People think calling Idiocracy a documentary marks them as One of the Smart (i.e. Good) Ones, but tbh it comes off as exactly the opposite. It marks them as
a) lacking all historical context. Do you think every single generation hasn’t complained that the subsequent one isn’t up to snuff? Because if so, I’ve got news for you about, uh, everyone on the planet. If you think that people of Yore sat around reading philosophy instead of literally just making fart jokes constantly, then you should check out this sweet bridge.
b) unwilling to understand that those you call Other have inner lives exactly as complex as yours. Look, Idiocracy is funny - as an explicitly over-the-top comedy. I’m fine watching it in the presence of people who recognize the exaggeration. Calling it a documentary implies that that’s actually what you think of poor people. Laughing at a stereotype that you understand to be a stereotype is one thing. Laughing at it with an undertone of but actually is scary.
Less compassionately, it shows an ignorance of the progress in the fields of genetic selection and engineering, which will probably spike IQ in the latter half of this century.
It’s a problem I see with a lot of political analysis, which seems to imagine that technology will remain constant. I think if one does not have the necessary imagination for that, it hinders their ability to do politics for the future, much less predict the accuracy of idiocracy.