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"WALL-E" illustrates the limitations of First World environmentalism
WALL-E
Directed by Andrew Stanton
Pixar Animation Studios and Walt Disney Pictures
Rated G
98 minutes
2008
2008 December
[Contains spoilers]
A corporation called "Buy n Large" that was also the world government
is central in the backstory of "WALL-E," about a lonely robot
cleaning up after humyns who have abandoned a planet filled with
non-biodegradable trash and built structures. Living on a giant
spaceship and supported by machines, humyns have become extremely
obese, and lethargic. The spacecraft, the Axiom, was programmed to
send robots to Earth to determine whether life has started thriving
on the planet in their absence. The probes are sent without the
spaceship passengers' being aware, as humyns have forgotten Earth
after seven hundred years, and the Axiom's operations and systems are
almost completely automated. "WALL-E" takes on consumerism and
advertising. However, "WALL-E" is a giant advertisement for Apple
Computer products and a line of toys. Also, as pictures of Earth from
space make clear, "WALL-E" is centered on North America and Amerikans
from beginning to end. "WALL-E" seems to go beyond "Bambi" and other
Disney movies said to be subtly relevant to the environment or
nature, but this reviewer can see "WALL-E" inspiring some brain cell
activity on the environment among viewers who will go back to pigging
out as usual before bashing Third World people over the environment
and wildlife. First Worlders will go on exploiting the Third World
with a sense of needing to save the planet and needing to have
national unity in the First World to do so, imperialist nation unity.
First World majorities are incapable of making sustained progress on
the environment. "WALL-E" is rated "G" in the United $tates, but many
adults, with and without children, have seen it. "WALL-E" and other
recent movie raise environmental issues, but the result is more
likely to be war than cutting back on consumption substantially.
Metaphorically, the real WALL-E's sorting through heaps of First
Worlders' trash are people in the Third World. Even if the rest of
the movie were fine, this reviewer would disagree with the ending.
The Third World is going to defeat the First World, not achieve
sustainability together with the First World. (Globes are turned to
North America throughout the movie -- which relates its
environmentalist message to Amerikans and at the same time is about
what is good for Amerikan settlers in North America -- but in what is
supposed to be an amusing moment, the captain of the Axiom, playing
with a globe, imagines landing in the Eastern Hemisphere. In the real
world, arrogant Amerikans not only expect cooperation and compliance
from people in the Third World, but also think they have a right to
be everywhere.) The robots in "WALL-E" should have populated the
planet and prevented the humyns' return. The autopilot device Auto,
acting on the secret transmitted instruction of the Big n Large
"Global CEO" to never return to Earth, which had become too toxic for
humyns to inhabit after most humyns had left for what they thought
was a short vacation, actually does something good in the long run by
trying to prevent the spaceship Axiom's return to Earth and
periodically letting robots go to Earth. Clearly, the humyns on the
spaceship, the majority of whom appear to be white Amerikans, have
not learned to live on Earth. They have solved their trash problem by
expelling waste to the space outside the ship.
The most likable robots are those showing emotion. A single sprout
doesn't really say a lot about Earth's state or the Axiom's
passengers' ability to live on Earth. So, a good reason to return to
Earth is never given. The Axiom ends up back on Earth basically
because WALL-E, influenced by the romance in "Hello, Dolly!", is
driven by a desire to please the probe EVE, programmed to bring
plantlife from Earth to the captain of the Axiom. Its appearance in
"WALL-E" may be because of a desire to have a cutesy animated movie
about robots, but the theme of emotionality versus rationality is
old. In the "Star Trek" world, Spock considers putting the good of
the many before the happiness of a few an axiom. A robot following
such a rule would do better than an organization with incoherent
goals such as doing what's good for the majority and doing what's
good for the lifestyles of Euro-Amerikans. Euro-Amerikans are a
minority globally with power. Individualism and Liberalism benefit
them as a small privileged minority with disproportionate power. The
international proletariat has to unite. It is not an excess of
science in culture that is a problem or rational organization, but
First World parasitism.
In "WALL-E," business and government are one. Thus, "WALL-E" seems to
have something to do with fascism, but the First Worlder reaction to
corporations perceived to influence the government is more likely to
be a push to nationalize corporations and distribute their profits,
based on exploitation of Third World people, than anything
progressive. The idea of going after corporations over the
environment and other things is adequate for a labor-aristocrat and
petty-bourgeois is adequate for fascism, not communism, though the
First World majority today is exploiters and won't support revolution
anyway. "WALL-E" sets low standards in other ways. By not buying
"big," Amerikans may end up like the Japanese, but Japan is still an
imperialist country. Also, "WALL-E" suggests that gluttonous and
sedentary life is in the future, but First Worlders live such a life
now. It is a life based on exploitation of people outside the First
World, contrary to the suggestion with the isolated spaceship Axiom
that First Worlders, with their living standards, are potentially
self-sustaining. Most First Worlder don't even produce anything.
"WALL-E" raises the petty-bourgeois white-nationalist idea of
returning to Amerika's farming heritage, but until Amerikans are
reeducated and producing, their connection to agriculture will remain
at the consumption level. The captain of the Axiom thinks that pizzas
can be grown by farming, which is supposed to be comedy, but reflects
reality.
To those who think that "WALL-E" is original, MIWS would say that
there is nothing in "WALL-E" that cannot be found in "THX 1138"
(1971).(1) It would appear that Hollywood can only recycle old
garbage. The environmentalist theme is stronger in "WALL-E" than in
"THX 1138," but First World environmentalism leads to bombing
industrial sites in the Third World and now to "green" fascism and
propping up parasitism with "green jobs" and "green" innovation.
Notes
1. "Liberalism, universality and the theory of humyn nature: from
"Persepolis" to "The Matrix"," http://maoist.ws/reviews/movies/liberalismf
ilm.html