Week Fourteen : Sci-Fi Parody and Satire

I am NOT an auditory learner. My brain finds it so difficult to listen to podcasts. Even when listening to my favorite podcasts, Gimlet’s The Two Princes and Joseph Fink and Jeffrey Cranor’s Welcome to Night Vale, I find myself immediately tuning on the captions option. I always need something visual to accompany it.
For this final week, I listened to I Think We're All Bozos on this Bus by the Firesign Theater and Douglas Adams’s The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (but I’m only on ch.18 at the moment). The sound design was excellent for both. I felt like I was swept into the story. Out of both radio dramas, I definitely prefer I Think We're All Bozos on this Bus. It felt as if Welcome to Night Vale and Jack Stauber had a baby. Even though it is a Sci-Fi Parody and Satire, I also sensed a bit of surrealism which I really like. I love the description of the ‘bus’. The ‘bus’ isn’t like a bus that we are familiar with today, the ‘bus’ is an all-terrain vehicle that also acts as a plane. In this imagined future,we gather that the most common mode of transportation is by air, atypical of today. This assumption explores issues of our present-day auto transportation and its troubling effects of fuel emissions. In addition, studies have proven that present generations aren’t as car-crazed anymore. I personally see more and more people preferring other modes of transportation. More people are likely to Uber to work than buy their own car. Traveling by ‘bus’ seems to be the best option for the future.
I also watched Mike Judge’s Idiocracy (2006). It was pretty funny. I had a lot of trouble taking the film seriously. Not due to the film being a comedy, but because I kept seeing the actor Luke Wilson as Emmett from the movie Legally Blonde (2001). It was surprisingly political for a comedy. It ridiculed people in positions of power and brought to light how ignorant, misinformed people can bring about the downfall of the human race.
Even so, I don't think the film is an accurate portrayal of today's society or society's future. I don't beleive people are going to become stupid, in fact, I think the opposite will happen, as time passes people will get smarter. Yes, advances in technology will make us lazy but not dumb. Humanity’s future will most likely reflect the tech-obsessed dystopia of WALL-E (2008). Anyway, I’ll try and watch the second film later this summer.
…..
Here are some other ‘Sci-Fi Parody and Satire’ readings/shows/movies/etc. that I like: Orville (2017), Futurama, Spaceballs (1987), Paul (2011), Invader Zim, Duck Dodgers, and The Rocky Horror Picture Show (1975).

Comments

  1. KatGugMay 3, 2020 at 11:22 PM

    I think Idiocracy is a good film to bring up for this week's discussion! The absolutely ridiculous heightening of misinformation and stupidity is a hilarious way to invision our future. I certainly hope we do not end up that way.

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