What did you think the right would say about Pixar’s WALL-E?
I’ll never understand why resource parsimony cannot be a tenet of conservatism. It’s ok to mine the earth, create waste and expend energy as long as we do it in moderation. If we want ourselves and our children to live long, healthy lives with a respect for the fact that the earth is limited in what it can make and handle and that the waste has to go somewhere on this planet, why is this then an evil, liberal agenda and not a human agenda? Waste bothers me (even and especially when I create it) because I measure capitalism in efficiency and waste is not efficient. If the point is to make money now, irreducible excess and the future be damned, it will come to bite you in the butt in this lifetime, in the form of increasing pollution, crime and disease and decreasing health and quality of life. What’s the roadblock to comprehension here?
It all became clear to me on reading this post at the Culture War Blog. You see, eco-friendly movies will cause mindless drones like us to put environment over humanity which will then lead to “the devaluing of human life and the worship of creation rather than the Creator.” Yeah, ok then. Let’s just ignore that crucial fact that the environment includes humans and ruining ourselves makes us a sad lot of worshippers of the Creator. “I’ll go further and bet you a hundred bucks” that logic wasn’t the aim here.
Moving along. Despite that he dislikes the movie for its eco-friendly theme and will not purchase WALL-E products specifically and not Disney junk in its entirety, Greg Pollowitz over at National Review makes a good point.
All this from mega-company Disney, who wants us to buy WALL-E kitsch for our kids that are manufactured in China at environment-destroying factories and packed in plastic that will take hundreds of year to biodegrade in our landfills.
And so it goes.
* SPOILERS AHEAD *
The movie had me at Hello, Dolly! As dear, departed friend, computer artist and the best professor ever, George Cramer, always said, “Animation without a compelling story is a waste of pixels.” All the way from the rendering of grit and Soderbergh-esque lighting of WALL-E’s earth to the robot’s expressions, from the boundless wonder that WALL-E was allowed to express by his creators to his dance in the ether with Eva, the film was joyous and full of awe, reflecting WALL-E’s innocence and kind nature. I admit doubts. The kitschy, anthropomorphic love affair between two robots troubled me through a large part of the film until I realized that, 700 years in the future, artificial intelligence can be as intelligent and expressive as it wants to be. If HAL is a murderous paranoiac in a projected 2001, why not a robot who dances with a hubcap as a hat and who seeks true love in 2708?
Go watch WALL-E. The film succeeded in making me uncomfortable about how much junk we collect and dump out over the course of a lifetime, but also did not force me to disavow all plastic, shun my car and not get Chinese food in to-go containers after the final credits rolled. Just go watch the film for what it is.
Since I could be properly classified in “The Right” (whatever that is) I suppose I should keep quiet. But, nooooo! Wall-E is a movie. An entertainment. I judge it on that basis and I was entertained. Perhaps I am insensitive, but I choose not to look for “messages” in my entertainments.
Blair, Exactly. Also, I consider you Old Skool Right, people I can actually talk to without their heads or mine bursting into flames.
This is wonderful. Thank you for being much more eloquent about WALL-E than I’ve managed to be so far. Pixar’s made something really lovely this time.
It’s because the right (especially the Christian right) uses every available gimmick and trick to draw in children and coerce adults to join their cause (churches) that they in turn see every freaking song, movie, book, work of art, choice of haircut, clothing, and so on as a weapon of the left. What was that old Gene Hackman movie, was it The Conversation, about a professional spy who eventually goes nuts because he knows the tricks of the trade so well that he can never feel privacy? That’s what I think is happening to the “moral” right.
And I love the new banner. So much talent!
Peace,
Tim
Excellent post!
From an artistic viewpoint, I love that Wall-E is almost devoid of speaking — falling back to vaudeville and latzi routines. Just showing that classic styles of comedy are universal and can stand up to the test of time.
Did you notice that the voice for the ship computer is Sigourney Weaver?
Wall-E totally looks like the robot from “Short Circuit”… minus the cheesy 80’s style of course