The creator of Idiocracy, a film set in the year 2505 of a dystopian America completely run by idiots and Carl’s Jr., believes the movie was too optimistic that the United States would even make it that far into the future.
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In a feature with The New York Times Magazine, Mike Judge, who also created such American cult classics as Beavis & Butthead and Office Space, said he wasn’t sure that America would even exist by 2505, making an obvious shot to the election and presidency of Donald Trump.
Throughout the 2016 campaign, jokes and memes were created in reference to Idiocracy about how the film is truer to the current day rather than 500 years in the future. Etan Cohen, the film’s screenwriter, wrote on Twitter that he never expected Idiocracy to become a documentary.
I never expected #idiocracy to become a documentary.
— Etan Cohen (@etanjc) February 24, 2016
Idiocracy didn’t perform very well in the box office, and it only debuted in theaters in seven cities across the U.S.
“He was [expletive] ahead of his time. As always. As always,” Tom Rothman, chairman of Sony Pictures, said about Judge and Idiocracy, which was released in 2006.
Judge responded, “I should’ve made it 10 years later and set in the present.”
Apart from the many hilarious references in the film, Carl’s Jr. seems to control everything, and even sponsored the Secretary of State. Another dose of Idiocracy came when Trump nominated Carl’s Jr. CEO Andy Puzder to be the Secretary of Labor. He withdrew his name after reports that he abused his ex-wife surfaced.
Above all other jokes in the film, however, is the sitting President of the United States, Dwayne Elizondo Mountain Dew Herbert Camacho (portrayed by Terry Crews), a former professional wrestler and porn actor. He flips off his political opponents, rides a pimped out Harley, and fires his assault rifle like he’s banging a gavel to hush Congress. It’s a prescient reference to Donald Trump, who made several appearances at wrestling events at the WWE (and received a Stone Cold Stunner) as well as appeared in a “nonpornographic segment of an otherwise soft-core Playboy VHS tape” dumping sparkling wine into a limousine.
Not all of the jokes were political and referred to Trump. One of the best bits to come from Judge’s feature described how the sense of humor of most Americans have become rudimentary. Take this excerpt for example:
He turned to his director of photography and wondered aloud why they were even bothering with “Idiocracy.” Couldn’t they just release this?
