American Absurdism

Idiocracy

Southland Tales

Greetings and salutations, dear readers. I hope you’re settling into this unsettling year as best as possible, and I hope you’ve gotten some rest before returning to work/school/the real world that exists beyond the time vortexes that we call “the holidays.” Like many people I’ve heard from lately, I’ve entered 2024 feeling crazier, kookier, and more unhinged than ever, so I thought a double feature that reflected this bizarro sense of bewilderment would be more than fitting. I look around at our (particularly American) society, and can’t help laughing and crying at the strangeness of it all. We had four years of a reality tv personality (I won’t dare call him a “star”) for president that resulted in a deadly pandemic, a further lowering of the bar for politicians and governmental authority, and a general cultural consciousness of boredom, ambivalence, and fear. The rich keep getting richer, the poor keep getting poorer, and in the wake of each devastating war, mass shooting, and random act of legislative violence, we hardly have time to process our trauma before being inundated with another. My sense of time is so far out of wack, I think 2019 is the last year that I remember clearly, and it wasn’t even a good year—and yet it was still better than the year to follow. Is my generation the first to feel hopeless? Is this moment in time the first occurrence of seismically weird vibes? For better or worse, both of tonight’s films proved that the answer is no—humanity has always been perplexed by our own absurdity, on levels small and large, with consequences both benign and catastrophic. Week before last we observed some apocalyptic cinema, last week we delved into the cocky American obsession with sports, and tonight, I’d like to explore a double feature that could easily be the offspring of those two subgenres—a nihilistic realm of Western satire that I’m calling: American Absurdism. Much like tonight’s films, it’s tricky to nail down the precise tone, intention, and effects of American Absurdism, but if you’ve ever set foot in America, if you’ve ever watched Fox News, if you’ve ever witnessed the confidence of a frat boy or an impeached president on trial, you’ll get the gist of what I’m describing. Up first is a film that I’d only previously seen bits and pieces of, a Mike Judge film from 2006 called Idiocracy. Idiocracy follows US Army librarian Joe Bauers (Luke Wilson), an average everyman so average, he’s the perfect specimen for a risky government experiment. Along with a sex worker named Rita (Maya Rudolph), Joe is frozen in a hibernation tank, and is to be awakened exactly one year later. But when the officer in charge of the experiment is caught running an underground prostitution ring with Rita’s pimp, he is arrested, and the experiment is abandoned. Joe and Rita lie unconscious in their hibernation tanks for years and decades and centuries—the state of the world around them steadily deteriorating. Instead of a violent or sudden apocalyptic event, Mike Judge’s version of dystopia is likely more accurate, as we witness the downfall of intelligence, integrity, logic, reason, empathy, humanity, etc. All of the world’s most intelligent people remain childless for decades upon centuries, while the less-intelligent population of the world just keeps pumping out dumb babies. Scientists dedicate their time and resources to solving hair loss and erectile dysfunction. Piles of trash evolve into mountains and skyscrapers of garbage. And the English language has “deteriorated into a hybrid of hillbilly, valley girl, inner-city slang, and various grunts”—a very dated and harsh explanation that certainly gets the point across, as the movie does as a whole. The year is now 2505, and an avalanche at the tallest garbage pile results in Joe and Rita’s hibernation tanks to be thrust across what used to be Washington DC—resulting in their very late awakening. Joe is astonished by what he sees: garbage and disorder everywhere, advertising and product placements on nearly every screen and surface that exists, slot machines where you can “win” healthcare, a chain previously known as “Fuddrucker’s” has become “Buttfucker’s”, Starbucks is now some kind of sex market, and all drinking water has been replaced with a Gatorade-like substance called “Brawndo”. Intelligence, decency, coherency are no longer valued in society, low-brow entertainment and overconsumption rule the world, along with President Camacho (Terry Crews) With a neglected economy, a never-ending dust storm, a declining food supply, and a surplus of impoverished people, it’s up to Joe and Rita to save the future so that they can get back to their blissful past. At least, that’s the plan. What actually happens is a lot wilder and wackier than a simple time-travel story, and what is conveyed is more than just a left-leaning critique of non-intellectuals and a government filled to the brim with idiots. Idiocracy is a terrifyingly prophetic cautionary tale about the effects of willful ambivalence and ignorance. In many ways, the reality of Idiocracy’s imagined-future is far less violent and stupid than the real-present we’re currently living in, the only slice of kudos I’ll give our current reality is that we haven’t switched out water for sports drinks—just yet. Luke Wilson is the perfect average joe everyman type, and Maya Rudolph is radiant and hilarious as Rita—albeit a bit under-utilized. The entirety of this cast is absurd and talented, with cameos from: Dax Shepard, (my baby) Justin Long, Stephen Root, David Herman, Patrick Fischler, Turk Pipkin, Randal Reeder, Thomas Haden Church, Tom Kenny, and Andrew Wilson (the oldest, and HOTTEST, of the Wilson Brothers) plays a character named Beef Supreme. All of the characters in this film are too ridiculous to make note of, as were all of the visual gags, pun names, and mild exaggerations of our already over-consuming, overstimulated society. I am a massive Mike Judge fan, from Office Space to King of the Hill to Beavis and Butthead, in my opinion he is one of the greatest writers of the twenty-first century—especially in terms of his accuracy in capturing the American ethos (or lack thereof) at various points in time. The cynicism of Office Space and the hopefulness of King of the Hill somehow both feel like a warm hug of recognition, and that’s what I expected from Idiocracy. And while I laughed (perhaps too much) at the inappropriate and very outdated humor of Idiocracy, what I didn’t feel was that same sense of recognition. I know it’s an impossibly high bar to set for a comedy of this era—to want intelligent humor about stupidity—but Mike Judge is one of the creators who set this bar so high. While King of the Hill manages to give respect and love to its humdrum hillbilly cast, I didn’t feel as much love in Idiocracy. In fact, up until the end of this movie, it sort of felt like a criticism of its sweetest, dumbest characters. There’s a small-mindedness that can exist within everyone, regardless of education or understanding of satire, that exists on every part of the political spectrum. And my fear with Idiocracy, is that enough small-minded people would see it and either take offense to its depiction of perceived stupidity, or worse, they may believe the film is not about them at all. Watching this film nearly two decades later is real mindfuck, because not only are we currently living in this kind of dystopia, it sort of feels like we “survived” the dystopia and we still never learned from our mistakes. Truthfully, my frustration with Idiocracy comes from a larger frustration with the state of the actual world, and the fact that 2006’s idea of the future is still kinder and more hopeful than the future we’ve arrived at. Another mindfuck of a movie that evokes similar feelings from anxious film critics like myself, is the 2006 dystopian dark comedy by Donnie Darko’s Richard Kelly: Southland Tales. If Idiocracy’s dystopia seemed like the disorganized and heavy-handed ramblings of your well-meaning Aunt who watches The Simpsons, then Southland Tales could be the rant of her chaotic but still well-meaning offspring who watches South Park. Southland Tales makes Idiocracy’s premise seem quaint, believable, and completely coherent, as it follows several characters, all with different motives and motivations, all at varying levels of likability and cogency. Richard Kelly had already begun writing Southland Tales before 9/11 occurred, but this event prompted him to tweak his story significantly. We begin in the then-present day 2005, where a Fourth of July party bears witness to a horrific nuclear attack. Two years later, in the then-distant future, the disorienting effects of this attack has resulted in the expansion of the PATRIOT Act into a new sect of the US gov called “USIDENT”, who is constantly surveilling and censoring humanity—even requiring fingerprints to access the internet and bank accounts. With the fuel supplies of the American war machine running low, the US gov partners with a German company called Treer, who developed an alternative, inexhaustible energy source propelled by the natural currents of the ocean called “Fluid Karma”. But what the government hasn’t revealed is the fact that their new energy source alters the ocean’s current and has caused Earth to slow its rotation—resulting a rip in the fabric of the space-time continuum. These are the discernible, somewhat clear facts of “The Southland”, the title that Southern Californians have given their new, surveilled, shaky reality. We follow the stories of several locals: Boxer Santaros (Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson) an action star with amnesia, Krysta Now (Sarah Michelle Gellar) a pornstar on the brink of a rebrand, Madeline Frost (Mandy Moore) the daughter of a very important senator and the wife of Boxer, Roland and Ronald Taverner (Seann William Scott) identical twin brothers who become pawns in a giant government conspiracy, and Pilot Abilene (Justin Timberlake) an Iraq War veteran who narrates the entire story—although his country accent was so dainty I was certain a woman was narrating the entire time. We also follow several neo-Marxists running the Venice Beach underground resistance like Nora Dunn, Amy Poehler, Wood Harris, and Cheri Oteri. Wallace Shawn, Jon Lovitz, Zelda Rubinstein, Beth Grant, Janeane Garofalo, Will Sasso, Miranda Richardson, Bai Ling, Kevin Smith, Christopher Lambert, Holmes Osbourne, Curtis Armtrong and Eli Roth all make cameos small and significant here, and there’s no easy way for me to explain how they play a role in these complex, intertwining, somewhat contradictory stories because there is no easy way to explain this movie. It is one of the most ambitious films I’ve ever seen, as it attempts to craft a tapestry of post-9/11 paranoia, sex-infused capitalism, the military industrial complex, the push for infotainment vs education, and the coldness of humanity even in the pursuit of humanity. Southland Tales is about as concise as I am, clocking in at two hours and thirty-eight minutes, and even with the consistent-break-neck pace and jarring disseminating of information, you feel every bit of those almost-three hours. Even with its excellently mopey soundtrack, Cheri Oteri constantly calling people “cock fuckers”, and Sarah Michelle Gellar playing an insightful and philosophical pornstar, I found it hard to maintain my focus and comprehension of this film. My notes while watching this movie are probably about as sane and intelligible as the script of Southland Tales—all I can make out is a quote of Sarah Michelle Gellar’s Krysta: “we’re a bisexual nation living in denial, all because of a bunch of nerds”, and as the years go on, I’d say she’s pretty spot-on. All of its critiques and commentaries seemed to come with decent intentions, but not enough of a sense of direction. And similarly to Idiocracy, the terrifying reality we’re currently living in makes it somewhat difficult to accept Southland Tales’ absurdism as truly absurd—which is no fault of either movie, only society itself. I felt so overstimulated and overwhelmed by both of tonight’s films if I’m being honest, which makes me think a rewatch will be necessary—to fully appreciate and comprehend each respective vision—but I won’t be doing that for a LONG time. Southland Tales was a flop both critically and commercially, and Idiocracy was basically completely hidden by its distributors at 20th Century Fox, but now both have garnered significant cult followings, as well as recent reexaminations of their disturbingly prophetic qualities. I’ve exhausted all of my thoughts for these (only somewhat) absurd imaginings of absurdist America, and I’m sure I’ve exhausted you by making you read all of this, but I hope you are at least somewhat intrigued by these flimsy but fun films. Now go off, fellow patriots, and enjoy our absurd world while it’s still spinning.