600
In hindsight it doesn't seem that bad, overall. (thelemmy.club)
submitted 2 days ago by GraniteM@lemmy.world to c/memes@lemmy.world
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A still from the movie Demolition Man in which some police officers prepare to confront a character played by Wesley Snipes.

Top Text: Demolition Man: A movie which depicts a horrifying dystopia...

Bottom Text:...in which food is too healthy, bidets are common, and cops literally don't know how to assault a black man.

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[-] Semi_Hemi_Demigod@lemmy.world 112 points 2 days ago

Bidets?!

This guy doesn’t know about the three shells!

[-] db2@lemmy.world 25 points 2 days ago

Apparently it's canon that you use two like chopsticks to get most of the poo and the third scrapes the rest off.

A bidet would be great compared to that.

[-] FartMaster69@lemmy.dbzer0.com 39 points 2 days ago

That’s just a fan theory, no where in the movie is that established.

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[-] HeyThisIsntTheYMCA@lemmy.world 12 points 2 days ago

psh this dude hasn't used the three shells

[-] penguin@lemmy.pixelpassport.studio 8 points 2 days ago

gross to read, thank you

[-] Railcar8095@lemmy.world 5 points 2 days ago

The idea of demolition man cannon makes me wish for a demolition man extended universe, hopefully with a crossover with Judge Dredd

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[-] GraniteM@lemmy.world 4 points 2 days ago

If the three sea shells discourse isn't a stand-in for 90s Americans' anxiety about bidets then I don't know what is.

[-] AWistfulNihilist@lemmy.world 3 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago)

3 mysterious sea shells... you think 3 dry sea shells (which most people understand logistically would be impossible to clean yourself properly with) was a stand in for bidets?

I was also around when the movie came out and not a single human i interacted with imagined they were a bidet. In fact bidets were so uncommon in the US at the time that most Americans experience with them was from the movie Crocodile Dundee.

Everyone's problem with the sea shells was that you wouldn't be able to clean yourself properly when you imagine physically using them. But people in the future they imagined have extremely small and limited diets, they probably don't produce an huge amount of waste. There's only 1 fat guy in the whole movie, and you wonder how Otho from Beetlejuice got that way on taco bell protein pellets.

IF they had introduced the concept of a bidet system, it would have immediately removed the mystery from the sea shells and made them far less intimidating.

[-] ameancow@lemmy.world 3 points 2 days ago

Everyone’s problem with the sea shells was that you wouldn’t be able to clean yourself properly when you imagine physically using them.

That's... not the joke. Holy shit have people over-thought the three shells. It's not supposed to make sense or have a physical utility that you can imagine. THAT IS THE JOKE.

User above was kind of right that it reflected an anxiety about change to personal habits for "environmentalism" and other things that were happening at the time like people pushing for saving water in the bathroom.

[-] AWistfulNihilist@lemmy.world 2 points 1 day ago

The joke is mystery, like duh, the conversations about how to use it were relevant. No human in the US had anxiety over bidets. When conversations about the sea shells were had, they involved the physical use of them specifically.

Bidets weren't in the zeitgeist. When people engage with the sea shells (the literal and exact intention of the sea shells was to wonder how you use them), they thought about how they would physically replace toilet paper. The scene literally shows you the main character generating paper to use.

Like it's crazy I even have to note this, when you hear hoofbeats in Wyoming, you don't wonder if zebra are making them.

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[-] treesquid@lemmy.world 10 points 1 day ago

Remember how there's also a giant second city underground that's barely scraping by, and the people running the utopian city are trying to eradicate them? Yeah, not a very bright take on the movie.

[-] FlashMobOfOne@lemmy.world 23 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago)

**EDIT: The movie is 'The Invasion' (2007)

There was a sci-fi movie 20 years ago about an alien intelligence taking over world governments, replicating itself into human hosts via inoculations for a 'virus', and as the movie progresses world peace is achieved, but the protagonists fight against it over fears of losing free will.

And I'm over here like... the aliens are the bad guys?

[-] TheEEEdiot@sh.itjust.works 13 points 2 days ago

That's basically the plot of Pluribus

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[-] CyberEgg@discuss.tchncs.de 45 points 2 days ago

The supposed utopia is modeled after the ideal of suburban USA. That's pretty fucking dystopic. Add to that tge prohibition of kissing, sex, Rock music, etc...

I think someone didn't watch or utterly misunderstood the movie.

[-] GraniteM@lemmy.world 13 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago)

Comrade, I rented that movie from a locally-owned VHS rental shop that used physical membership cards.

Sure it's a dystopia, but it's a dystopia where they solved too many problems. John Spartan gets into a high speed car crash and his car instantly fills up with safety foam and he's completely unharmed. The police force is ethnically and gender diverse. Guns are museum pieces. The cops don't know HOW to assault somebody.

Sure they've killed a large amount of choice, and the guy in charge of it all seems to be determined to secure even more power for himself because of course he's a sociopath with Mr. Rogers' speech patterns, but all told I'd much rather live in the Demolition Man future than Judge Dredd or Death Race 2000.

[-] CyberEgg@discuss.tchncs.de 10 points 2 days ago

but all told I'd much rather live in the Demolition Man future than Judge Dredd or Death Race 2000.

But all the dystopian elements is not necessarily the price for the improvements. The message of the movie (to me) was "don't get fooled by some shiny surface when the core is rotten."
And your choice is not between "bad" and "worse". We can imagine even better futures (Star Trek Federation citizenship seems to be pretty neat (if you're not trying to settle some fringe worlds at the cardassian border) for example), so we can work on these.

[-] WhiskyTangoFoxtrot@lemmy.world 3 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago)

the guy in charge of it all seems to be determined to secure even more power for himself because of course he’s a sociopath with Mr. Rogers’ speech patterns

If the right people don't have power do you know what happens? The wrong people get it!

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[-] Phil_in_here@lemmy.ca 3 points 2 days ago

Ngl, digital tantric neural sex link seems pretty fuckin' rad.

I guess they left out the part where it implants Taco Bell ads, mines your subconscious for thought crimes, and sells the data so people can have virtual sex with your likeness. Less rad.

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[-] Kolanaki@pawb.social 21 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago)

It's only a utopia for wealthy vegans that love Taco Bell (or Pizza Hut if European). All the poor meat eating people are forced into the sewers and eat rat burgers.

Also what bidets? They had a shelf with 3 fucking seashells. They never mention bidets.

Oh and we can't forget that every radio station exclusively plays nothing but ad jingles.

[-] umfk@lemmy.world 17 points 2 days ago

Also what bidets? They had a shelf with 3 fucking seashells. They never mention bidets.

Guess what this guy doesn't know.

[-] Kolanaki@pawb.social 16 points 2 days ago

[-] ameancow@lemmy.world 6 points 2 days ago

Attempts to explain the joke have thoroughly ruined the joke.

[-] Rooster326@programming.dev 4 points 2 days ago

But if you flush the Seashells then there wouldn't be any more??

You would not ask about the 3(very specific number) Toilet Paper pieces if there was a roll of hundreds.

[-] Phil_in_here@lemmy.ca 12 points 2 days ago

Reminds me of the TTRPG Shadowrun. Sometimes its hard to sell the corporate dystopia when you're describing eating & drinking soy products because meat is prohibitively expensive and they can sell the effect of dubious cash crops like coffee and chocolate with a soy based alternative.

[-] CheeseNoodle@lemmy.world 15 points 1 day ago

The shadowrun 5e rulebook actually allows someone to live in a small one bedroom appartment on a part time job, we are so far past what used to be considered dystopia.

[-] lemonhead2@lemmy.world 16 points 2 days ago

one thing I remember about that movie. walmart grew so big it bought everything else. all stores are now Walmart. and all restaurants are taco bell.

[-] Bahnd@lemmy.world 16 points 2 days ago

Taco Bell won the fast food wars.

[-] ExLisper@lemmy.curiana.net 28 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago)

Demolition Man is what Europe will look like. USA will look like The Running Man (1987 version, not the remake). It already looks like Idiocracy.

[-] 13igTyme@piefed.social 33 points 2 days ago

Well there was that entire underground society.

[-] TheKingBee@lemmy.world 25 points 2 days ago

But the underground society seemed to be more about finding their own version of freedom rather than outright exclusion.

In a world with super aids they still wanted to raw dog it.

[-] db2@lemmy.world 10 points 2 days ago

With a great food spot too.

[-] spicytuna62@lemmy.world 7 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago)

And fuck the movie The Fan starring Wesley Snipes. Demolition Man's the only Snipes movie I like.

-Jon "MC Vagina" Lajoie

[-] houndeyes@toast.ooo 11 points 2 days ago

Don't forget that moist virtual action!

[-] Kolanaki@pawb.social 6 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago)

This is what cybersex should actually be like, tho.

[-] ColeSloth@discuss.tchncs.de 8 points 2 days ago

If you glaze over all the shitty parts about the "dystopia."

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this post was submitted on 22 Feb 2026
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