Idiocracy famously featured what movies would look like in the future. The memorable example was Ass – a two hour blockbuster that consisted of video, shot from behind, of one person’s bare ass, as they stood in one place. Periodically, the ass lifted a cheek and farted, much to the delight of theater-goers. In the future depicted by the movie, the movie was everywhere, audiences were captivated, and it swept the Academy Awards, even winning the Best Screenplay Oscar.

It turns out that prediction was a bit off. As r-selection takes hold, atrophied amygdalae that are ever more unnerved by reality seek distractions from it. As that progresses, movies increasingly rely on shock value to capture and hold the attention of amygdalae, like a vice, so no excess focus is available to apply to reality.

Case in point, Kuso, the first feature film from musician Flying Lotus:

Kuso, the first feature film from musician Flying Lotus, was so gross it sparked massive walkouts at the Sundance Film Festival when it was screened this week… … the troubling scenes – including footage of an erect penis being stabbed – prompted many in the theater to leave in disgust… Some of the notable grotesque scenes included a man having sex with a talking boil on a woman’s neck, genital mutilation and a doctor (played by funk legend George Clinton) who keeps a ‘toddler-sized’ cockroach in his anus… … There’s also a scene in which a pygmy eats a maggot-infested soup… ‘At one point, [actor Tim] Heidecker is framed mid-coitus with what appears to be a hybrid of a turkey and a human torso, and it’s maybe the fifteenth most unsettling image in the film,’ Consequence of Sound reviewer Dominick Suzanne-Mayer recalled… … a boil-covered woman choked a man with a strap until he covered half her face with semen that looked like a muted version of Nickelodeon slime… … a woman chewed on concrete until her teeth disintegrated… an alien creature force-yanked a fetus from another woman’s womb… then smoked the tiny corpse,’…

Have no illusions. Human brains crave down-regulating amygdala somehow. Narcissists do it by fucking up everyone around them, and then contemplating how much better their life is by comparison. Liberals try to destroy successful businesses and great nations for similar reasons. Decent people crave relaxation and the company of loved ones. People in stressful jobs crave going home.

Those who would watch an amygdala-grabbing movie like this are distracting themselves from a reality they do not want to face. You did not see this in post-WWII 1950’s America, where Audrey Hepburn and Cary Grant enjoyed innocent adventures punctuated by amusing banter. Those amygdala hardened World War vets enjoyed the world around them, so a shockingly disgusting movie like the one above was not at all preferable for any reason.

This is the mark of increasing amygdala atrophy, and until the Apocalypse cleanses the population, expect a race to the bottom – especially once the Apocalypse is in effect.

Spread r/K Theory, because we don’t want movies about toddler-sized anal cockroaches