by “Shelby Forthright”
(note- I purposely included some goofy misspellings in this article as a kind of fun game for the reader. Can you find them? Good luck!)
Message boards and blogs across the international web-verse-sphere-net have been all abuzz lately about Pixar’s latest and (arguably) greatest film, WALL-E. More specifically, the aforementioned discussions have focused on the potential ramifications of its “message”. Before I throw in my two humble haypennies, I’d like to say that I do not believe WALL-E is a message film at all. In saying this I would actually be echoing the very words of the film’s writer/director, Andrew Stanton. In a June 24th interview with Christianity Today, Stanton was asked about the film’s message and whether or not it was the kind of biting critique of American culture that would put him at odds with Culture Warrior Bill O’Reilly (not an exact quote of the question). Stanton responded thusly,
“…I wasn’t trying to make some sort of mean-spirited comment on consumerism or today’s society. I was going with just the logic of what would happen if you were in a perpetual vacation with no real purpose in life. So I went with the idea that we’d become sort of big babies with no reason to grow up. I definitely saw humanity as victims of this system that they were in. They were just big babies that needed to stand on their own two feet…The last thing I’m going to do is try to make a message movie!”
Often an answer like this coming from a “Hollywood” director would garner some level of skepticism from simple corn-fed mid-westerners like myself, but Stanton’s work seems very honest and wholesome. Finding Nemo, for example, was the story of a loving Father and Son who beat the odds to find each other in life’s big ocean (or in their case, a literal big ocean). Plus, the guy just seems honest. Look at that face. (See face below).
Despite Stanton’s denial of WALL-E as a message film, thousands of bloggers and “conservatives” have tried to compare it to “Happy Feet” or “An Inconvenient Truth”, even though WALL-E has nothing to do with dancing penguins or failed politicians. As I mentioned in my review of the film, WALL-E is home to some poignant social commentary, but that doesn’t make it a massage film, nor is the social commentary the main thrust of the film. For me, the fact that a big budget movie produced by Disney contains any substance at all is a blessing from (insert preferred deity or non-religious ideal here). Though I have recently lost all of my fingers in a freak marshmallow-tossing accident, I will do my best to answer one of the most common critiques of WALL-E by paranoid capitalists everywhere.
“WALL-E is anti-Capitalism”
If WALL-E was indeed anti-Capitalism, it would be one of the greatest ironies in recent history, considering the revenue that will undoubtedly be produced by the film’s ticket sales, DVD sales, and merchandise sails. Having made that brilliant observation, I must disagree with the aforementioned assessment. Above all, the film is pro-individualism. It is pro-love, pro-curiosity, and probe-free. If it is anti-anything, I would purport that it is anti-Corporatism. That’s right, Corporatism. For y’all out there that don’t know, Corporatism (as I choose to use it) is the surreptitious collusion of corporate and government entities to circumvent the free market and the will of the people in favor of an elite, ruling class, ultimately resulting in a society stripped of its individualism, liberties, and property rights. If you want an easier definition, you should be ashamed of yourself. Go get a dictionary or something. WALL-E certainly presents a bleak future where the signs of Corporatism are present. One of the most glaring examples of this comes in the videos of Shelby Forthright, “Global CEO” of Buy N Large corporation. In these videos we see Forthright (as played by Fred Willard) standing behind a podium that displays something that looks an awful lot like the United States Presidential seal, wearing a BnL lapel pin. However, Andrew Stanton isn’t using this setting to send a specific message to the audience, rather he is using it to create a fascinating situation for his story’s little trash-compacting main character. And to those who claim that Stanton’s polluted earth is a jab at “unrestrained capitalism”, I would say that if the kind of global governmental control were really reached by any one elite entity, you’d better believe that the environment would suffer just as much as the rest of us.
There is a veritable universe of people out there who will react like cornered badgers at the faintest hint of an antipodal political message. And from what I’ve seen in the past few weeks, many of them are too paranoid to enjoy a movie even as great as WALL-E. There are many things that perturb me about those who project that this movie is anti-Capitalism or anti-Technology. One is that many of these people don’t seem as if they’ve even seen the the film. Others may have seen it, but failed to take off their green-colored glasses (awesome metaphor alert!). But what bugs me most about this whole situation is that those who would so emphatically judge this movie for its supposedly “liberal” message are handing this amazing work of art over to one group of people! Liberal message? This movie is about an adorable little robot who… (I’ll let Andrew finish…)
“The theme that I was trying to tap into was that irrational love defeats life’s programming—that it takes a random act of loving kindness to kick us out of our routines and habit.” -Andrew Stanton (Christianity Today, June 24th)
I couldn’t have put it better myself. Actually, I could have but since he created the movie, I’ll let him handle it.
Below is the interview that was referenced twice in this uniquely written and hip blog note.
[url]http://www.christianitytoday.com/movies/interviews/andrewstanton.html[/url]
There isn’t much that I can add to that. I feel the exact same way about Wall-E’s environmental message. [spoil]Seeing the humans in their automatic chairs, drinking their “food in a cup” was honestly gross to watch. But it is realistic! That could very well be our future in hundreds of years. I think it was a shocker to the audience that will hopefully encourage us to keep the earth and all who inhabit it healthy. [/spoil]
sorry, i had to add my two cents