Classics: Idiocracy - 20th Anniversary

What if an ordinary man suddenly turned out to be the cleverest person in the world? In Idiocracy by Mike Judge, the creator of Beavis and Butt-Head and Office Space, Joe Bauers (Luke Wilson) takes part in a secret Pentagon experiment. He is accidentally frozen for 500 years and wakes up in a world where humanity has certainly not become any cleverer.

On the contrary: popular culture is the norm, advertising dictates daily life, and intelligence is largely seen as something elitist and irritating. Judge turns it into a light-hearted, absurdist comedy that is far cleverer than it appears at first glance. This is certainly true of President Terry Camacho, a boisterous showman who seems to view his presidency primarily as entertainment.

The resemblance to Donald Trump is sometimes striking: both turn politics into a spectacle in which personality, popularity and grand statements seem more important than substance. It is precisely for this reason that, twenty years on, Idiocracy unfortunately feels less like a futuristic fantasy and more like a surprisingly topical satire.