Have you seen "WALL-E", the Disney/Pixar film, yet? Me, no, but I'm taking the boys this weekend. The WSJ's Joe Morgenstern calls it a "masterpiece," and the critical consensus seems to be pretty strong in its favor. Over at TAC's blog, though, Patrick Ford has found a couple of conservative critics who hate, hate, hate the movie, calling it an anti-capitalist insult to its audience. Ford responds in part:
The real tragedy of these callous conservative critics (say that three times fast) is that they are missing the real lessons of the movie, ones I found immediately attractive to a traditional conservative. In the film, it becomes clear that mass consumerism is not just the product of big business, but of big business wedded with big government. In fact, the two are indistinguishable in WALL-E's future. The government unilaterally provided it's citizens with everything they needed, and this lack of variety led to Earth's downfall.Another lesson missed is portrayed perfectly in Coffin's claim that WALL-E points out the "evils of mankind." The only evils of mankind portrayed are those that come about from losing touch with our own humanity.
It will be a good day when it becomes possible to criticize the excesses of American consumerism without being pilloried from the Right for being some kind of America-hating lib symp. Why on earth is it considered "liberal" to point out that gluttony is sinful, and that evil lurks in the hearts of men? Is the Bible liberal? Come on!
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From reading the National Review I would have thought WALL-E was Ferngully: The Last Rainforest when really the anti-consumerist elements are more like a less cynical take on Idiocracy. How can you not like a film that makes a cockroach endearing?
I felt the same way about Rush Limbaugh and other conservatives' defense of SUVs when the left attacked them. In this case, there are actually good arguments from environmentalists and others that have nothing to do with consumerism or capitalism. It is a giant dance of ignorance. Moronic liberals make arguments like "brushing your teeth supports world socialism" and moronic conservatives respond by telling people they don't have to brush their teeth if they don't want to, it's a free country. Conservatives need to relax and understand that the majority of Americans recognize the idiocy that comes from the environmental left. The blog "Stuff White People Like" mocks them mercilessly. Then you can enjoy a movie like WALL-E and laugh at fat people.
WALL-E does not make fun of fat people. And I have a very sensitive bash-o-meter.
The whole presentation is subtle and I don't want to put in spoilers. If that keeps someone away from the movie, so be it - that's perhaps a weakness in the film, that the points made get confused with fat-bashing. As I interpreted it, though, it was thoughtful, *not* hateful (Get Smart, I'm looking at you.)
Monty Python's "Jabberwocky", now THERE'S a movie that bashes fat people.
Not to mention Mr. Creosote in "The Meaning of Life"--"Would you like a mint, sir? They're wahfer thin..."
No, as a fat guy myself, I didn't think the movie bashed fat people. It certainly bashed the sedentary lifestyle, though, the kind that might lead someone to sit in an air-conditioned theatre for two hours eating popcorn and Raisinets...
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