I thought this was an odd way of looking at the romance between Wall-E and Eve, because I didn't initially see their romance as directly symbolizing any one thing in the way that an allegory does. They represent different aspects of love and romance, but I didn't really want to analyze it in that manner. However, after thinking about it, I do understand what could be seen as allegorical about the romance in this movie. As people have pointed out in class, the two characters most capable of human emotion are machines. As humans continue to give more aspects of lives to technology, from physical activity and labor, to entertainment, perhaps we are slowly eroding at our humanity. The lives of humans in Wall-E are completely dictated by machinery. After letting machines take over so many aspects of life, could we unintentionally sacrifice something as crucially human as emotion?
That seems a bit drastic, especially considering that even the people in Wall-E were capable of some level of emotion as soon as they became more aware. But I can see aspects of this even in present day. People live their lives though screens because they are unwilling to live through themselves. If you let Google research for you, if you let a computer think for you, and you let screens create entertainment for you, what is left for you to do? Of course, I'm not exempting myself from this, and I don't think technology is all bad. The computer and internet has helped to make great leaps in communication and accessing information, but we can't let an Auto-Pilot make our decisions for us!
I kind of side-tracked from the question here, but basically, I think it's a profound idea that the two individuals most capable of experiencing human life and emotions like love are not in fact human.
3. What environmental message does Wall-E send?
The first time I saw this movies in theaters, I found the opening scenes jarring, especially since they do not seem that far removed from reality. If we continue to abuse our planet and create more and more, we can not sustain it. And still we produce and produce irresponsibly. There needs to be a much greater effort to work towards sustainable development. Wall-E highlights the dire effects of not being careful- we can ruin the beautiful world we inhabit.
4. How does the movie relate to self-identity? (ontology)
Both Wall-E and Eve first tie their identity with their directive, yet as the movie progresses, they identify themselves with their relationship towards one another. Yet even at the beginning of the movie, Eve seems more self-aware than the people on the Axiom. Eve's directive is to find life. Humans have no directive, except to consume. There isn't critical thought in either instance, but Eve is more motivated and experiencing more. And when Wall-E and Eve meet each other, they continue to develop their self-identity by making decisions for themselves instead of doing what they are programmed to do. And it takes Wall-E and Eve to help others find their own identity (in the cases of the Captain and two people they run into).
5. What might be the significance of calling the corporate company "Buy 'n Large"?
Buy 'n Large recalls the likes of WalMart, Target, and IKEA. Out of these three, I've only been to Target, but it is easy to see the huge influence places like these hold in America. Go to one of these stores and you can spend hours buying...everything! Everything is one place, and you are constantly encouraged to buy bigger and buy more. In a way it creates a feeling of uniformity- which isn't necessarily a bad thing, but in this case it means that we become more and more alienated from the product. We are also buying a ton of crap. Does anyone really need all of this stuff? Like in the movie, just about everything will be trash one day.
No comments:
Post a Comment