3 ms·

i couldn't finish "Don't Look Up", it felt like sitting through a political lecture. all i wanted from a comedy was some laughs.

lionkor 6mo ago
Fair criticism. It was very lecturing. Beyond that, it was also quite funny, but really, there was nothing funny about the end. I don't think it was meant as a comedy.
sidewndr46 6mo ago
I'm in the same category. The film is so awfully written and acted it isn't something that can be watched.
Arodex 6mo ago
Thereby proving the point of the film. Don't look!
soblemprolver 6mo ago
I couldn't finish "Idiocracy" because the underlying eugenics nonsense made me angry enough not to enjoy the comedy anymore. It made me angry because makes the point that natural selection has become ineffective on humans and thus intelligence declines unironically. There is no joke in that - all jokes build upon the assumption of this being true. If it were true, then decline wouldn't have begun in the 19th or 20th century but around the time that property and currencies emerged. But there is no need to disproof this because there is no evidence that it has any truth to it.
- arnorhs 6mo ago
  > It made me angry because makes the point that natural selection has become ineffective on humans and thus intelligence declines unironically. There is no joke in that - all jokes build upon the assumption of this being true. you seem pretty convinced that intelligence plays an important role in natural selection. I'd argue that decisiveness, confidence, looks, social skills all play a more important role. (I'm not saying that's a good thing) I'm interested in understanding your point of view, can you elaborate on what you mean by "There is no joke in that"?
- names_are_hard 6mo ago
  > If it were true, then decline wouldn't have begun in the 19th or 20th century but around the time that property and currencies emerged. Why? Can you elaborate on that? Did the emergence of property and currency cause a negative correlation between intelligence and number of offspring?
  - vintermann 6mo ago
    I think there's so much ill-founded assumptions in eugenics BS that it's hard to know where to start, but as a genealogist, I can personally verify that upper or middle class, wealthier people, presumably the sort eugenicists identify with, clearly had at least a 2-3 generations head start on the demographic transition where I come from. There are other trends, there's always some groups of people who started having fewer kids earlier or later for reasons not obviously related to class - but class is the big one.
- coldtea 6mo ago
  >It made me angry because makes the point that natural selection has become ineffective on humans So it's a documentary? Even the basic reproductive instinct has become "ineffective on humans". >There is no joke in that - all jokes build upon the assumption of this being true No, there are countless jokes in the movie that don't depend about how the world became stupid (be it cultural or genetics or combination) at all. Literally all of them are like that. >If it were true, then decline wouldn't have begun in the 19th or 20th century but around the time that property and currencies emerged. Why, did the movie say it's the result of "property and currencies"? And even if somebody said so, who said it's just about "property and currencies" merely being a thing that starts this decline, and not surpassing some level of development of property and currencies (e.g. late capitalism), which prevents mitigating factors from working?
- cryptonym 6mo ago
  Can't remember in details that part of the film. Was it explicitly eugenics? Otherwise it could be seen as not getting the same education, depending on parental situation.
  - input_sh 6mo ago
    It's in the opening scene, where poor, "low IQ" couple complains about getting another child again by accident while a suburban "high IQ" couple was hesitant to start making children until it was too late (the husband dies). "Low IQ" couple's son grows up into a stupid, sexy jock and it goes on from there for generations. So yes, eugenics was pretty much an integral part of the premise. IQ bubbles even pop up on the screen during those scenes, just to remove any shadow of a doubt.
    - lelanthran 6mo ago
      > So yes, eugenics was pretty much an integral part of the premise. IQ bubbles even pop up on the screen during those scenes, just to remove any shadow of a doubt. Is that really how we use the word "eugenics", though? That scene you refer to explicitly explained that Natural Selection does not necessarily select for intelligence. So while some people are calling it "Eugenics", it's what we more typically call Natural Selection, Evolutionary Pressure, etc. Eugenics implies that the selection criteria was not natural. The scene you mention makes it clear that, in-universe anyway, the selection criteria was entirely natural and not a pressure imposed by humans.
      - input_sh 6mo ago
        I agree that it doesn't explicitly show someone tilting the scales, but that doesn't mean that eugenics are not an integral part of the premise in a "if we don't do something about this, this is what the world will look like" kind of way. I still like the movie, but like with any 20+ years old comedies, I can recognise issues with its premise which would be more-or-less unacceptable today. In 2006... not as much. The future is now, old man!
- gambiting 6mo ago
  That's like being angry at Star wars because the very first title text says "long time ago", and we know humans didn't go into space long time ago duh.
mvdwoord 6mo ago
Same here. There was something feeling so obviously off with Don't Look Up.. for me at least. Idiocracy did not suffer from this.. but Mike Judge is somewhat of an acquired taste I guess.
- mike_hearn 6mo ago
  I never saw it but Scott Alexander's review made it sound like the writers of Don't Look Up were themselves idiots, who wanted to send a political message but couldn't figure out how to do it properly. https://www.astralcodexten.com/p/movie-review-dont-look-up https://www.astralcodexten.com/p/movie-review-dont-look-up
- duskdozer 6mo ago
  To be honest, I think it's about whether someone feels like they are making fun or being made fun of.
coldtea 6mo ago
Then you need to watch comedies made decades ago.
- ndsipa_pomu 6mo ago
  How about the British "Till Death Do Us Part" from the 1960s/70s? That had a similar irony in that people complained about the racist character of Alf Garnett, but the series very much used his bigotism/racism as the butt of the jokes.
- Frieren 6mo ago
  > Then you need to watch comedies made decades ago. Yes. It was nice when corporate taxes were high, xenophobia was seen as something bad, and movies could focus on smaller problems satire. I hope that we go back to the socialist era of the USA with unionization, safety nets and welfare for the working class instead of for billionaires. Movies could just be silly again.
  - coldtea 6mo ago
    Was that supposed to trigger me? Not from there, but I'm in favor of "unionization, safety nets and welfare for the working class instead of for billionaires" and higher corporate taxes! But also I don't think movies aren't silly because they deal with all the "big problems". After all they didn't have a problem making silly movies in eras with far worse problems, social and economic. And they could make hella fun movies on heavy topics just fine (Blazing Saddles and racism for example, or MASH and the Vietnam war - even if nominally about Korea). Modern comedies aren't silly or fun, not because times are troubled, but because they're written as shallow moralizing lectures. Any "caring" is performative. They're also walking on eggshells, and are too polite to have any edge. And then there's the derivative reboots and remakes, which many of them are.

lionkor 6mo ago

Fair criticism. It was very lecturing. Beyond that, it was also quite funny, but really, there was nothing funny about the end. I don't think it was meant as a comedy.

sidewndr46 6mo ago

I'm in the same category. The film is so awfully written and acted it isn't something that can be watched.

Arodex 6mo ago

Thereby proving the point of the film. Don't look!

soblemprolver 6mo ago

I couldn't finish "Idiocracy" because the underlying eugenics nonsense made me angry enough not to enjoy the comedy anymore. It made me angry because makes the point that natural selection has become ineffective on humans and thus intelligence declines unironically. There is no joke in that - all jokes build upon the assumption of this being true. If it were true, then decline wouldn't have begun in the 19th or 20th century but around the time that property and currencies emerged. But there is no need to disproof this because there is no evidence that it has any truth to it.

arnorhs 6mo ago
> It made me angry because makes the point that natural selection has become ineffective on humans and thus intelligence declines unironically. There is no joke in that - all jokes build upon the assumption of this being true. you seem pretty convinced that intelligence plays an important role in natural selection. I'd argue that decisiveness, confidence, looks, social skills all play a more important role. (I'm not saying that's a good thing) I'm interested in understanding your point of view, can you elaborate on what you mean by "There is no joke in that"?
names_are_hard 6mo ago
> If it were true, then decline wouldn't have begun in the 19th or 20th century but around the time that property and currencies emerged. Why? Can you elaborate on that? Did the emergence of property and currency cause a negative correlation between intelligence and number of offspring?
- vintermann 6mo ago
  I think there's so much ill-founded assumptions in eugenics BS that it's hard to know where to start, but as a genealogist, I can personally verify that upper or middle class, wealthier people, presumably the sort eugenicists identify with, clearly had at least a 2-3 generations head start on the demographic transition where I come from. There are other trends, there's always some groups of people who started having fewer kids earlier or later for reasons not obviously related to class - but class is the big one.
coldtea 6mo ago
>It made me angry because makes the point that natural selection has become ineffective on humans So it's a documentary? Even the basic reproductive instinct has become "ineffective on humans". >There is no joke in that - all jokes build upon the assumption of this being true No, there are countless jokes in the movie that don't depend about how the world became stupid (be it cultural or genetics or combination) at all. Literally all of them are like that. >If it were true, then decline wouldn't have begun in the 19th or 20th century but around the time that property and currencies emerged. Why, did the movie say it's the result of "property and currencies"? And even if somebody said so, who said it's just about "property and currencies" merely being a thing that starts this decline, and not surpassing some level of development of property and currencies (e.g. late capitalism), which prevents mitigating factors from working?
cryptonym 6mo ago
Can't remember in details that part of the film. Was it explicitly eugenics? Otherwise it could be seen as not getting the same education, depending on parental situation.
- input_sh 6mo ago
  It's in the opening scene, where poor, "low IQ" couple complains about getting another child again by accident while a suburban "high IQ" couple was hesitant to start making children until it was too late (the husband dies). "Low IQ" couple's son grows up into a stupid, sexy jock and it goes on from there for generations. So yes, eugenics was pretty much an integral part of the premise. IQ bubbles even pop up on the screen during those scenes, just to remove any shadow of a doubt.
  - lelanthran 6mo ago
    > So yes, eugenics was pretty much an integral part of the premise. IQ bubbles even pop up on the screen during those scenes, just to remove any shadow of a doubt. Is that really how we use the word "eugenics", though? That scene you refer to explicitly explained that Natural Selection does not necessarily select for intelligence. So while some people are calling it "Eugenics", it's what we more typically call Natural Selection, Evolutionary Pressure, etc. Eugenics implies that the selection criteria was not natural. The scene you mention makes it clear that, in-universe anyway, the selection criteria was entirely natural and not a pressure imposed by humans.
    - input_sh 6mo ago
      I agree that it doesn't explicitly show someone tilting the scales, but that doesn't mean that eugenics are not an integral part of the premise in a "if we don't do something about this, this is what the world will look like" kind of way. I still like the movie, but like with any 20+ years old comedies, I can recognise issues with its premise which would be more-or-less unacceptable today. In 2006... not as much. The future is now, old man!
gambiting 6mo ago
That's like being angry at Star wars because the very first title text says "long time ago", and we know humans didn't go into space long time ago duh.

mvdwoord 6mo ago

Same here. There was something feeling so obviously off with Don't Look Up.. for me at least. Idiocracy did not suffer from this.. but Mike Judge is somewhat of an acquired taste I guess.

mike_hearn 6mo ago
I never saw it but Scott Alexander's review made it sound like the writers of Don't Look Up were themselves idiots, who wanted to send a political message but couldn't figure out how to do it properly. https://www.astralcodexten.com/p/movie-review-dont-look-up https://www.astralcodexten.com/p/movie-review-dont-look-up
duskdozer 6mo ago
To be honest, I think it's about whether someone feels like they are making fun or being made fun of.

coldtea 6mo ago

Then you need to watch comedies made decades ago.

ndsipa_pomu 6mo ago
How about the British "Till Death Do Us Part" from the 1960s/70s? That had a similar irony in that people complained about the racist character of Alf Garnett, but the series very much used his bigotism/racism as the butt of the jokes.
Frieren 6mo ago
> Then you need to watch comedies made decades ago. Yes. It was nice when corporate taxes were high, xenophobia was seen as something bad, and movies could focus on smaller problems satire. I hope that we go back to the socialist era of the USA with unionization, safety nets and welfare for the working class instead of for billionaires. Movies could just be silly again.
- coldtea 6mo ago
  Was that supposed to trigger me? Not from there, but I'm in favor of "unionization, safety nets and welfare for the working class instead of for billionaires" and higher corporate taxes! But also I don't think movies aren't silly because they deal with all the "big problems". After all they didn't have a problem making silly movies in eras with far worse problems, social and economic. And they could make hella fun movies on heavy topics just fine (Blazing Saddles and racism for example, or MASH and the Vietnam war - even if nominally about Korea). Modern comedies aren't silly or fun, not because times are troubled, but because they're written as shallow moralizing lectures. Any "caring" is performative. They're also walking on eggshells, and are too polite to have any edge. And then there's the derivative reboots and remakes, which many of them are.