigated by a sports drink brand, killing them off and salting the earth), and the economy is in a terrible state, with Ridiculous Future Inflation being displayed in full effect.
A Date with Rosie Palms: Devolved into the word “batin’” and given its own channel on television. It doesn’t seem to carry quite the same connotations, though.
Pretty much everyone in the future: “It’s got electrolytes!”
Delusions of Eloquence: Everyone except Joe and Rita. Especially the police—the only long words they don’t mangle is “particular individual,” and only then because they use that phrase every time they refer to any person.
Design Student's Orgasm: Everything in the future has a very bright and overproduced ‘food court aesthetic.’
Distracted by the Sexy: Frito and the cameraman forget to film the plants because a nearby Starbucks is having a handjob sale.
Divided States of America: The American flag has only twenty-five stars on it, so it’s possible half the states have seceded. On the other hand, there are only eleven stripes, so it’s possible it has simply been forgotten what the stars and stripes are supposed to represent.
Duct Tape For Everything: Rather than actually repair dilapidated buildings, people simply use tons and tons of duct tape to hold them together.
The Everyman: Invoked; Joe and Rita are specifically chosen for the experiment because they're completely average in every regard...but are nonetheless considered geniuses by the standards of the future.
Everything's Better with Dinosaurs: The Time Masheen ride features an interpretation of the events of WWII and the years following. It involves model dinosaurs wearing swastikas.
Freeze Frame Bonus: The very small Surgeon General’s warning seen on the Tarrylton’s Cigarettes billboard reads: “Warning: The Surgeon General has one lung and a voicebox but he could still kick your sorry ass”, Comically Missing the Point on what constitutes a warning in that context.
When Joe is being apprehended by the police in Costco, the background screens display why he is wanted: “For being a dick,” “For excaping from jail” and “For fucking up lots of shit.”
Freud Was Right: invoked In the Blood Sport example above, all the monster trucks are equipped with huge weapons that are obviously phallic in design and name. Joe’s little car has a rubber, flaccid penis on the hood.
The Guards Must Be Crazy: Joe gets sent to prison, but immediately talks his way out by convincing them he should be in the line to be released. Justified because, well, they’re all idiots. (They wise up the second time he’s incarcerated and chain him to a boulder.)
Hellhole Prison: The House of Particular Individuals. Though we don’t get to see much of it, it appears to be a disgusting and overcrowded facility where the average inmates are starving and are abused by the fatter inmates, who sit on them.
Hero with Bad Publicity: Joe, until Rita and Frito prove that his idea of putting water on crops does in fact work.
Hot Scoop: A bit of Truth in Television there. Ever see what the female anchors on Fox News and CNN look like? Although in Idiocracy, the male anchor is naked at least to the waist. This is also Truth in Television with Canada’s Naked News. If you’re not at work, do a search for it. (Though not the field reporter, interestingly. And she’s actually competent, for that matter. How did that get through?) Also, the news anchors and the field reporter demonstrate a considerably better command of the English language than most of the population.
I Choose to Stay: Rita. Subverted (and mandated) when it turns out the ‘Time Masheen’ they were looking for is just a cheesy theme-park ride.
In the Future, We Still Have Roombas: A floor cleaning robot is shown repeatedly banging into a wall announcing "Your floor is now clean!" over and over. Given the putrid condition of the floor everywhere but where the robot is, it had been at this for a long time.
Ironic Echo: ”Lead, Follow, or Get Out of the Way.”note Joe prefers to get out of the way.
Inferred Holocaust: The premise of the movie, sort of, based on supposed present-day trends.
Joe’s Lawyer: I’m gonna mistrial my foot up your ass, (if) you don’t shut up.
Juggling Loaded Guns: A bunch of cops are firing on the car Not Sure had just exited. One of them has a rocket launcher—which he proceeds to fire backwards. A few seconds later, a 747 enters the shot going down in flames. Later in the film, the U.S. President quiets down a rowdy crowd in the House of Representin’ by firing a light support weapon into the air. This is perfectly justified considering the movie is literally an Idiot Plot. Also, our introduction to the Secretary of Education has him absentmindedly resting a shotgun against his face.
Kangaroo Court: The defense objects to things his own client did that are unrelated to the case. The jury and judge consider it damning evidence of Joe’s guilt.
Kavorka Man: Clevon and his son in the prologue: two fat rednecks who nonetheless manage to father plenty of illegitimate children and contributing to humanity’s devolution.
Law of Inverse Fertility: The smart couple who keep putting off getting pregnant (eventually thwarted by Husband Existence Failure) vs. the idiot who doesn’t care and winds up with about three dozen offspring by five to eight different women (and even more after a Groin Attack) in the prologue. This continues after a fashion with Joe and Rita: They have three children of average intelligence—the three smartest kids on earth—while Frito has thirty of the dumbest kids on earth.
Also, Joe’s new name that he’s given in 2505, “Not Sure”. He is the smartest man in the world by default because everyone else is so stupid, and humanity rests their hopes on him, even though he himself is ‘not sure’ of what exactly to do.
Fridge Brilliance if you consider the Bertrand Russell quote: "The fundamental cause of trouble in the world today is that the stupid are cocksure while the intelligent are full of doubt."
Monumental Damage Resistance: When Paris is briefly shown in Ow! My Balls!, the Eiffel Tower (in perfect condition) is the only thing that remains there; everything else is an uninhabited flattened wasteland.
My Name Is Not Durwood: Joe says “I’m not sure if …” to a machine, which proceeds to assume his name is literally ‘Not Sure’ and tattoo this name on his arm. Everyone calls him ‘Not Sure’ for the rest of the movie.
Narrator: If you’ve ever seen a Coors Light beer commercial or NFL Films vignette in your life, the narrator might sound a little familiar …
Newspaper Dating: Joe finds out what year he’s in this way, though he doesn’t believe it at first.
The Not So Harmless Punishment: Joe is sentenced to one night of rehabilitation when his decision to irrigate crops with water caused population riots after the price of the Brawndo Corporation’s stock plummeted. It turns out that ‘rehabilitation’ is a type of public execution modelled as a Squash Match with Homicide Machines.
One Nation Under Copyright: It’s mentioned Brawndo purchased the FDA and the FCC, and used their position to replace water with their product. If you look closely at the American flag, each of the stars is actually the logo of Carl’s Jr. Also, the red stripes are actually red text reading, “The following companies are proud sponsors of the United States of Uhmerica. Carl’s Jr., Costco, Cavalcade, Flaturin, Tarrlyton, Ronaise, Buttfuckers, Nastea, Bonerax, Brawndo, Acne Insurance.” Possibly, these companies own parts of the U.S. government in the same way that Brawndo owns the FDA and FCC.
Only Sane Man: Not Sure, and by extension Rita and Upgrayedd.
Our Presidents Are Different: Oh, how very different indeed. President Dwayne Elizondo Mountain Dew Herbert Camacho is the five-time Ultimate Smackdown Wrestling champion, a porn superstar, speaks with as much profanity and insults as the average American, and is only slightly smarter than everybody else. This makes for an especially hilarious teleprompter crawl.
Carl’s Jr. (the most common or popular portion size is ‘Extra Big-Ass’, such as their fries, and whose motto has devolved into “Fuck you, I'm eating!”);
Fuddruckers (shown devolving into … well, use your imagination, but is actually one of the few businesses to keep their function as a burger place);
Costco (grown to the size of a small city, with its own subway system and law school). “Welcome to Costco. I love you”;
Crocs shoes (for prisoners);
Fox News Channel (which is still a news network, but having devolved into pure entertainment, with its newscasters dressed like porn stars);
Starbucks, H&R Block, and several other places have become brothels.
In fact, it seems that in the future, parents will name their kids after food companies: Joe’s lawyer is Frito, the president’s middle name is Mountain Dew, and there’s even a reporter named Velveeta. And one named Formica. Essentially every named character from the future has some kind of Product Placement in their name.
One Cabinet member constantly drops ad slogans into his normal conversation, because they pay him each time he says it.
Brought to you by Carl’s Jr.
Additionally, all clothes consist entirely of logos (usually foods).
Then there are misspellings, that seem to accumulate over time due to mankind getting stupider. To list them, they are Buttfuckers, Nas-Tea, Uhmerican Exxxpress and St<A>r8ucks, along with some others.
Reactive Continuous Scream: When Justin Long’s character realizes that Joe is an “unscannable”, while Joe is freaking out about realizing how long he’s been frozen.
Reasonable Authority Figure: Relative to the typical citizen of 2505, President Dwayne Elizondo Mountain Dew Herbert Camacho is intelligent, eloquent, and unselfish. He sentences Joe to “rehabilitation” because he needs to quell the riots, but quickly pulls Joe out once it’s revealed that the plan to restore the crops is succeeding.
Ridiculous Future Inflation: Fridge Brilliance that this probably happened, not as a side effect of poor economic management, but as an intentional choice so that everybody can be amazed at how they have millions of dollars.
Ridiculously Average Guy: Joe was chosen for the Human Hibernation Project specifically because he is exactly this. Heavily lampshaded, as Collins describes this fact as “remarkable,” and proceeds to show a series of graphs, with Joe exactly at the midpoint in every one.
Rule of Funny: It is just not scientifically accurate (and if it were it would be advocating eugenics). It does not have to be. It is a comedy, and it is funny.
Salt the Earth: Not the result of malice, but stupidity. A Gatorade Captain Ersatz got a law passed at some point to make the farmers spray their crops with their sports drink, because it has “electrolytes,” which is “what plants crave.” For those not quite scientifically savvy enough to see the mistake (they sure as hell didn’t), the electrolytes in sports drinks are salts dissolved in water.
Scannable Man: Joe is involuntarily tattooed with a bar code on his wrist.
Share the Male Pain: A rare aversion, as the most popular TV show in the future involves a man being slammed in the crotch over and over.
Show Within a Show: The aforementioned Ow, My Balls and Monday Night Rehabilitation, and the multiple-Academy Award-winning film (including Best Screenplay) Ass.
Shout Out: The female Cabinet member’s outfit looks suspiciously like Cutey Honey’s.
Shown Their Work: Surprisingly for a film like this one, the Presidential RV has the number “28000”, which is the real-life tail registration number of Air Force One.
Silent Bob: Beef Supreme, one of the "corrections personnel" on Monday Night Rehabilitation.
Too Dumb to Live: Pretty much everyone, to the extent that Fridge Logic has you asking how they do. Several scenes imply that the culture has been coasting on everyone’s lifestyle being heavily automated.
At the same time, several scenes also imply that they were about to starve to death (and maybe be buried in their own garbage) before Joe rescued them.
Or maybe because humans are such Explosive Breeders that the birth rate surpasses the ‘death-by-stupidity’ rate.
Unusual Euphemism: Nearly every business will somehow become a brothel and use whatever product it was once known for as euphemisms. For example, Starbucks has ‘lattes,’ which are now handjobs.
“Hey! Wanna go ‘Family-Style’?”
Wafer Thin Mint: A truck adds to a massive pile of garbage. It gets compressed, but stays intact; then a single can falls out of the truck, triggering an avalanche dozens of meters high.
What Happened to the Mouse?: Rita’s pimp, Upgrayedd. A post-credits stinger shows that Upgrayedd was put in stasis as well, and awakes to go and find Rita.
You Have to Believe Me: The newscast describes Joe as saying this, presumably trying to tell the court that he’s woken up from a centuries-long cryogenic sleep, but they just mock him.
Violence Channel correspondent Formica Davis: Well it started off boring and slow, with Not Sure trying to bullshit everyone with a bunch of smart-talk! “Blah blah blah, you gotta belieeeve me!” That part of the trial sucked!
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