Posted on 07/13/2008 6:24:04 AM PDT by shrinkermd
...I can understand where the conservatives are coming from, because liberal critics and pundits are treating "Wall-E" as a piece of G-rated schoolroom propaganda designed to drill into childish heads the duty to climb aboard the climate-alarmist, capitalist-bashing bandwagon. The most blatant example of this came from Frank Rich of the New York Times, who wrote, "At the end, [the kids in the audience] clapped their small hands. What they applauded was ... a gentle, if unmistakable, summons to remake the world before time runs out." Gaagh -- give me Dirty Harry any day. The irony of all this is that if "Wall-E" is didactic, what it has to teach is profoundly conservative. For starters, the film never even goes near the climate-crusading vocabulary of "global warming," "carbon footprints" or even "green," which used to mean "verdant and lovely" but now means "twisty fluorescent lightbulbs." The crime of the humans who vacate Earth isn't failure to drive a Prius but strewing detritus. Conservatives detest litterbugs and other parasites who expect others to clean up after them. "Wall-E" champions hard work, faithfulness to duty and the fact that even a dreary job like garbage-collecting can be meaningful and fulfilling.
...In its portrayal of the overweight slobs on the spaceship, "Wall-E" isn't denigrating consumerism but passive dependency. Junk-food-fueled obesity correlates inversely with socioeconomic status, and it's those on the low end who the liberal welfare state tries to scoop up as permanent clients. "Wall-E" is also pro-life. When Eve shuts down after retrieving a green plant from Earth (she's literally in a "persistent vegetative state"), Wall-E doesn't decide she has a "right to die" so he can get rid of her; he carts her around tenderly and decks her with some still-functioning Christmas lights he has retrieved from human disposables.
(Excerpt) Read more at latimes.com ...
Ok...but is it "prop" of some sort? Is it, "didactic?"
Harry Callahan for adults is one thing. That may have a message too, for people who (should have) a handle on their morality and ethics.
But subtle messages , good or bad, with toonish characters for young 'skulls full of mush' concerns me in any format. Just too Brave New Worldish feelies for me.
I saw the movie with my wife and we enjoyed it as mindless entertainment. Two impressions:
The earth is robust and will repair itself.
At the end of the movie, like the Jews in the wilderness, I gave those people about a week before they were screaming to go back into space.
You thought it was mindless? A lot of thought went into it.
Tolkein once complained that too many people were reading too much into his Lord of the Rings books. He proclaimed “There’s a difference between allegory and applicability.” I have seen “Wall-e” and many different people can see in it many different things. As is the case with anything, it is what you take away from it. But this is for sure: to refuse to see this movie based on it’s hear-say, alleged politics will deny you the pleasure of this near masterpiece of a film. Go see it and take away from it what you will. You won’t regret it.
FYI, the director of the movie said in an interview that the humans are fat and helpless because he pictured them as being babies who had had all of their cares attended to for their entire lives. They are meant to look like helpless babies. Nothing more. GO SEE THIS FILM! YOU’LL LOVE IT!
Ironically you actually just described how many of the Native Americans the environmental movement is so fond of actually lived.
The drawings on screen during the credits show that the Earth comes back to life, as do the people, who become active again and lose weight, they re-establish their relationship with Earth.
I thought it was a very good movie with a lot of talent, and thought, behind it.
What you said, LOL!
Ouch, bullsye, you win!
There's a poster I saw "How the west was really won", it was a bunch of "natives" sittin' around drinkin'.
This was an EXCELLENT movie. Conservatives can view this film and conjure any number of liberal themes that may or may not be present, and I suspect Liberals could conjure up several real or imagined conservative themes.
This is, by far, Pixar’s best movie to date. It was a tehnical masterpiece and a heart-warming story. It will be a family classic for generations.
As someone else said, if you don’t see this movie based on someone else’s “much ado about nothing”, the only one you’ll be hurting is yourself.
Human nature has changed, little, if at all, over time. Industrialization has been a boon to the average person. Technology, including medical, has given us a healthy rather than an unhealthy lifestyle. We pick up our trash in Douglas County, Minnesota. The environment up here is cleaner and better cared for than it was 40 years ago. Unlike you and the author of Wall-e, I hesitate to predict the future 800 years hence. That is the prudent approach which is a bedrock, conservative value.
Living in New Jersey, the "East Germany" of the United States, I'm very sensitive to the exposure my child gets to the ideas of the political left, but I didn't have a problem with this movie.
Mostly I found it to be harmless entertainment.
Reminds me of when the first Matrix came out, and people could interpret it either way.
On the way home my eldest (13) said is that what you keep talking about? Those people who went on vacation while others clean up?
I pointed out to her, how the “ads” included elderly in hover-chairs going along so no one had to miss out on the “vacation” (don't leave us boomers out of the fun, or you can't go), we also discussed how after a while, none knew how to walk (everyone was in a hover chair) paid attention to where they were, or even if they were virtually talking to the person right next to them. she responded “I didn't know we had pool.” (a line from the movie)... we had lot more, but I hope you get the idea.
This was such a referendum on “boomers” it's a must buy as soon as it's available.
JM.02
None = no one, sheesh!
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