Wall᛫E (2008)

Rated G, despite the fact that it safely the most damning and depressing Disney movie that has been created or will probably be created.  Hypothetically, I could comment on the fact that almost the entire human race has been wiped out due to mass consumerism and pollution, but that's something that is more understood than explicitly conveyed.  There's also some threat coupled with the eponymous character wearing a bra as glasses.  G.

DIRECTOR: Andrew Stanton

I was sure that I had written about this movie.  I remember writing about Andrew Stanton and how he was the most rebellious director in existence.  But sure enough, my blog has no evidence that I've written about Wall᛫E in the past, so I just have to accept that I haven't.  (God, what a blessing that would be.  It's not anything against Wall᛫E.  It's just that I would rather be reading my book.) 

You may be asking, "Why Wall᛫E?  I mean, my kneejerk reaction would be "Why not Wall᛫E?"  After all, I watch things on a screwed up self-invented algorithm.  I shouldn't have to explain myself.  But the real reason is that I just got it for Christmas on 4K Criterion.  I don't know why it gave me such joy to find out that Wall᛫E is a Criterion movie now.  Maybe because it's recognizing art other than places it normally would look for it. Disney, especially recent Disney, has somehow ingratiated itself to me.  I never really understood hardcore Disney fans.  I always read them as nostalgia hounds or people who didn't appreciate a solid challenge.  (I'm saying I like you, Disney fans.  I'm just saying that I didn't understand you for a long time.)   But there have been these films, probably starting with Wall᛫E that have existed because of the willingness to accept risk. Wall᛫E is a shorter movie than I remember it being, but this was a movie in my head that was borderline a silent film for the first act completely.  That first act, in my head, was an hour.  It's really about 25 minutes, but still!  Then the movie comes down hard with the satire of the human race (in particular, White Americans) and how terrible they are.

Okay, there's the surface level attack on humanity, which I think everyone gets.  This is the story of how, as a species, we are wasteful and obsessed with comfort. As such, we worship at the altar of Buy 'n Large (BnL) to the point where we destroy the planet.  Good on you, Disney.  I'm glad you are getting the message to the kids.  Again, I've become this unbearable hippie in everyone's eyes, so I mind as well embrace it.  But there's something absolutely telling about something else in the movie.  I don't know if it is an accident, but can we talk about White Flight for a second?  I don't really remember any Black people in this movie. I Googled it.  There are some articles on it.  I'm not the first person to come to this conclusion.  Apparently, there's one person in the movie. Am I saying that only White people exist in the future?  Not really, but kind of?  There's something oddly sympathetic about future people who have grown so morbidly obese that they are unable to get around without flying chairs.  It's depressing as heck and I'm not denying that.  But they have the attitude of children.  They are mesmorized by a new robot when Wall᛫E arrives and start noticing the beauty of the real world when deprived of TV.  Cool.

But let's mirror the notion of White Flight here.  For those not in the know, White Flight (in the most irresponsible shorthand ever) is the notion that White America moved away from the cities to the suburbs when property values dropped due to the influx of other races, particularly Black America. That White migration starting inverting cause and effect with crime rates because urban infrastructure started collapsing with the loss of White income.  Okay.  The Axiom is full of fat White people who don't feel like they've done anything wrong.  They live a life of boredom, free of any form of discomfort.  (For such a criticism of consumerism, I don't know how anyone besides the captain makes any money.)  But this is a culture that doesn't understand the consequences of actions.  From their ancestors' perspectives, these are people who had money, paid Buy 'N Large to ship them off on a luxury liner to save them from the collapsing environment of planet Earth.  It's not that they actively hated Black people, but their need to take care of themselves ultimately led to an evil act.  

This is where robots come in.  I had a pretty deep dive discussion with other faculty members about the role that slavery plays in Star Wars.   It's important to remember that the draw that brings us into the movie is that this is a love story between two robots.  One of them is Charlie Chaplin's Tramp character, if you want to tie it to archetypes.  But the most connection we have with any characters aren't the humans.  The robots are the avatars for the audience.  And like with Star Wars, the droids are the slave caste.  They are forced to do jobs that they don't necessarily want to do.  This isn't something that the movie screams at you, but I do want to talk about some very powerful imagery if you think of robots as stand ins for Black imagery.  There are certain acceptable tiers of robots that are completely fine.  There are robots that are menial workers.  Humans are the only ones who experience comfort.  But the image I'm looking at is the stand off between the flawed robots and the hospitality bots.  It's the oppressed versus riot cops.  They even have flashing lights above their heads in the stand off.  When Eve fires a blast into the crowd, it goes full riot.  

It's insane that this movie exists.  I'm going to go even further that it might be insane that, as progressive as the movie attempts to be, it accomplishes some real subversive stuff probably by accident.  I mean, for all I know, Andrew Stanton had all of this on a notepad while making the movie and somehow that would make the movie even better.  But the imagery and the storytelling elements are there, regardless.  I think a lot of parents probably felt pretty uncomfortable watching this movie thinking that it was brainwashing their kids.  But the challenge comes from the idea that we've accepted society as something flawed because we'll outlive the change needed to fix society.  But kids need to know these things young.  "Why make it political?"  Because everything is political.  Being apolitical is a political statement.  And what can we disagree with this movie?  Sure, some people might not see the racial allegory going on and I can't even fight that.  But the movie screams that we are a blight on our environment and commericalism is the cause of that.  Why is that something that people get mad about?  Is it a fear of communism? A fear of communism doesn't mean that we should embrace extreme capitalism.  We shouldn't accept extreme anything.

Except for throwing all the guns into the sun.  We should absolutely do that.  My progressive is on display loud and proud in this one, right?