The more we learn about Amos (let’s be real, it’s new to me), the more I’m reminded of a 2006 movie called Idiocracy. By most standards, it’s at best, a B movie and I’m pretty sure it went straight to video, seeing the insides of minimal big screens at best. How I stumbled on it is beyond me, but I saw it fairly soon after it’s release.
If you’ve never seen Idiocracy before, here’s the trailer.
It’s about a guy who is sent to the future, and finds himself in shock at a nation completely sponsored and dumbed down. Advertisements splatter ridiculous tv shows to the point that the actual show is a corner of the tv screen. Fashion is all clothes with advertisements. The food pyramid is sponsored by Starbucks, Carls, Jr., and a new brand called Brawndo. And the president is a wrestler who proudly shoots off a semi-automatic gun in his speeches.
It’s completely absurd. And yet seven years later, I see Idiocracy creeping in and happening right before us with our food, our ridiculous red herring debates over social justices, dumbing down our nations middle and lower class, and the advertisements & reality shows. Those ads streaming across my screen, the nonsense “news” crawlers, the over stimulating screens of ESPN, MSNBC, and Fox to name a few – but they’re not the only ones.
The good news is that I’m quietly fighting the Idiocracy man. I don’t watch tv nor do I watch the news. I’m doing a lot of that for my kids. When we eat junk, watch what I refer to as stupid tv, when we become underslept or overstimulated with technology, there is an immediate mood swing in my house. Max picks fights with Lucy who can’t let anything just drop. They seem to be blinded with all that flashing on the tv and the sugar they’ve just ingested and can’t see the wet towels they’re stepping over on the floor, or the cluttered kitchen, or all the rest of their random stuff all over the place.
And suddenly, I’m the sermon series graphic design Amos with red hair and my mommy-megaphone. Shouting out all of the injustices of my nasty home and bad attitudes.
The response of my kids when they have a spinach smoothie for breakfast and read a book is overwhelmingly different than the one when they’ve just had cake and soda and have watched tv for an hour (or 3 hours, whatever, I’m guilty of allowing it).
I’ve joked a time or two that us moms and rappers have a lot in common. We’re all fightin the man. (Different men, but you get it.) We both feel oppressed. Both embracing our culture (I just love being a mom, kind of a culture) and yet shouting to fight the culture we’ve been cornered into (as a consumer, a woman, a mom). It’s the same for rappers, right?
Rappers & HipHop artists are literally screaming at us. Yes, it’s awful imagery and words. It’s their experience. It’s their version of that sermon series graphic design of Amos with a megaphone screaming: LISTEN to the crazy injustices going on over here!
The beauty of Idiocracy is it’s an absurd prophesy of what will happen if we keep living like we do in some areas. So, I start to think of how I can be a social justice crusader. I start at home, with my kids.
So, this week, I fell in love with this song:
For more intricate points of the movie, check this article out about the 11 Secrets of Idiocracy. http://www.11points.com/Movies/11_Hidden_Secrets_in_Idiocracy
Leslie is a blogger for Darkwood Brew. She’s had her own blog for 8 years – www.momontherocks.com, chronicling the crazy moments of mommyhood. She also has a column in HerFamily, a local Omaha Magazine. When she’s not writing, she’s laughing and/or eating with her very tall family: husband, Chris, and twins, Max and Lucy.
