Review
STUPIDITY: THE DOCUMENTARY
Directed by Albert Nerenberg
February 12 to 15
Stanford Perrott Theatre
(ACAD)
February 16 to 22
Building J2
(Currie Barracks)
In a culture where the most powerful man in the free world is constantly saying things that don’t make sense and people are killing themselves accidentally by recreating stunts performed on TV by overgrown frat boys, it would seem there is no shortage of stupidity. But what is it? Where does it come from? And what can we do about it? Filmmaker Albert Nerenberg tries to get to the bottom of it in Stupidity: The Documentary.
Best known for his contribution to Trailervision, an online cult phenomenon where a group of performers film and edit trailers for non-existent films, Nerenberg admits in his introductory narration that he has always had the most success acting while playing dumb. By this rationale he figured he would be as good a person as any to probe the stupid side of human nature.
By talking to so-called stupidity experts and a host of other celebrities, Nerenberg discovers that despite our culture’s infatuation with stupidity, we don’t really know anything about it. While all of this may seem like a tongue-in-cheek poke at pop culture, the film shows surprising depth as it explores the idiocy around us. Instead of solely relying on outtakes from America’s Funniest Home Videos and Jackass, Nerenberg talks to several people who have penned academic volumes on stupidity and even gets well-known academic Noam Chomsky to speak to the matter.
While these pundits certainly have some interesting points on being stupid (how can you define something so intangible? Is stupidity being revered in our culture?) the film’s real strength comes from the background info they dig up on stupidity. Going back to turn-of-the-century France to explore the development of the I.Q. test and the coining of the terms "idiot," "imbecile" and "moron" (not to mention the history of the dunce cap) gives Stupidity a resonance that one might not expect. Most successfully, Nerenberg gets points for making this documentary scary and funny at the same time by drawing links to corporate America, government and the media.
Admittedly none of these are new concepts, but Stupidity: The Documentary is a lot smarter than it could have been, and as a result is well worth seeing. |
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