More “Wall-E” bashing!
Ben Crair in the New Republic lashes out at the poor abused creature, but he’s not following the conservative line. His thesis:
The film is indeed charming and as visually stunning as its enthusiasts claim, but WALL-E’s conservative critics are right to identify a problem with its message. Unfortunately, they’ve misdiagnosed it. There’s nothing wrong with the film’s anti-corporatism, which is just a variation of the anti-totalitarianism that’s requisite to the genre. More troublesome is the film’s complicity in the commodified culture it ostensibly critiques. This isn’t about Disney, whose external merchandise and marketing are extraneous to the film’s artistic vision. Within the movie itself, WALL-E betrays its true corporate overlord, and it isn’t Mickey. It’s Apple.
Crair sites any number of Apple references in the film to buttress his point. (Eve sort of looks like an iPod, for example. His conclusion:
A movie about the triumph of authenticity over artificiality shouldn’t also be an exercise in brand identification.
3 Comments so far
Leave a reply
http://kylesmithonline.com/?p=1393
“You haven’t weighed in yet? Why not? Please, get me up to a nice round number. The review is here. I followed up on it here,here and here. As always, I am humbled by the number of people who, upon reading a lukewarm reaction to a cartoon about cute robots, managed to reach down deep and bring up some deeply crazed fury. Please, sports fans, make your comments a) interesting; b) on-topic; c) original; and d) profanity-free. I do welcome intelligent comments, of which there are also a few.”
Hey Mr. Lumenick, if you’re still reading: How do you put up with this guy?
Wall-E totally looks like the robot from “Short Circuit”… minus the cheesy 80’s style of course
I saw the film yesterday, and it amuses me how a film about the end goal fatties getting up off their ass and doing real work, farming, on the land, on the soil, where one individual, the ship’s captain, defies the will of the cold, technological collective to take the wheel of the ship himself and ride back to earth, could be seen as some sort of Marxist parable.
It’s really about the “Stay the Course” line; that mild line was automatically seen as a criticism of Dear Leader, and criticism of Deal Leader they just can’t take, because they have linked their own self esteem to how Bush is regarded. Also, the thought, the very idea that they might be wrong would open the floodgates of guilt and crack them like the eggshells they are.
Oh, and Smith is a fucking liar; there’s plenty of hope since the humans have a ship full of supplies and helpful robots and plenty of information on how to rebuild. They can leave any time if it doesn’t work out.