"Wall-E": Aristotelian, crunchy con

Great review. Thanks for that.

What is interesting, though, is that movies like this seem kinda like what the movie is preaching against - a lack of a living culture needing a sly and clever propaganda telling us what to think and how to live; you know, the media culture replacing our traditional one. The "medium is the message" and all that.

God says to Adam, "In the sweat of your face you shall eat bread till you return to the ground, for out of it you were taken; you are dust, and to dust you shall return." (Gen. 3:19) In "Wall-E," humanity discovers that it can only complete its own given nature through labor...

Here is how one can tell the movie is not really countercultural, merely a repeat of the same liberal line: otherwise, it would have focused on the second part of the curse (great film potential here too):

To the woman he said, "I will greatly multiply your pain in childbearing; in pain you shall bring forth children, yet your desire shall be for your husband, and he shall rule over you."

A primary in-our-face reason we live on Axiom today is that women are no longer at home cooking food, raising healthy children, and investing in the community. How could they when they are working in the fields with the men - the sweat of your face you shall eat bread - we've got that covered twice over! Investing in our seed corn...not so much. Although maybe this is covered in the movie with the Eve robot who blasts everything to kingdom come :-).

Excellent post, Rod. It shows that you really are among the smartest conservatives writing today. You've articulated exactly what I've been feeling and thinking about the film, but I could never have put it so thoughtfully.

The only other thing about this movie, and about Pixar in general, that may need to be mentioned is how they have mastered the technology of computer animation and placed it wholly in the service of storytelling. It seems to me that nothing in the movie is done for a "gee-whiz" effect. Everything, even the smallest detail, is there because it contributes to the advancement and development of the story they are telling. And the story itself is so original, so organic, so void of laziness and cliches -- it really is a marvel. Every one of Pixar's films has been like this. Every single one. It is a remarkable achievement of film craftsmanship.

One more thing: The fact that so many conservatives have been compelled to condemn the movie for being "partisan" and "political" and have been unable to appreciate its art, only demonstrates further that mainstream conservatism has become decadent and depraved.

Eric,

Thanks for sharing the great story!

I am thrilled that there is something good on the screen this weekend to balance out the awfulness of "Wanted."

I have to laugh. Watching Daystar (Joni) and listening to doctrinaire Religious Right extremist acquaintences. Whereas you cite Wall-E as being subvesively Conservative.... they condemned it as (paraphrasing and co-joining their words) "the most blatant Al Gore infiltrating propaganda since Michael Moore's (my phrase)'Crock-You-Mentaries".
Seems that good film and good story telling is all in the eyes of the Pixar beholder(s). What next; Ralph Nadar embracing the 'Left Behind' series?

This is off the subject of Wall-E, but I saw Ratatouille for the first time this week, and had the same reaction: This is a very thoughtful, conservative (in the crunchy-con sense) movie. Anyone who hasn't seen it really should, it's a masterpiece.

I am going to skip this thread because I want to see the movie for myself before I engage in any discussion of it.

Just wanted to say: Rod, THANK YOU FOR THE NO KNEAD BREAD LINK!!! OMG!!!!! It came out amazing, like some gourmet loaf from the frou frou pastry shop in my town. My husband and I pretty much scarfed it down right out of the oven. My cooking has never impressed him but now he thinks I'm some kind of goddess for pulling off this bread (he refuses to believe the recipe is as easy as it is). So thanks! I'm making another loaf tomorrow. :-)

Rod, I have to second this on the bread. We've made it three times this week (once by my 7 year old) and it's phenom.

Great review by the way. I still can't believe I loved something Disney.

Anyway, I hope you'll see the movie and report back your insights and criticism.

Dang it Rod, I don't wanna see the movie, that's what I rely on you for, a cultural guru, to do all the dirty work for me! Your review was so complete and covered my usual questions so well I feel like I've already watched it.

Why is the movie "the same liberal line," when it is a (non-ideological) challenge to the modern order?

Simply because the consequences of the modern order (Axiom as it were) are due to lifestyle choices (materialism leading to family decline) and thus we simply cannot talk about Axiom at all without addressing that first (I've sure the producers of this movie wouldn't touch the real story of Axiom with a ten foot pole...can you imagine the feminst outcry...but they are quick to worship the environment and whack our evil corporations, natch).

As I said, real Axiom is not due to our avoidance of the curse of Adam (we've accepted our sweat) but rather the curse of Eve (we've rejected homemaking and children). So while it's great that the movie preaches to the ugliness of our lifestyle choice, who hasn't heard the same old tired line about how we are thrashing the environment and the corporations are to blame? Nothing new here, the same low hanging fruit liberal moviemakers grab for every time.

who hasn't heard the same old tired line about how we are thrashing the environment and the corporations are to blame?

That's too simplistic a reading of the film, in my view. This is ultimately a film about Nature -- not "the environment," in the modern sense, but about Nature and human nature. The dystopia presented in the film is Aldous Huxley's "Brave New World" kind -- a dystopia in which people have given over their freedom and responsibility for the sake of comfort and ease. The fact that a corporation became the government makes more sense in this regard than a totalitarian state. It's a totalitarian set-up in which all your desires are met, and in fact they're all determined by the corporation, which exists to keep everyone in a state of total happiness. But they can only live in that kind of happiness by forgetting what it means to be fully human.

Thank you, Rod. I'm not sure I fully buy into your take on the film - I fear that you may be making the same mistake of some of the film's conservative critics by reading too much into what is quite simply just a great story - but it's a relief to me to confirm that the entire conservative movement hasn't in fact slipped into a reactionary, ignorant philistinism. A conservative-leaning libertarian myself (or, depending on the day, a libertarian-leaning conservative), I've grown increasingly distressed at what appears to be the willful stupidity of many of my ideological compatriots - even among those who purport to be well educated. And the initial Wall-E reviews from conservative outlets just about sent me round the bend (I didn't read them until after I had seen the movie, fortunately). If responses to this film are any indication, the only conservatives capable of commenting on art - as opposed to ideologically driven drivel - are the paleocons (at TAC) and the crunchy cons. I'm becoming convinced that the rest are just moralistic philistines.

The thing that gets me most worked up is the inability of these commentators to distinguish between propaganda and satire. Happy Feet was propaganda dressed up as story - I found it quite repulsive on both levels and like to think I would have found it equally repulsive had I actually agreed with the point of the propaganda. Wall-E, to the extent it is a "message" movie, is essentially a satire, though it's a satire softened by unabashed affection for those being satirized. And one would think that a well-educated person would be capable of appreciating well done satire in its own right even if one doesn't agree fully with the underlying critique. But apparently this is too much to ask of our modern-day conservatives, for whom satire and affection are apparently entirely incompatible. The questions I want to ask these philistines include the following: Does all art now have to be screened through an ideological purity detector? If it does, how can you tolerate the unabashed statism of, say, a Star Trek (a series loved by many at the Corner) while decrying the much milder commentary in Wall-E? What distinguishes you from those on the left who subject every piece of art to examination under the lenses of power, race, gender and other tired shibboleths? Is no aspect of American (or modern) life a proper subject for satire - i.e., is satire incompatible with a love for country and your fellow human beings?

And finally, what the hell is wrong, from a conservative viewpoint, with a movie that turns certain trends in modern life into humor but essentially does no more than encourage its viewers to consider for themselves lives of virtue? The movie makes no call for government action or increased regulation; the only suggestion for how the damage to the earth can be undone - to the extent that the movie has a message - is (as Rod has pointed out) that people return to lives of independence and hard work and that they learn to treasure the small pleasures of friends and family. If a movie gets put on the conservative blacklist for doing no more than (gently and only secondarily to the story itself) encouraging us to think for ourselves about the way we live our lives, I think I'm pretty much done calling myself a conservative.

I just saw Wall-E with my kids (well, 5 of them). I loved a lot of things about it; I waited until I'd watched it before reading Rod's review, and now that I've seen it, I agree with much of what he said about it. A little boy was sitting next to me with his Dad, and judging from his barrage of questions (all audible to me), younger viewers may not understand all of it, but I think they'll enjoy it, anyway.

There are many nods to other science fiction movies in this one. Wall-E, especially, reminded me of R2-D2. Remember the scene at the beginning of Star Wars IV when the grimy robots are shuffling across Tatooine? I had the same feeling of excitement when I was watching Wall-E at work; I thought, "I don't know where they're going with this, but it's interesting and different."

I also liked the symbolism of Eve, who resembles an egg, carrying a precious life form within her, while Wall-E protects her.

We haven't seen the movie yet, but I've been a little mystified by some of the criticism coming from my (right) side of the aisle, especially as it relates to the portrayal of corporations. My fellow conservatives have got to get over their knee-jerk reaction whenever a corporation is the antagonist in a movie - corporations are just like individuals in that ones that go about their day-to-day lives without screwing over others don't make for good villains.

"Technology emerges as a villain here -- but it's a complicated villain, as I'll explain. Technology allowed for the development of the consumer economy, and the creation of the fantastic spaceship that allowed humanity to escape an earth it despoiled with technology. But technology also shaped the consciousness of the humans. It led them to break with nature (Nature), and to think of technology as something that delivered them from nature. As humanity became more technologically sophisticated, the film argues, they became ever more divorced from Nature, and their own nature. They developed a culture and society that was mechanistic and artificial, versus organic and natural (the grotty little Wall-E robot is an instructive contrast with the sleek, ultraclean robots on the Axiom). Consequently, they've become slaves of both technology and their own base appetites, and have lost what makes them human. They can't even talk naturally to each other. Two people lying on lounges next to each other communicate via computer. People on the Axiom live their days moving around from mindless entertainment to mindless entertainment. They are the perfect consumers."

That sounds like the way we are today times a million. A couple of my cousins are like that (won't name names ;-) ), though one is worse than the other--when they last visited, all they wanted to do was a) watch TV, b) one of them wanted to listen to his iPod all the time or play on his PSP, or c) be bored (whatever happened to reading a good book????). Thank God, I'm not like that.

My Mom read a book a while back called Last Child in the Woods and although I haven't read it yet (I have a gargantuan list of books that I want to read--yes, want), your view of WALL-E reminded me of what she's told me about the book: that today's kids are growing up without much interaction with nature--and when they do interact with it, it is always supervised more closely than necessary--sure you want your kid to be safe, but to supervise to the point where the kid hardly has any interaction at all is nuts.

Mom raised me to be aware of nature, and to love it and respect it and I now firmly believe that the answer to the little-kid question, "are God and Mother Nature married or are they just good friends?" is: "God and Mother Nature are one and the same--one of the ways God manifests here on Earth is through nature (not necessarily Creation since I believe firmly in the Big Bang theory).

WALL-E is on my list of movies to see--and now I really can't wait for it to come out on DVD!! Thanks, Rod!

Rod digs a bit deeper than me (it is a cartoon, after all...1:-{)> ), but I'm in major agreement.
http://religionblog.dallasnews.com/archives/2008/07/did-conservatives-who-object-t.html

I thought it was more a stab at consumerism. Would that be a conservative or liberal value?

Good question. Reading the Corner and listening to any number of conservative preachers, one can get the impression that the only type of consumerism that's bad is sexual: As long as you're satisfying some non-sexual urge, gorge away.

I always thought the point of conservatism was that people should live lives of virtue - and that government should be small enough to permit them to do so. I'm no fan of governments keeping Walmart out of the city limits or telling McDonalds what types of oils they can use in their recipes (even though I refuse to shop at the former and eat at the latter only in emergencies), but just because I don't want government doing these things doesn't mean that I have to glorify what these businesses do to local economies and to our bodies. Or at least I didn't think it was required...

I think this year has verified that the Democrats most certainly do NOT have the market cornered on lust.

Rod: I think you hit a lot of the really major, important points about the film, and quite well, too.

One part of the movie you didn't mention, but which really enchanted me, was the "secondary romance" of John and Mary (two people on the Axiom.) Both are "touched" or affected by WALL-E in one way or another, and get "busted out" of their complacency - which enables them to notice one another and fall in love.

Did you get the impression that parents on the Axiom weren't raising their own children; that they were essentially being raised by the robots? That's what I saw, anyway.

One point re: EVE's trigger-happy shootin' arm. At first I thought, "Oh, no, another example of GRRLLL POWER, pandering to this idea that all female characters have to be over-the-top violent." But that wasn't it at all. EVE's weapons were to help her fulfill her "directive" (find plant, safeguard it till return to Axiom.) IOW, she was like a "momma bear" who will do anything to keep her cubs safe.

This is paralleled, too, in the secondary couple (John & Mary), when the Autopilot makes the ship tilt, and people slip off their loungers and all start to slide. Some of the babies slide too. Mary grabs John with her right hand, swings him around (obviously there's less gravity on the Axiom than on Earth!), forming a wedge with their two hands, in which they catch some of the children. At the same time she says something like, "Get ready to have a lot of children," (can't remember exactly; I'm dreadful w/ quotes.)

I interpreted that to mean that the Axiomites *didn't* raise their own children - which made me wonder how much control *they* had over their own children's conceptions, and how much was left to the machines. Not that I would have expected any such exposition in a children's movie - but it did make me wonder.

I wrote a review of WALL•E and came to some of the same conclusions you did. I even drew some similar parallels with Noah's Ark and the Garden of Eden. I have a slightly different take on the Axiom society. I call it a post-Fascist utopia, meaning that it is a society where people have been robbed of their freedom but they are so engaged in mundane pleasures that they are unaware that they are being dominated and manipulated by an all-powerful corporate Police State. I hope you'll take the time to read my review.
The link is: futurenewstoday.blogspot.com/2008/07/walle-post-fascist-utopia.html

"Technology emerges as a villain here -- but it's a complicated villain, as I'll explain. Technology allowed for the development of the consumer economy, and the creation of the fantastic spaceship that allowed humanity to escape an earth it despoiled with technology. But technology also shaped the consciousness of the humans. It led them to break with nature (Nature), and to think of technology as something that delivered them from nature. As humanity became more technologically sophisticated, the film argues, they became ever more divorced from Nature, and their own nature. They developed a culture and society that was mechanistic and artificial, versus organic and natural (the grotty little Wall-E robot is an instructive contrast with the sleek, ultraclean robots on the Axiom). Consequently, they've become slaves of both technology and their own base appetites, and have lost what makes them human. They can't even talk naturally to each other. Two people lying on lounges next to each other communicate via computer. People on the Axiom live their days moving around from mindless entertainment to mindless entertainment. They are the perfect consumers."

That sounds like the way we are today times a million. A couple of my cousins are like that (won't name names ;-) ), though one is worse than the other--when they last visited, all they wanted to do was a) watch TV, b) one of them wanted to listen to his iPod all the time or play on his PSP, or c) be bored (whatever happened to reading a good book????). Thank God, I'm not like that.

My Mom read a book a while back called Last Child in the Woods and although I haven't read it yet (I have a gargantuan list of books that I want to read--yes, want), your view of WALL-E reminded me of what she's told me about the book: that today's kids are growing up without much interaction with nature--and when they do interact with it, it is always supervised more closely than necessary--sure you want your kid to be safe, but to supervise to the point where the kid hardly has any interaction at all is nuts.

Mom raised me to be aware of nature, and to love it and respect it and I now firmly believe that the answer to the little-kid question, "are God and Mother Nature married or are they just good friends?" is: "God and Mother Nature are one and the same--one of the ways God manifests here on Earth is through nature (not necessarily Creation since I believe firmly in the Big Bang theory).

WALL•E is on my list of movies to see--and now I really can't wait for it to come out on DVD!! Thanks, Rod!

Sounds interesting, but I'll wait til it comes to Blockbuster. I'm curious about the movie's attitude to the humans aboard the Axiom. Were they presented as the helpless victims of the big ol' corporation , or as the authors of their own degradation? If the former, maybe that's what's stirring up conservatives against the movie.

I found this inteview of the director Andrew Stanton on World Magazine which is a Christian website. Here's an excerpt.
www.worldmag.com/articles/14127

STANTON: Well, what really interested me was the idea of the most human thing in the universe being a machine because it has more interest in finding out what the point of living is than actual people. The greatest commandment Christ gives us is to love, but that's not always our priority. So I came up with this premise that could demonstrate what I was trying to say—that irrational love defeats the world's programming. You've got these two robots that are trying to go above their basest directives, literally their programming, to experience love.

With the human characters I wanted to show that our programming is the routines and habits that distract us to the point that we're not really making connections to the people next to us. We're not engaging in relationships, which are the point of living—relationship with God and relationship with other people.

With the human characters I wanted to show that our programming is the routines and habits that distract us to the point that we're not really making connections to the people next to us. We're not engaging in relationships, which are the point of living—relationship with God and relationship with other people.

Good point. I noticed that the man and woman first had to notice WALL-E, or have him interact with them, before they began noticing each other.

Rod: (re: "authors of their own degradation:") I would say the latter. Remember, the people *aren't unhappy.* All their material needs and desires are met. But they're living a life that's less than human.

The individuals who were living on the Axiom 700 years "after the fact" were IMO not so much "authors of their own degradation" as people who were *asleep.* (There are a lot of "sleeping people" images shown to us.) I mean that more than simple physiological sleeping; they were "sleeping" mentally and spiritually as well.

But there's no shame in being a sleeper - what's critical is how you act *when someone wakes you up.* This is why the John/Mary subplot, small as it is, is important. First, WALL-E "wakes John up" by *not doing something John expects* (acting like a servant-bot to take his empty cup.) Because WALL-E doesn't meet John's expectations, John falls off his hoverchair. (Am I the only person who saw a Saul of Tarsus analogy here?) But NOTE: when John falls off his chair, he's in a terrifying position - he's physically helpless; the cars are streaming around him. Nonetheless, he's not angry; he doesn't yell at WALL-E; he doesn't get mad that he's been unceremoniously dumped back on his chair. He is kind, as WALL-E is - and more important, later in the star observation scene, he *remembers* who WALL-E is (and thus opens himself up to the relationship with Mary, which is an awakening.)

Similarly, because WALL-E wants to get close to the dormant EVE, who's being transported to the tower, WALL-E zaps Mary's viewscreen. (It's hard to tell, but I think Mary is having a conversation w/ another woman and why they can't meet men. It's obvious - they have their faces stuck in the viewscreens, but because they are metaphorically 'asleep,' they can't see that.) Because her viewscreen is down, Mary suddenly *sees* her world around her. It's this "awakening" which makes her *able* to encounter John later and "connect" with him. And again - Mary doesn't get irate; instead, she's kind to WALL-E; moves over so he can sit near EVE.

So I don't think the director/writer was in any way "blaming or shaming" the Axiom people, especially when they were so enthralled from birth on with powerful virtual distractions. The key was how they acted when they were "woken up."

Rod, This is ultimately a film about Nature -- not "the environment," in the modern sense, but about Nature and human nature...they can only live in that kind of happiness by forgetting what it means to be fully human.

Hey, I get this. I agree with it.

My problem: there is a real, serious reason why we live in Axiom today, why we've lost our humanity, and why we won't be returning to our humanity anytime soon. My problem with the movie (as described) is that it sends a false message here of why, and thus my distaste.

Look, we've already know this storyline. This ain't a new meme, this trope is old news. We tried to "return" to the rough-and-ready world of "humanity" back in the 1960s - that was the whole gig, you know, "evil plastics!" and "back to the land" and the "health craze" and emotional humanity and all that. We wanted our humanity back! It failed then, and it will fail now. Why? Because the real story of why we live in Axiom is not as Wall-E tells it, but rather about the slow breakdown of family and community that has little or nothing to do with the our avoiding labor and the easy life (and don't tell me the enviornmental damage to the earth is not part of the storyline). But this is where the movie must go because it's all a liberal Hollywood type can see about why we are in Axiom. This is my problem with the movie as described, not some "conservative" knee-jerk response (btw, the best truly non-ideological movie on this is In the Bedroom).

Florida CC ...make sure lots of people sit back in chairs, eat food through a straw, and imbibe content from a screen.

Exactly. The medium is the message. The best way a person can return to their humanity is to not take their kids to this movie (nor any movie). Rather, throw the ball with the kids. Eat dinner together. Go fishing. Visit with the neighbors. Next, start the long, difficult, painful, ahem - socially conservative - path towards getting out of Axiom. Hint: it starts with the wife staying home and families learning to invest in their seed corn, and it's not the fault of the government nor corporations nor the media nor the environment nor other people. It's in our heads, how we think, what we believe.

Rod, I still say we are being had by a giant Rorschach inkblot of a movie that seems less of a Christian allegory and more of an effort to make and promote green ("environmentality") by the Disney Company (Buy and Large). I'm not at all against free enterprise, big business, or the environment. I am for responsible stewardship, self-sacrificial love, and keeping a clear mind when in the middle of a stampede. If this makes me unsophisticated, then so be it.

In other words, because it doesn't agree 100% with a particular argument, it may as well be thought of as disagreeing 100%?

You have to understand how desperate, enormous, and portentous the ideological struggle looks to people on one side of it at present. Many cling to it by willpower- fervent desire coupled with attenuation of intellect or conscience that suggests the object of desire is not worthy or attainable, or not moral to attain. People who operate on willpower are greatly pained by strong external sources of intellect or conscience contrary to their desire, i.e. criticism.

What's being missed here, in all this talk about ideology, is to what extent successful children's movies have to reflect the world of children and the needs and desires of children. Every child knows its one true task is to grow in maturity and attain adulthood. Of course a good children's movie starts at images of infantility and boredom and helplessness, then looks out at the marvelous and frightening wreckage and opportunity that the World is. It then must have adventures of beauty, pain, and discovery in the World, and their course come to and experience that defines love as helping another to grow toward their full potential in body and mind. The end is attainment of restorative or creative power and emergence of some element(s) of adulthood.

Come to think of it, conservatives really should watch more children's movies. :)

I just came back from watching Wall-E and, like you, was stunned and amazed by the film. What I thought was so endearing about it is how it underscores that which makes us truly human is loving one another, and loving and caring for life; ironically, it is two robots that teach that lesson: they stop at nothing to care for one another, even if it appears there is no life (people in vegetative states?), they care for one another and risk everything to fix, rather than to discard, one another. And they are zealous to protect and nurture life. It is love that animates them, no pun intended.

I did think it made great points about the environment, about materialism, about putting greed and the thirst for pleasure above knowledge, virtue and caring for our world and for one another.

This is a beautiful movie on many levels.

I was speechless. This was a great movie. Amazingly drawn. With a lesson, but not 'preechy.'

I hope every American can see this, and appreciate it for what it is: a classic.

Peace be with you.

Like I said, it's not really a "liberal" or a "conservative" movie, but a traditionalist movie (I would say that if it's anything, it's a "traditionalist conservative" film, which is why so many conventional conservatives are freaked out by it). There's something in there for liberals and conservatives both, and something to challenge both.

Rod, @Anonymous: And yet, you're prepared to dismiss all of this as a pile of liberal nonsense because the film doesn't get around to saying women should be at home raising children? Really?

Anonymous, have you *seen* the film? Because the John/Mary subplot definitely makes some clear statements about children, even if not perhaps exactly as you think it should.

Anon: The best way a person can return to their humanity is to not take their kids to this movie (nor any movie).

Why? Movies are a part of our life in the here and now. They are a powerful form of artistic expression. If you're going to go that far, why are you even on the internet, taking part in a blog combox discussion?

Rod: It's also the case that it served the interests of the BNL Corp. for the people to have forgotten who they were, because they were easier to sell things to.

This is a critical point. The BNL computers controlled *everything* on the Axiom, even (possibly) the engendering of new people themselves. It was the Autopilot's "directive" to *keep* the Captain and others from realizing that they *weren't* going to return to Earth (if the Autopilot could help it.) Thus for at least part of the ship's computers to realize their *own* directives, the Axiom people *had* to be kept in a state of cultural amnesia.

Lee Ann: The thing that doesn't make me think Wall*E is meant to be a Liberal movie is the idea, apparently proposed in the movie, that the best thing for mankind to do is go back to earth and improve it by making homes and civilization.

This is the best argument re: this point I have heard so far.

Rod, And yet, you're prepared to dismiss all of this as a pile of liberal nonsense because the film doesn't get around to saying women should be at home raising children? Really?...Would you say the best way to return to one's humanity is to avoid art museums and libraries, because time spent studying painting, sculpture and books is time not spent tossing the ball in the backyard with the kids? What about balance?

Sigh. The "really?" after the straw men is often the last step in this type of discussion. But I better knock down some straw men before I go:

1) I'm not opposed to movies (in moderation), nor art museums, nor libraries, nor painting. I am, however, opposed to ideological ones that have disorder in their ideological viewpoints. The last Pixar movie my kids saw, for example, was The Incredibles - the ideology was fundamentally ordered in this case and it was just a good fun movie. But I would never say people should take their kids to watch a movie for ideological reasons - let kids be kids.

2) I never said it was a "bunch of liberal nonsense", a view you seem desperate to fix on somebody (well, anybody who is conservative and dares to disagree with your positive view of it). Rather, I said (and say) that this movie seems to articulate the true and important problem of Axiom very well, but offers the typical failed liberal solution while avoiding the obvious and correct traditional one.

3) You disagree with my view. This is fine. We all must make our own cultural choices here. This is what makes America so great to my mind, that we can all make these choices individually when we do disagree.

I will simply say, as somebody who has seen WALL*E twice, I have no idea where somebody would get the idea that the solution offered by the film is the "typical failed liberal" one. Perhaps it doesn't offer what one might consider to be the ideal solution, in all of its particulars, of a particular kind of conservative, but I'm hard-pressed to see how that's the same thing, since what particulars it does offer I would argue it gets right.

On the other hand -- to provide another example from my father, he likes to say that "behavior which is rewarded will be repeated", applying this to things like capital punishment, border control, terrorism, etc. "Rewarded" in this case appears to mean "not inflicting the harshest possible penalty which measures out the maximum available amount of pain" -- that is, if you're not punished *enough* it will be understood as reward or appeasement or whatever you want to call it. To bring this back to the current discussion, what I'm hearing is that if you're not conservative *enough*, and in the right ways, then this is effectively the same thing as being a liberal.

Yes? No? Maybe? If yes, are we *really* in the middle of so severe of a cultural war right now that that's how it has to be?

Richard

To everyone who thinks WALL-E is a bunch of liberal propaganda, I agree completely.

They should give equal time to the positive aspects of over-consumption, destruction of the environment and a giant corporation completely taking over the world government and shipping people in to space after turning the world into an inhabitable wasteland.

Wonderful reading your article, Rod, and all of the the thoughtful posts. What I find most fascinating is for all its depth, the human story is completely secondary to the basic plot of the movie. At it's heart, the movie is the story of Wall-E's effort to win the love of Eve. That he saves and redeems humankind in the process is incidental. The humans are inspired by him, but there's little indication (at least to me) that he ever has any understanding of what he's doing other than helping Eve fulfill her directive and in so doing make her happy. It's this unconditional love - a love that threatens his comfortable life, takes him far from home, and puts him in constant danger, but one he welcomes and embraces anyway - that simply reminds the humans (and us) that there are things beyond us worth living for.

And the kids don't stop with demands to recycle. My daughter's started noting how I can't tear myself away from my Blackberry just like "those fat people in Wall-E." The NRO philistines are right - Wall-E is a threat to the modern American way of life.

I'm intrigued as well. At first, I thought this might be boring, but everything I've hear makes me want to rush out and see it.

Eric W, great story! Rod, thanks for your thoughtful review.

We need to go back to Teddy Roosevelt, who saw the dangers of large corporations, or Dwight Eisenhower, who saw the dangers of the Military-Industrial complex. The problem is any institution that becomes so large that it is no longer subject to restraints. That includes governments, the military, or corporations.

If the guy talking about "NRO philistines" was not such self-satisfied cerebrally challenged twit, I'd mention that most writers on NRO recommended Wall-E.

That being said, this is best philosophic analysis of the movie I've read, and it's tied to the Aristotelian ethical concept of "flourishing," which we don't hear about much of these days, but should. I might see it again, just because of this review; it captured and helped to crystallize my own thoughts. My favorite line in the movie was at the end - and I'm afraid this is just a paraphrase - but when the now-walking humans landed on Earth, the Captain exclaimed, very happy and very excited: "We're going to plant things!"

Well, Brian, the ad hominem is impressive - more impressive than my own characterization of the folks over at NRO even. I'm not sure what led you to believe that I'm self-satisfied or, for that matter, cerebrally challenged - and I don't think that anyone who actually knows me has ever called me a twit. My language was certainly a bit harsh, but it's harsh because I'm a conservative who's become mighty disillusioned in the past couple years with the state of political, cultural, and social discourse on my side of the aisle. Careful thought has been replaced by pat answers to complex questions and a desire to fit nearly everything in human experience into an ideological box. Entertainers like Rush and Ann are held up as exemplars of what serious conservative thought should be, and much of what goes on at the Corner in their exorbitant praise of Bush and company is as embarrassing to me as I wish Obamamania were to my liberal friends.

In my review of NRO's treatment of Wall-E, I saw Frederica's positive review and Goldberg's generally positive note - with the bizarre aside about Malthusian fearmongering (was overpopulation referenced even indirectly in the film?) - countered by the sheer idiocy spouted in posts by Pollowitz and Coffin. I've been trying to keep track of other comments but haven't seen anything substantive: By my count, then, the site as a whole has taken a slightly negative response to the film; I certainly don't see how one can say that "most" folks at NRO have expressed pleasure in the film. Even so, I plead guilty for dumping all my frustrations on NRO: It served as a convenient punching bag after several sites that I typically enjoyed jumped on this bandwagon - Dirty Harry, Libertas, and alas, even Protein Wisdom.

I apologize if I've offended you, but I don't apologize for my view that much of the conservative commentariat has - not only with Wall-E but with the general state of their commentary over the past few years - revealed themselves to be cultural philistines. Much like the liberals I knew in graduate school and in my profession, they're increasingly incapable of appreciating any work of art that hasn't passed through their ideological purity detector (with, as I noted above, special allowances for certain "classics" such as Star Trek). Much like many liberals, they're increasingly incapable of separating a cultural critique from a statement of what government policy should be. What they propose to do with the whole moral content of the Christian and Jewish faiths, I have no idea; I though conservatism was essentially about creating space for individuals and communities to pursue lives of virtue, but apparently for many modern conservatives, striving to live to those standards yourself and calling others to do so through art or music or religious teachings is acceptable only if it doesn't distract people from their real purpose on this earth, which is to produce and consume as much as possible in the service of the market economy, in which case the call to personal and community virtue deserves as much opprobrium as an Obamanian call for increased government spending and collective virtue through national service. And I say this as an ardent - perhaps overly ardent, to hear many of my friends tell it - defender of the free market. Go figure.

I also enjoyed the movie, as did my kids. But I found myself thinking about it in another way. Everyone on the ship was alike -- regardless of age, sex or race. There didn't appear to be any classes. Everyone had access to everywhere and to everything. If one person got a giant meal in a cup, so did everyone else. No one was unhappy, or distressed or in danger or sick. It was like the heaven I imagine plenty of people crave -- rest after the weary work of living. I've wanted days like those people were living. Perhaps they were living the exact life that mankind has striven for since we strived for comfort.

But, of course, such a life would be highly unsatisfactory for more than a week, maybe a month, or a year. Anyways, I also liked the way the movie didn't blame any one group of people for the resulting future. We humans were swept along to the Axiom unwittingly, without malice or premeditation. And now we had a chance to start again and learn from our past mistakes.

Rod, you have got to be kidding. This review is an incredible stretch to try and make a pop culture mini-phenomenon jibe with your own personal philosophy. In truth, "Wall-E" is an incredibly stupid movie. It has not even a tenuous grasp on basic economics. The economics of the BNL Corp in general - and of The Axiom in particular - are impossible. Not improbable - IMPOSSIBLE. Thus, what you call a "conservative critique of modernity" rests on a set of flatly impossible assumptions. BNL and The Axiom simply cannot exist as depicted.

On top of that, the movie is fundamentally misanthropic, and misanthropy can never be a "conservative" position. That you gloss this over is troubling. The conservative approach is that the human spirit will endure, overcome and find a way (much as life itself endured, overcame and found a way on an otherwise poisoned earth). The idea that human can be reduced to a shipload of cattle is absurd, and can only be reasonably championed by a dedicated believer in the efficacy of central planning.

Now, you can cherry pick various nuggets out of this film to support "crunchy conservatism," but at its core, this is a statist film with a deeply hateful view of humanity.

Guard at Itchy & Scratchy Land: "There's no need to murmur, ma'am. Here at Itchy and Scratchy Land, we're just as concerned with violence as you are. That's why we're always careful to show the consequences of deadly mayhem, so that we may educate as well as horrify."

Marge: "When do you show the consequences? On TV, that mouse pulled out that cat's lungs and played them like a bagpipe, but in the next scene, the cat was breathing comfortably."

Guard at Itchy & Scratchy Land: "Just like in real life."

I have absolutely no idea what crunchy conservatism is, but a) it's making me kind of hungry, and b) if crunchy conservatives enjoy Wall-E, then it can't be bad.

And they came "to think of technology as something that would deliver them from nature." James Dickey was on to this 38 years ago, and "Delivarence", particularly the nervously carictatured film version, still hasn't gotten its due. Two gems from the character Lewis stand out: the first being the Friday happy hour banter amongst the four protagonists that is heard but not seen while the opening credits roll in the 25th anniversary edition and the later scene with only Ed(Jon Voigt)kicked back sucking on a cold one in the stern of the canoe while Reynolds intensely bow fishes for their supper in the placid waters of that stretch of river where they camped the first night.

In the first scene Lewis is making his pitch for the weekend canoe trip on "the last unspoiled, undamed, unfucked up river in the South." Fat ass Bobby (Ned Beatty) whines about Sunday being the opener for the Falcons, and Ed objects to Lewis's "extreme" position on the "Progress" that is the hydroelectric power, flood control, and recreation (not to mention lakefront real estate) provided by the dams. All the while, the visual scene is an aerial shot of a TVA like earthworks project with men and bulldozers on the scale of ants scurrying about below, puncutated ony by the clinking of glasses, background chatter, and the vivid bits of dialogue. The close is provided by Lewis in retort to Voigt's reflexive shilling (as a civilized urban dweller he can't help it) for the Corps of Engineers: "Yeah, you go ahead and push some more power down into Atlanta. Grab a little more cheap air conditioning for one more smug ass suburb. And you know what's gonna happen in the process? We gonna RAPE THIS WHOLE FUCKING PLANET! Simultaneously a massive dynamite charge is set off and the screen fades to dust cloud while the first few chords of "Dueling Banjos" are audible.

In the second scene, Lewis's relentessly needles Ed about why he joins hims on weekend survivalist jaunts, when "he has his nice job, nice house, nice wife, nice kids" (spat off Reynolds tongue like tobacco juice past its time). All the while Lewis's has been sending arrows into the cool green water but missing the mark. Ed's listless response provokes Lewis's (his most transparent moment as Dickey's mouthpiece) observation that:

You know as well as I do that pretty soon the machines are gonna break down, the business system is gonna collapse...
Then the game comes down to one thing only:Survival. Who survives and who doesn't (with the last syllable out of his mouth he puts an arrow through the eye of a big bass and a stream of red muddles the waters as the scene fades)

Dickey's epigraph for the novel was from the Old Testament Book of Obadiah:

The pride of thine heart hath deceived thee,
though that dwellest in the clefts of the rock
whose habitation is high: that sayeth in his heart
Who shall bring me down to the ground?

And in looking for that old article I stumbled across The Journal of Cartoon Over-analyzations:
http://cartoonoveranalyzations.com/category/toy-story-2/

Which includes some WALL-E:
http://cartoonoveranalyzations.com/2008/06/23/ex-situ-is-wall-e-environmental-or-hypocritical/
http://cartoonoveranalyzations.com/2008/07/06/ex-situ-biblical-themes-in-wall-e/

This blog is most beautifully written! I am making all the people I know go see this movie! Thank you for your words.

Good write-up. Wall-E was a film that didn't necessarily demonize humanity, but sort of pointed out that we don't know what we're really doing. We're "natural" in that we're programmed to survive as efficiently as possible, same as a wolf, turtle, etc. Humans are efficient to the point we may be able to destroy every other living thing on the planet and still survive (maybe even in a big spaceship...).

I'm hoping we realize this and change our course. That quote from Marx..."The purpose of civilization is to free us from the determinism of nature"...is pretty telling. If we continue in our natural path, we'll probably wipe everything out and still survive as a species. If we use our intellect to curb our natural tendencies, we may be able to continue to improve the human race, while at the same time keep other life on the planet in existence.

wall-e:

Quite a Disney Dystopia. Lets see, Short Circuit evolves into Max Headroom, then into Idiocracy, then Wall-E. And #5 is still alive 700 years into the future 2776 AD.

Earth-bound life has died out in 2110, 666 years prior to the story-line except for hibernating seeds, and Cockroaches. The irrepressible TWINKIE (Please insert Vincent Price saying, "Aren't preservatives wonderful?!?!") has obviously fed said roach.

The Clean-up has failed, we launch an escape, and directive A113 makes the AXIOM's computer go HAL9000 on us. We mere mortals were in search of... a new world to turn into a trash heap. But we drift aimlessly in space, surviving, and not going anywhere relevant. The mother ship provides all, we don't need no steenking planet, we'll just jettison into the infinite garbage can. All part of the A113 modification.

OK, now the bad news... there is no meat. We have climbed all the way to the top of the food chain to become a vegetarian. And yet we have still become obese blobs of goo parked in front of a computer. Fortunately the ship's captain has googled Earth, and learns what we were. Fortunately, a drone named Eva finds a plant on Earth, collected by Wall-E. And, HAL err uh, Otto, yeah thats it Otto, is destined to manual override.

Welcome to the Disney vegen cafeteria. No cats, and all dogs have gone to heaven, and the computer doesn't wear tennis shoes, more like Caterpillar bulldozer tracks. Just people cockroaches, and plants. Now where's my spoon-fork?

Well, if this story-line keeps repeating itself every few years, it will become a self-fulfilling prophecy. Thats the scariest part of the media history presented here... they keep repeating the viewpoint. Do yourself a favor, become familiar with 2001, Short Circuit, Max Headroom, and Idiocracy. Then watch Wall-E again. Doesn't matter if its Zik-Zak or BnL, its all the same.