I watched this movie for the first time in years. I was curious if there were any subtle messages that may have flown over my head before. For the most part there isn't a lot of "reading between the lines" to be done with this movie. It's all plainly spelled out. The people of the future are stupid, life is saturated with ads, everything is overly sexualized, etc.
But something I kept getting stuck on were (was?) the tattoos. The tattoo story makes no sense.
After waking up from his pod, the main character, Joe, visits a "doctor". When the doctor sees that Joe doesn't have a tattoo, he freaks the fuck out. Even for these idiots, it's an unreasonable level of panic. In fact, as far as I can tell, it's the only moment in the movie when such dread is shown. These people are otherwise portrayed as having a certain dumb bravado. But the doctor looks absolutely terrified and even cowers in the corner. Why?
After he leaves the hospital, Joe is found by the police and immediately arrested for not having a tattoo (as explained by the narrator). The police take him to a station where he will get one. (In this scene Joe is the only prisoner being personally escorted by an armed officer, as if he's considered to be especially dangerous). This is where things don't add up. If everybody gets a tattoo from childhood then why is there even a machine that can accommodate an adult? (There is a short clip of a baby being fed Brawndo later in the movie and the baby has the barcode tattoo already). Additionally, the tattoo machine describes the tattoo as Joe's "new identity". Why would it say that?
My theory is that there is a group of people that never took the tattoo. These idiot Americans know of them and shit their pants at the thought of them. This fits with what we see in Wells' "The Time Machine" where humanity splits into two different subclasses. One being retarded and the other being skilled hunters. Wells was an Orwell type who was privy to the Jewish plan and wrote about it. It seems the same theme is here in idiocracy but the writers don't want to explore it. Maybe they didn't want to be accused of ripping off Wells, even though they clearly did. Or maybe not. Who knows
I watched this movie for the first time in years. I was curious if there were any subtle messages that may have flown over my head before. For the most part there isn't a lot of "reading between the lines" to be done with this movie. It's all plainly spelled out. The people of the future are stupid, life is saturated with ads, everything is overly sexualized, etc.
But something I kept getting stuck on were (was?) the tattoos. The tattoo story makes no sense.
After waking up from his pod, the main character, Joe, visits a "doctor". When the doctor sees that Joe doesn't have a tattoo, he freaks the fuck out. Even for these idiots, it's an unreasonable level of panic. In fact, as far as I can tell, it's the only moment in the movie when such dread is shown. These people are otherwise portrayed as having a certain dumb bravado. But the doctor looks absolutely terrified and even cowers in the corner. Why?
After he leaves the hospital, Joe is found by the police and immediately arrested for not having a tattoo (as explained by the narrator). The police take him to a station where he will get one. (In this scene Joe is the only prisoner being personally escorted by an armed officer, as if he's considered to be especially dangerous). This is where things don't add up. If everybody gets a tattoo from childhood then why is there even a machine that can accommodate an adult? (There is a short clip of a baby being fed Brawndo later in the movie and the baby has the barcode tattoo already). Additionally, the tattoo machine describes the tattoo as Joe's "new identity". Why would it say that?
My theory is that there is a group of people that never took the tattoo. These idiot Americans know of them and shit their pants at the thought of them. This fits with what we see in Wells' "The Time Machine" where humanity splits into two different subclasses. One being retarded and the other being skilled hunters. Wells was an Orwell type who was privy to the Jewish plan and wrote about it. It seems the same theme is here in idiocracy but the writers don't want to explore it. Maybe they didn't want to be accused of ripping off Wells, even though they clearly did. Or maybe not. Who knows
(post is archived)