WALL-E: Is consumption bad for you?

After reading and hearing some of things said about the new Disney/Pixar Studios movie WALL-E, I almost refused to take my 6 year old daughter to the film. My spouse did refuse to go. Here are a couple of anecdotes that illustrate the conventional wisdom about this film:

The new Pixar feature "WALL-E" is an environmental cautionary tale, as well as a story of budding love between two robots. And for its first half-hour or so, it's possibly the most melancholy cartoon ever made: Even the color palette of that early section, a mosaic of brownish grays brushed with dusty sunlight, speaks of loneliness, and of desperate cheerfulness in the face of a blank future. In the second half, "WALL-E" becomes less lyrical and more satirical, although even then, its bite is surprisingly sharp. But by the end, "WALL-E" has turned into something else again, a picture that's so adamant about ending on a feel-good note (or at least a feel-OK note) that it betrays the sad, subtle beauty of those early scenes. It must be that director Andrew Stanton -- the man behind the enormously successful "Finding Nemo" -- didn't want to make too much of a downer: Can't be sending all those tots home with the blues, can we? But the picture feels weirdly, and disappointingly, disjointed, something that starts out as poetry and ends as product. by Stephanie Zacharek on Salon.com June 27, 2008 |

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The critics love WALL*E. So much so that there’s now a backlash, much of it from conservative and right-libertarian corners. The cartoon is anti-progress, they say. It’s anti-business. It’s anti-consumer. Its environmentalism is hogwash. It will only further brainwash children into the Al Gore camp. All those charges may be true. from wconger.blogspot.com

I am glad that I watched WALL-E. I am glad that my daughter saw it as well.

Those who on the right who criticize this movie as being another piece of Hollywood liberal doctrinaire, as well as those on the left who celebrate their anti-consumption interpretation of the film are simpletons who did not understand this film. Principle and policy saw the film in starkly different terms.

While it is true that the movie depicts a future earth that has been literally trashed. It is not true that the film argues that consumption is to blame. In fact, quite the opposite is true. In this film, the humans of the future are trapped in a virtual world. They in live in floating chairs, they experience only through virtual reality, they only consume some sort of nutritional beverage, and they are numb to physical environment they inhabit. The people are confined to a space ship floating aimlessly around the galaxy. In short, they have stopped consuming and stopped living.

The robot, WALL-E, and his pet cockroach are the only apparent inhabitants of planet Earth. WALL-E though has learned to consume and to Live. He finds and collect treasures from the garbage he is programmed to incessantly compact. He turned his support vehicle into a home. He has a collection of Zippo lighters, lights, a VHS tape of Hello Dolly he watches. Through this consumption WALL-E learns what it is to dance, sing, and love. In short, WALL-E is essentially a child that is curious about his world and enamored with the simple joys of it. When the humans send another robot to check on the situation back on the home world, WALL-E finds a friend, a companion, and eventually a mate. He shares with EVE his curiosity and the joy of his treasures.

The simple, truthful message of WALL-E is this: don't get so busy surviving that you forget to live.

This is a message that people of all political stripes should wrap their arms around.