WALL·E
This adult-friendly cartoon packs a wonderful array of important mess
ages: environmental, anti-consumerist, grassroots revolution and relationship building. Alas, patriarchy and consumerism slip in, too.
It has some great gender statements as well, and a few disappointments. WALL·E’s character is not overly gendered – he has a male voice, but also carries precious cargo in his “stomach,” decorates his home, obsesses over romance, and longs for relationship. This longing is the compelling soul of the film, and provides redemption, not only for metal machines, but for fleshy humans and a barren earth.
EVE, on the other hand, is slightly more gendered, subtly reinforcing the patriarchal notion that male is normal, female abnormal. At least there are no eyelashes on this curvaceous, high-voiced robot. It seems that accepting robot love is wacky enough, but apparently Pixar thought that as long as it was obviously opposite-sex love, audiences would catch right on.
She bears “new life,” hope for humanity and the earth, in her own “stomach” back to the spaceship where all humans live. WALL·E carries this hope as well, driven by his devotion to EVE.
Each gets to save the other at various points, from all kinds of physical danger. The film culminates with EVE saving WALL·E from emotional death through relentless love and persistent tenderness. In fact, WALL·E and EVE’s teamwork is so essential that they should share the film’s title.
Yearning for authentic relationships wakes up a lazy, ineffective humanity, bringing them into the revolution. A band of “malfunctioning” robots joins the team as well, adn the rebellion honors their peculiarities.
I’m skeptical about anthropomophising machines to this extent (falling in love, rebelling against their own programming based on personal ethics, etc.) and wonder if “the hero of the next generation” should really be a robot. What are the repercussions of idolizing machines in an age of snowballing technology budgets and development?
The ultimate irony of the film is that the “villian” Buy N Large (pollutes the planet and coddles humanity into complete helplessness), looks a lot like the film’s makers, especially Disney. Check it out.
Filed under: movies on July 25th, 2008 by Anna Lisa
Totally got to agree with you here.
Lady, you are so full of shit, it is funny.
WALL*E is a movie that conveys a environmental message that all should like. Instead, you’ve decided to act like the typical antitechnological asshole that exists on the ‘Net and everywhere else. Plus, you still have to bring in critiques about the gender of the characters, like a lemming going off of a cliff, or a religious leader stuck in a miasma of dogma.
It seem to me that you think that you can do better than Disney. So why don’t you get off of your ass and make it happen, then? Why not try to write a script that you think is better than this movie? (And please don’t give me that bullshit about how The Man doesn’t let voices like yours in-that excuse is too old for words.)
Neville, i DO like the environmental messages, and wrote that in the first paragraph of the review! How do gender critiques make me a lemming?
“EVE, on the other hand, is slightly more gendered, subtly reinforcing the patriarchal notion that male is normal, female abnormal.”
Unevidenced, and poorly reasoned assertion. In some sort of “true” patriarchy, Wall-E would be the abnormality, as he is less gendered than the more “normally” gendered EVE.
It would seem that in a patriarchy, to be less gendered or classifiable is to be abnormal. See: “gay-bashing”
Your assertion doesn’t square with this.
Also, thanks for being the ass-hole, Neville, by employing personal attack rather than evidence and reasoned logic. Great way to represent men.
I’m confused, Colman. What do you mean by bringing up the example of gay-bashing? I understand homophobia to be rooted in misogyny, to be a reaction to men taking on a “feminine” role in sex. Gay men aren’t perceived to be androgynous, but feminine. Of course I am not saying that gay men actually perform femininity. Some do, many do not – gay men’s gender performance is across the spectrum, as is straight men’s (and everyone else’s). But gay men are stereotyped in this way.