A Dystopian Love Story

Upon the recommendation of a friend, I recently picked up the 2008 Pixar film, “Wall-E”. Expecting a simple children’s story, I was surprised to find a story that fairly screamed ‘sustainable public discourse’. This was delightful and only mildly aggravating (after all, I was not expecting to spend my weekend film flick to evoke such analysis; I certainly irritated my movie companion by invoking writing theory at every possible opportunity.) Mostly, however, in this film, I found a stunning story that closely corresponded with the themes of this course.
This film begins on a world made completely inhospitable by the wanton waste and pollution. Wall-E, the delightful (if mechanical) main character has been doing the same work for the previous 700 years; a machine cleaning up the earth abandoned by man. Finding a single, solitary plant one day, Wall-E collects it. In time, Wall-E falls in love with a modern girl- er, machine, EVE, sent with the strictly programmed mission of finding out of plant life still exists on earth. Once she finds the plant, she’s whisked back to the new humanity: a world contained on a single space station, with every movement mechanically controlled, with all thought automated. In Wall-E’s quest for his love, he changes the controlled environment and renews some of the basic characteristics of humanity- things like free-thought and curiosity. With this, humans are forced to take responsibility for the ruination of the earth. Granted, this is all explained in a much more lighthearted fashion.
The lighthearted nature of this film is what creates its persuasion, however. The lax attitude of humans and their ability to run away from the mess they have created on earth is portrayed in a comical manner; the view could easily see the same story repurposed into a darkly cynical story where humans are exiled to space and machines have taken over the earth. Thus, it could reasonably be argued that this film operates in the sphere of daily persuasion, or even propaganda. Rational for this can be seen in the appeals to tropes it makes (Killingsworth) and the very evident oversimplification that takes place through the film (Lazere).The work of robots becomes a metaphor for the actions of human relations: by the work of robots on the earth and the humans’ new home in space, humans need no longer put any effort into anything- even interpersonal relationships. The effort that Wall-E has to put in to win the ‘love’ of his robot counterpart shows that work is truly what defines humanity.
The exaggerations of the film make it comical, but also make a powerful political statement. As Lazere points out, one of the fallacies within oversimplification is the use of extremes in the film- humans are so coddled so as to no longer need to walk or dress themselves, and robots have the ability to control everything. This makes free thought, if not outdated, at least irrelevant. In addition, the film makes grand use of irony. By not doing anything to save our planet now, humans soon have to do nothing at all for themselves and the essence of humanity suffers.
These overwhelming uses of irony and the metaphors that this film portrays show it to be much more than a simple children’s story. Wall-E is a persuasive film exemplifying the extreme dangers that lie ahead if humans continue on a path of inaction.