Wall-E Seminar Questions Part 3

6. Identify one item in the "avalanche of detritus" you feel is an important symbol. Why?

I loved the recording from Hello, Dolly!, especially since it was referenced throughout the movie. This is Wall-E's first knowledge of humans (unless if he remembers them from when he was first built), and ironically, it comes from a machine. The music seems anachronistic in comparison to the Axiom and desolate Earth, but it fits and helps tie the movie together.

7. The Axiom might be described as a "utopic" existence. Do you agree or disagree with that description?
There is no suffering on the Axiom. Everyone is at peace, and has all of their needs and want. So I would agree that it portrays a utopian society. The word "utopia" actually seems to have gained some negative connotations with books like 1984 and Brave New World. The Axiom reminds me a lot of the society in Brave New World. People had everything they needed and there was no bad feeling, but they weren't able to take care of themselves or experience true emotion or critical thoughts. They weren't living fulfilling lives, because they didn't really notice or interact with the world around them.

8. What is the impact of an almost complete lack of dialogue?
The lack of dialogue at the beginning of the movie was barely noticeable, surprisingly. The scenes did not need dialogue to convey emotion and hold the audience's interest. Pixar did a similar thing at the beginning of Up, although the time period without dialogue was much shorter.

9. How does the film depict the human condition and what contemporary references could you use as analogies?
Every film depicts the human condition. Everything depicts the human condition. Broad question! But like we were saying in class, what's interesting is the robots taking on human characteristics that humans themselves seem to have abandoned. It forces you to think about how much technology can change the act of being human. A lot of things that would have once taken long periods of work can now be accomplished with button clicks. Is that bad?

10. The Captain states, "I don't want to survive, I want to live." Interpret this statement.

Surviving on the Axiom is very easy; it means nothing. So the Captain wants to do something worthwhile with his life. Staying in space would have ensured the survival of everyone on the Axiom, but their lives would be monotonous and unfulfilled. By returning to Earth, the Captain is able to discover new things, work hard, and truly think about and experience the act of living.

Wall-E Seminar Questions Part 2

2. The genre of "Wall-E" is an allegorical romance. Why do you think that classification is appropriate?

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.

Wall-E Seminar Questions, Part 1

1. Quote from NY Times article, Walt Rich, "Wall-E for President": This movie seems more realistically in touch with what troubles America than either the substance or the players of the political food fight beyond the multiplex's wall. Do you agree or disagree with this statement, and why?

Wall-E touches upon many problems which are facing America today that are ignored or touched upon in a superficial way. The first time I watched this movie, the first thing I noticed was the jarring environmental message. We are consuming resources and producing at a rate at which the Earth can not keep up with. Our population has been growing rapidly since the industrial revolution, and as a group, we do not behave responsibly enough to handle everything we are doing to the world around us. I remember learning in Environmental Systems last year that some scientists see this as another wave of extinction- this is how severely we are harming the other species around us .

This movie also focused on corporatism and mass production, which contribute heavily to the irresponsibility in environmental matters. They also make consumers dependent on them- without these corporations and mega-stores, so many would be without a source of income or a place to buy products. I think that Wall-E demonstrated how becoming reliant on a company such as Buy n' Large and their products diminishes our individual autonomy and puts too much power in the hands of company owners. I especially liked Jordan's comment on how people in oligarchic-like states can turn to these cheaper, easier kind of stores, which then turn into tyrannies.

If one has been paying any attention to the GOP primaries, it is pretty easy to see that the political atmosphere is not centered around the big problems which are relevant to the country as a whole. We are taking up a massive amounts of debt, greatly hurting our environment, and having a lot of problems internationally. Yet, because some of these problems are difficult to face, politicians chose to ignore them outright.

Technology Changing our World

I've never been much of a technology person. I got a cell-phone in 9th grade without asking for one, often misplaced it, forgot it, lost it, and never answered it. 3 years later, I still don't know how to check my messages.

Cell phones are certainly convenient, but they also feel like a burden to me. Why should someone expect me to communicate with them at any place, at any time? I like feeling cut off from others once in awhile, able to live fully in the moment. With each innovation in communication technology, we become more closely connected to other people and places. At the same time, we become more disconnected from our immediate surroundings.

I feel that our world is starting to exist more in digital technology, and less in our physical surroundings. We learn about others lives from facebook statuses. We hear of major news events from twitter. We text friends even when people are talking right next to us. *

This all ties into the concept of multitasking, which was discussed and criticized in the documentary Digital Nation. With so many options for communicating with others and for finding new information/entertainment, we are faced with an overload of decisions to make. And often, when we can not decide what one thing to do, we try to do everything at once! When I'm on the internet, I'll often have up to ten tabs open. There is such an expansive world existing within the internet that I am tempted to take in all of it, without the work and patience needed to understand any of it. I constantly switch between tabs, forgetting what I was thinking about seconds ago.

People "switch tabs" constantly in everyday life. Text friends, do homework, talk to classmates, do other homework, surf the internet. This can all take place in minutes. We are overwhelmed by distractions, and struggle to commit to any task at hand.

Digital technology has a profound impact on our everyday life. We can learn anything, and talk to anyone, at any time. While this has great benefits, I feel that we often don't know how to handle the magnitude of it all. We linger between different ideas and different virtual worlds, unable to focus on any of them, ignoring the physical world we exist in.

----
*This is a huge pet peeve of mine. I wanted to punch all students in the documentary who spent their dinner with friends texting other people! I'm not a very social person, and it's frustrating to try and talk to someone when they are focused on something else. Some of my closest friends will spend the time we hang out on iPhones, even when we haven't seen each other in weeks!

Debate on Change

What I love most about rivers is
you can't step in the same river twice.
The water's always changing,
always flowing.

Today we discussed Heraclitus and Parmenides in our first debate. It was hectic! The format was structured and fast-paced, and it seemed that most of us weren't completely comfortable with it. My heart was pounding the entire time, even though I only spent a total of thirty seconds talking in front of the class. Despite the fact that the debate felt confusing and unorganized, I thought it was a great experience. I've never had to think on my feet in front of a group of people in such an environment before. Near the end, I wanted the opportunity to get up and try again.

As for the content of the debate itself, I was on team Heraclitus. Like the titular character of one of my favorite historically innacurate animated films, I find that Heraclitus's views coincide more with my own. How can a person remain the same having experienced something new and different? Each interaction I make affects who I am. I can never revert to a previous moment of being. Parmenides might rebut that although I may accumulate new thoughts and experiences, I still won't wake up a butterfly tomorrow. To me, this doesn't negate the fact that I've been changed as an individual.

Change is an intriguing and confusing topic within our culture. I think of the 2008 presidential election, when the word symbolized freedom, and improvement for many people. The concept of moving rapidly forward to something new and better was exciting. But others firmly believe that any more change in our government would lead to further decay, and that we must attempt to revert back to it's original state. We see the same idea of progression vs. regression repeated in other aspects of our society and lives. We want to move forward in our lives and community, without drifting too far from what makes us who we are.