Brawndo, It's Got Electrolytes. It's What Plants Crave

"This week's film blogs have been left aghast as Mike Judge's grotesque fictional energy drink Brawndo from the movie Idiocracy became a reality. To recap: Fox wouldn't support a film about Brawndo, the energy drink that destroys plants, debases the human race, and makes those who drink it 'win at yelling' but they are now putting wholehearted support behind the actual drink?" And if you haven't seen Idiocracy, you are missing out. It is the smartest stupid movie I've seen. Whoever did production design on that thing deserves an Oscar.

Idiocracy

[opec]

I had to be dragged kicking and screaming into watching Idiocracy. I thought it would be another bland, generic comedy full of juvenile humor and low jabs at the government.

Now I tell everyone that they must go and see it. Mike Judge is a genius when it comes to social commentary (see also: Beavis and Butthead, Office Space, King of the Hill). He has really corrected (distorted?) my view of our sinking-ship society.

Well shit.

[Internet Ronin]

Now I'm scared.

I mean, talk about missing the point Fox. I mean, seriously, the movie is about rampant commercialism destroying society because people are gradually becoming too stupid to resist more insistent and clever marketing tactics, and now they're rolling out Brawndo?

I mean, WTF, I hope no one that saw Idiocracy goes and buys this, because it's contributing money to the very thing the movie was preaching against. Now we've only got to wait until the U.S. government endures a financial crisis (whoops) and then Fox can attempt to buoy the FCC and FDA and buy them out, and we're looking at the degradation of the world. Of society.

I always wondered if the other countries in the world had devolved as much as America had in the movie, maybe it's time to consider a change of scenery.

Re:Well shit.

[DaedalusHKX]

Ahhh, but therein lies the problem, lack of proper education, and yet we keep paying teachers more, even though all they do is teach obedience in schools, and listening to authority, but they don't teach proper survival skills, neither in the wild nor in the concrete jungles that we call "modern society."

That leads me to believe that perhaps the problem isn't having watchdogs to "protect us from rampant commercialism" but perhaps we should have the ability to judge for ourselves what we NEED and what we WANT and how best to achieve it... but that would involve freedom, liberty and less control by others over our lives.

Not likely to happen anytime soon if the majority has its say.

Re:Well shit.

[NMerriam]

I mean, talk about missing the point Fox. I mean, seriously, the movie is about rampant commercialism destroying society because people are gradually becoming too stupid to resist more insistent and clever marketing tactics, and now they're rolling out Brawndo?

I had the same reaction years ago when The Running Man had been popular, and some TV executive saw this post-apocalyptic movie about jingoistic, themed-warrior reality TV combat and thought "gosh, that IS a great idea!". American Gladiators was on for what, 5 or 6 years? At least they didn't actually kill the contestants.

Re:The film focused my fears into a productive act

[Anonymous Coward]

Why not just sterilize all the dumb people?

No one has found a genetic link to intelligence yet, 'Idiocracy' is just a movie.

You can breed for other characteristics though, we all know blond haired blue eyed people are the master race.

Re:Idiocracy

[0100010001010011]

If nothing else when at a friend's house I tell them they have to watch the first 15 minutes. I have numerous engineering friends, peope who fit the description of the couple that never had kids.

Usually they're hooked after that.

Re:The medical center scene...

[CrazyDuke]

I keep watching that Trevor (IQ: 138) & Carol (IQ: 141) versus Clevon (IQ: 84) scene at the begining over and over. It's so true, it's scary.

Re:Economics of this stupid decision

[Mex]

I'm not american but from the episodes I saw of "America's funniest home videos", was't it pretty much "Ow! My Balls!" ?

Alternately, you could just dial a random video in Youtube...

Re:Nothing. beats. the. great. taste. of. Slurm.

[Anonymous Coward]

Sorry, the second video [youtube.com] is much better than the first and I would suggest skipping the first all together. Both of these movies are made by the same person featured in the summary. The summary video isn't as good as this so-called "second video" is.

Re:Hey slashdot

[brxndxn]

ROFL.. that's from the movie, stupid mods.

Re:I'm so shallow

[jamstar7]

I'm thinking it wouldn't last more than 6 or 7 episodes. WAY too intellectual for most of FOX's audience.

Re:Economics of this stupid decision

[Anonymous Coward]

> Coming soon: "Ow! My Balls!" on your local Fox affiliate.

Hit up YouTube and look for a TV show called "Maximum Exposure", or "Max-X". It's as close to "Ow! My Balls!" as I've ever seen. It's basically America's Funniest Home Videos combined with fire/flood/disaster/riot/sporting event footage, and a commentator from Idiocracy. "Now watch this dude. He's walking along the seawall with his buddies, and he doesn't see the wave behind him. But heyy-- the wave sees him! Boom! And he's sucked out to sea! Now he's in a pickle. What are his buddies gonna do to save him? Oh, they're gonna jump in after him. With friends like these... but fortunately, one of his buddies was smart enough to stay on shore and call for help... The cops show up and haul everyone in. We'll be back with more bone-crushing, shirt-soaking mayhem after these messages! (Hey! They're our sponsors! Buy their stuff!)"

"Whacked-out sports" is probably done by the same company, but somehow it's not the same laughing at skateboarders and dirt bikers... even though there's more testicular crunching in the sports show, what puts Max-X over the top is that they apply the same attitude to everything from self-darwinning stuntmen to riots, fires, and real disasters.

Re:Idiocracy

[Neoprofin]

I rushed to see it because I love Judge's other work and really enjoyed the premise of it.

I was sorely disappointed with the movie however. For me the laugh potential of a fat redneck say "he talks faggy" is one, sadly the line was repeated roughly every ten minutes. The social commentary is fine, we can all see the Costco with a thousand aisles, but from all the hype it got from people I know about being hilarious I just didn't see it.

Who's forcing him to be a computer teacher...

[DaedalusHKX]

And not a computer scientist? Nobody's forcing him to stay in that job. If he was good enough to teach, he could have gone and also done the "computer scientist" job, but he / she didn't. Why not? Its called RISK AVERSION... otherwise known as fear of uncertainty. Having to provide goods rather than just preach a doctrine is different. I got ahead in business and left no dead bodies behind. I even like to believe that some of my former underlings did better for themselves than I and my family did. I'm happy for them, and I begrudge them nothing for being more successful. Why? Because I'm sane. I got my piece of land, and I'll get more some day later, but I got enough for the time being and I'm happy to share it with those I love.

I wasn't risk averse, and it was a hard fought road, but a damn fun one. Teachers are risk averse, their jobs are ALWAYS safe since the state has criminalized not patronizing their services. They don't really teach anything that good (short of shop and driver's ed) even their "sex education" is poorly taught. I learned more from my first girlfriend than I ever did from 4 semesters worth of Health and Sex Ed. There is no substitute for experience and the adventurous spirit, but those lacking it will always demonize those having it, and will seek means of force to prevent and indoctrinate the adventurers. Call it the "tyranny of good intentions."

Frankly I only had 3 or 4 teachers whom I'd consider worth paying for what they taught. And in retrospect, I recall that one of them did it almost pro-bono for a college, she was actually a COMPUTER SCIENTIST, and taught only so she could get credentials to put on her resume. She made her money designing targetting systems for missiles. Interesting? I doubt it. Yet another individual I came to respect because she didn't suck on the government tit. She actually PRODUCED, and I came out of her class with more knowledge than at most of the bigger colleges. Course I took her classes while I was mostly still in high school and out of Advanced Placement (Honors) classes to take, but that's aside from the main point. She was a capitalist, held that OSS is a good idea for those who not only consume it but also contribute to it, but that people should also be able to procure the things they want with the things they know how to do.

Re:Well shit.

[evilviper]

I hope no one that saw Idiocracy goes and buys this, because it's contributing money to the very thing the movie was preaching against.

As opposed to buying the movie itself... which contributes money to the very thing the movie was preaching against?

Re:Hilarious movie.

[ChromeAeonium]

One thing I'd like to point out about the intro is that it's just that: an intro to a movie. Nothing more. As a Trevor type who descended from a Clevon type, I find it sad that so many people are so ignorant of genetics/sociology (and full of themselves, like Wonder Gamete here [slashdot.org]) to believe that the 'idiots' are going to overpopulate and subsequently take over the world unless the 'smart' people do something about it. Lamarckian evolution was proved false long ago; just because a group of people isn't educated and therefore doesn't make use of their intelligence does not mean that their children will be stupid. They're just more likely to go uneducated and continue the cycle. What I'm saying is, it's nothing a little education couldn't cure, and even if nothing is done about it, intelligent people will never die out, they'll just rise up from 'unintelligent' sources.
/soapbox.

Re:Well shit.

[nine-times]

Ahhh, but therein lies the problem, lack of proper education, and yet we keep paying teachers more...

Wait... are you actually suggesting that teachers are over-paid? In most places that I've been or even heard about, teachers barely make a livable wage. If anything, it's a problem that it's hard to attract and keep good teachers because they're paid poorly and mistreated by principals (and other school bureaucrats) and parents (who refuse to believe that their little darling has ever been anything but perfect). And part of the reason kids never get a chance to learn anything but "obedience" is because class sizes are way too big (sometimes as much as 35 kids to a teacher). The teacher doesn't have time to do anything except try to keep the classroom under control.

If we paid teachers decently, if parents got involved in their kids educations, and if we had 15-20 kids per class, you'd see a huge difference in our education system from that alone.

perhaps we should have the ability to judge for ourselves what we NEED and what we WANT and how best to achieve it

In case you don't understand, the problem some people have with "commercialism" (consumerism) is the fact that it's inherently filled with grand efforts to prevent people from using their own judgment. We're constantly being inundated with attempts to brainwash us. I know, it sounds like a conspiracy theory, but read up sometime on advertising/marketing/PR theory, and you'll see that it's pretty scary stuff. They all aim at making false unconscious connections between positive feelings and the product/person/company that they're trying to sell. Advertisers have even spent a lot of time studying cults and fascist regimes in order to mimic their methods.

Really, it's even public knowledge, if you care to study it. So in order to educate people properly and allow them to exercise good judgment, we may have to take some steps to reduce the influence of these brainwashing techniques.

Re:You're wrong, Taco

[SocialEngineer]

I can't believe that all these people REALLY go for this movie.

There are so many asinine holes in the logic regarding the near sub-human intelligence that it just plain isn't interesting. Who the hell fixes the cars? How do they DRIVE the cars? They have enough trouble with menial tasks that it makes no sense that the society in the movie actually survives.

That, and the inane love story reminds me of Adam Sandler movies.

I'm with you. The movie is worthless as commentary. Give me A Clockwork Orange, or Soylent Green any day.

Overreacting much?

[enjo13]

I actually think the whole thing is quite awesome. It's a fun way to commemorate a movie I enjoyed quite a bit. This isn't a sign of the imminent fall of civilization, it's a silly movie tie-in drink.

Christ, get some perspective.

Re:Hilarious movie.

[ultramk]

I have to both agree and disagree. While education is certainly the largest facet of an individual's "intelligence," it isn't everything. It is not unreasonable to assume that at least part of an individual's intellectual potential is inherited.

We have all known people who were given every opportunity, every advantage in life, and still ended up stupid as a post. Hell, we breed dogs for various traits--personality and intelligence being two of them--why should we assume that we're immune to the same thing?

Re:Hilarious movie.

[boyko.at.netqos]

You know, I'd love to see an evolutionary biologist's detailed take on why this isn't so.

Re:Hilarious movie.

[moco]

I had the same reaction originally. But then, just imagine for a moment that the genetic origin of stupidity is substituted for a social/cultural origin. A society/culture that consistently rewards dumb actions while frowns uppon smart ones. The movie's point is still valid, isn't it? In that sense, the genetics part is just a vehicle for the movie to present a "how we got there" in a funny way.

Re:Don't blame the teachers

[RicoX9]

If you think that any teachers work from 7am until 11pm more than once in their entire career you must be deranged.

I was married to a HS teacher for 17 yrs. Most teachers DO work 12 hr days. In the week or 2 leading up to midterms/exams, they turn int 16+ hr days. The last 2 weeks of school it was 20 hr days.

I hate the bitch for cheating on me and breaking up our marriage, but credit where credit is due - Most teachers are hard working, dedicated people. You have to LOVE the job to put up with the BS. I saw many people come, work a semester, then tell the administration they would not be returning for the next semester. They also spend a significant amount of their breaks readying for the next term or year.

You are the one deranged. They don't print enough money to get me to work as hard and put up with as much crap as they do.

Re:Idiocracy

[ucblockhead]

Having everyone refer to normal relatively intelligently spoken English as "talking faggy" was part of the social commentary.

Just browse at -1 here to see what it refers to.

Re:Hilarious movie.

[ucblockhead]

Definitely. I sincerely doubt Judge actually believes the plot point. It's merely a convenient way for him to make fun of what's stupid in *this* society.

The language is the best part of the movie. I love the pseudo-"cops" jargon from all the police, and the doctor's speech is one of the funniest things on film.

Re:Hilarious movie.

[a_nonamiss]

I believe I have a reasonably strong understanding of genetics, and I'd like to disagree with your premise. Yes, there is definitely an education component involved, and it's important to acknowledge that, however, intelligence is highly genetic. That doesn't mean you have to have smart parents to be smart, but it does mean that your level of intelligence is highly affected by what genetic ingredients you have in you. Remember 9th grade biology when you studied Mendel's pea plants? It's very possible from two tall plants (dominant) to product a short one. (recessive.) However, both tall plants must posses the recessive short gene. I think the point of the demonstration in the movie is that over long periods of time, that Trevor gene could eventually become less and less prominent, perhaps one day disappearing completely.

Now, I'm not necessarily advocating that we start sterilizing the stupid or anything, but it's incorrect to say that anyone, with the proper education, can become a Trevor. Personally, I believe that we are on a track towards a divergence in our evolution. (if we don't kill ourselves first) I'm talking hundreds or thousands of generations in the future, not anytime soon.

Re:Who's forcing him to be a computer teacher...

[Coryoth]

And not a computer scientist? Nobody's forcing him to stay in that job. If he was good enough to teach, he could have gone and also done the "computer scientist" job, but he / she didn't. Why not? Its called RISK AVERSION... otherwise known as fear of uncertainty. Having to provide goods rather than just preach a doctrine is different.

Right, and by paying teachers not even close to the same sort of salary a competent individual in the field can make, we ensure that the only people who go into teaching are the risk averse and the least competent. The reality is that teachers do have to provide the goods, where the goods are educated students who have developed a good grasp of the material. You can argue (as you do in the rest of your post) that teachers don't do this, and I might well agree with you. But then if you're in the market and the people you hire consistently fail to deliver the goods, what do you do? Ideally you start hiring better people who, though they might cost more, can actually deliver. By saying "teachers do a poor job, so we shouldn't pay them much" you just ensure that the only people who will go into teaching are exactly the risk averse people who are poor teachers -- the position holds limited appeal for anyone else. I'm sorry you didn't have any good teachers. Your experience, does not, however, mean that good teachers don't exist. It simply means that no-one capable of being a good teacher was willing to accept the pay and work conditions of teaching in the sort of high schools you went to...

Re:Where's "Ow, my balls!"?

[Boycott BMG]

ABC already has a show like that. It's called America's Funniest Home Videos.

Re:The medical center scene...

[Hucko]

You're right. I'm sick of our society pouring insane amounts of energy and money into non-productive endeavors such as sports. It is ludicrous!

Re:The medical center scene...

[Anonymous Coward]

Intelligence is our defining trait. It's the reason we matter. There's no shortage of animals who are stronger, faster, more vicious, or faster breeders. Sure, lots of random sports fucks spent just as much time as I did getting better, the difference is while it's unlikely I'll contribute anything to our civilization, they never can because what they do is utterly useless. If we could somehow exchange a hundred Barry Bonds for one more Stephen Hawking, we'd be crazy not to.

Re: brains and genes

[drwho]

It can be shown that native intelligence is heritable to some degree. There's even racial differences in average IQ - with east Asians being the smartest (oh that ought to get me a lot of flack).

But more importantly, is the idea that intelligence is self-selecting. When the stupid choose to have sex with the stupid, they'll also do stupid things during pregnancy (drink Brawndo, for instance), treat their children stupidly (i.e. without enough the proper stimuli) and the combination of genetic inferiority, developmental inferiority, and a society that glamourizes both will create a society that will ruin itself faster than lead pipes ruined Rome.

What I find amazing is that people today choose to be stupid, even as adults who are have a reasonably high IQ. There's huge social pressure to act stupidly.

I could say that humanity is on the cusp of a drastic change, but we've been in a period of drastic change for a while so that sounds a bit stale. But if we can manage to survive the great social upheaval that will accompany a change in energy sources, we will modify the DNA of every living thing. This, coupled with eventual space colonization, is one possible outcome, Idiocracy is another. I don't know which will happen, but things will NOT be as they are now in a century.

It's not supposed to be hilarious

[Weaselmancer]

It's supposed to be sarcastic. It's social commentary.

Re:Idiocracy Test

[Anonymous Coward]

In other words, you and your friends are smarter than everyone else? You could have saved a lot of pixels and just written "I'M SMARTER THAN EVERYONE!"