Wall-E and Societal Misdirection

From the opening scene of WALL-E (2008) we can understand the social commentary inherent in the film. Zooming in from space to Earth, the audience is shown a scene of a modern urban center in which huge trash piles have replaced buildings and streams of sludge have replaced rivers and lakes. The audience immediately recognizes a future portrayal of our planet that has been corrupted by consumer lifestyles and ideals of dispensability. As we are led through the wasteland, it becomes apparent that humans no longer exist in this world because they have made the world uninhabitable. There are even windmills on top of the trash piles, which suggests humans tried to fix the problem, but it was already too late. Amidst this landfill, we find WALL-E-an acronym for Waste Allocation Load Lifter Earth-class-scrounging around the rubble alone, compacting trash, and collecting random objects that have some seemingly sentimental value to the robot. Through his adventure, we learn that simple acts of generosity and kindness are more valuable than dispensable living. WALL-E enlightens us to the criticism of wasteful consumer living and reminds us of human ideals based in love and friendship.

To discuss WALL-E and his impact on the social commentary of the film, we must first understand his physical make up and his personality traits. WALL-E has treads for feet, an empty abdomen he uses to compact trash, a small laser beam he uses as an upgraded box cutter, telescopic eyes, and dull metal claws for hands. He is small and boxy and somewhat dilapidated. He also appears to be the sole surviving robot in the world as he replaces his broken parts with pieces from "dead" WALL-Es. In all aspects, WALL-E is built purposefully and intentionally to carry out his task of cleaning up the Earth. His personality suggests human emotion though, as he is shown to be kind, curious, easily frightened, and, most of all, lonely. WALL-E maintains human characteristics, but only the positive ones. He is uncorrupted by desires for money or better housing or fancier treads, as it were; his only desire is to love and be loved as he has idealized scenes of an old Hello, Dolly! video he must have found in the trash heaps. In essence, WALL-E seems to be the new human that has replaced the old species of destructive bingers. As a sole surviving robot, he is not threatening like the masses of Capek's R.U.R. or the recent film I, Robot (2004); rather WALL-E's diminutive stature and lovable naivety remind us more of a human child than an oppressed automaton.

After WALL-E finds a plant in an old refrigerator, EVE-Extraterrestrial Vegetation Evaluator-is introduced to the film. EVE is equipped with superior technology. She has a rounded egg-shaped body, can fly, and is flawlessly clean. She also has a powerful laser cannon on her right arm and a scanner she uses to detect plant life. When we are first introduced to EVE, she is shown to anger easily. She gets caught on a giant magnet attached to a ship and in a fit of anger she uses her cannon to blow up the entire boat. She also shoots at WALL-E and his cockroach friend simply for moving. EVE is thus WALL-E's counterpart: She is female; he is male. She destroys; he preserves. She is an example of upgraded technology; he is an example of outdated technology. This objective comparison leads to a subjective observation-EVE represents a future of efficiency without love while WALL-E represents a nostalgic view of the past in which human values were based in friendship and kindness instead of technological advancement and overconsumption.

The robots in WALL-E also enlighten us to the concept of predispositions when EVE asks WALL-E his directive. In his limited speech capability WALL-E interprets EVE's question of directive to mean his name. This misinterpretation shows us that WALL-E's function and his identity are inextricably connected since his name represents his purpose. Just like EVE, the robots names are acronyms for their functional uses. Since we as an audience can understand language, we know that directive does not signify one's name, but rather his predispositions or orders. This simple interaction between the robots is parallel to the notion of human nature. Just as robots have their directives, we rely on our own instincts and ideals to govern our actions. This parallel allows us to identify with WALL-E and EVE, not as passive observers, but as similar creatures. What WALL-E symbolizes then, is a balance between predisposed behaviors and learned ideals. If WALL-E can control his directive, then humans should be able to control their habitual overconsumption.

EVE climactically overcomes her directive in the depths of the spaceship, which reaffirms an omnipresent biblical allegory in the film. The first sense of biblical allegory is present in the name EVE. We are consciously aware that she represents the Eve from Eden, while WALL-E represents Adam. Unlike the biblical story though, the world is uninhabitable, not ideal. This is not a story about humans fall from grace, but rather a modified tale that represents the reestablishment of grace after humans' epic failure to maintain the world we were given. In the depths of the spaceship another biblical allegory directs us to the story of resurrection. WALL-E appears to be dying in the garbage heaps of the spaceship after being electrocuted and falling down the long trash chute. Here EVE doesn't represent a deus ex machina that arrives from the heavens, but rather an enlightened spirit that has been spiritually revitalized by WALL-E's paradigm for love. Her ascension from the bowels of the ship can be seen as a resurrection story in which she has given up her natural predispositions as a robot and has taken on the human ideals of friendship. If we understand Jesus Christ to have preached the maxim of "love thy neighbor," it is nowhere more prevalent than in this scene.

When WALL-E follows EVE to the space center, we get our first glimpse at the future and we can interpret the scene as a warning against our current consumerist mentality. The giant spaceship was produced by the same company that had advertisements back on Earth, Buy 'N Large, or BnL for short. BnL is phonetically identical to the phrase, "by and large," which can be defined as "generally speaking." The connection is a blatant statement showing the general ideals of our economy based in consumption. Values aren't founded on friendship and amiability, but rather on the size and cost of a commodity. It is a backwards maxim of quantity over quality. The ship's inhabitants float around on hover-chairs-because they are too obese to walk-with virtual screens that dominate their connection to the world. Their food is all blended into a kind of shake that comes in a plastic cup with a straw. Virtual sports, like the virtual driving range, have replaced all physical activity. Computers and robots run everything to make life easier for humans. The complete lack of physical interaction is startlingly apparent and serves to warn us of a life dominated by computers. Although the life portrayed here seems to be free from want or worry, it is also completely unsatisfying-there is nothing to stimulate the mind or body and human progress has come to a standstill. The humans have replaced the robotic masses of science fiction's previous generations. They're lives are completely automated and meaningless. This reversal shows us it is not robots we should fear, but the normative consequence of a life dependant on robots. It is not that we can't live without robots as a source for all our needs; it is that we shouldn't live in complete dependency on them.

The captain of the ship provides the perfect case study for overcoming this static mentality and reminds us of our basic human inclinations towards progress. When the captain wakes up late, he rewinds the clock on the ship back to morning-which nobody seems to notice or care about-to give the daily announcements, his only source of satisfaction. Just like the rest of the ship's inhabitants, the captain is also hover chair-ridden and at the mercy of all the robots on the ship. When EVE returns to the ship with plant life, he becomes cognizant of his human nature and is inspired to learn everything he can about Earth before it was corrupted. His character's climax comes when he states, "I don't want to survive; I want to live!" The seemingly synonymic meanings of survival and living represent the illusion of life in the spaceship. All the humans of the spaceship are indeed surviving-there is no threat of disease or discomfort, war or famine, or any other such worry of the past. We must take the captain's statement as an antithetical then; to survive is to be physically alive, but to live is to experience life with all its mentally stimulating facets. This is reminiscent of WALL-E's own balance between his directive and his desire for a relationship. Thus, technology is not evil; it is our use of it to replace all human nature that is evil.

The main antagonist of the film is Auto, the robot that is in charge of the spaceship. Auto is a parody of HAL from Stanley Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968). He attempts to thwart the return to Earth by destroying the plant EVE brings back to the spaceship. Auto is significant as he embodies the fear of robots as a threat to human progress. Though it is unclear as to why he is against human's return to Earth, Auto clearly portrays the possibility for robots to control the future of humanity. This fear harkens back to the robots from R.U.R. In WALL-E (2008) though, the robots are divided into good and bad classes-WALL-E and EVE obviously represent the good robots, while Auto and his underlings represent the bad. Surprisingly, it is the humans that act most like automatons in the movie. The role reversal reifies the regressive path of humanity that the film is criticizing. It is not that robots will replace humankind as a species incapable of emotion and understanding, it is the fear that they may be justified in doing so when their sentimentality surpasses our apathy.

The idea of robots replacing humankind is a fear that has been around since early 20th century, but a more in depth look at why this fear may be legitimate can be applied to WALL-E (2008). Shanyang Zhao of Temple University takes a look at the consequences of human-humanoid interaction. He uses the term "robotic revolution" to address the issues of living in a society where human-like robots can and do replace the need for real human beings (Zhao 401). For human-humanoid, or even humanoid-humanoid, relations to exist they must be founded on the tenets of language, relationality [sic], and normality. Language is clearly defined as a means of communication between two beings in which both are able to signify and understand each other's meanings. Relationality refers to the ability to locate oneself and others in an intricate web of social interaction. Finally, normality refers to normative action meaning how one ought to act in certain situations. This includes such topics as manners, ethics, morals, laws, and so forth (Zhao 410-411). Zhao's conclusion is open-ended and simply asks for more studies on the deeper social and personal implications of a society that includes humanoid robots.

Applying Zhao's rubric to WALL-E (2008), we can see the interaction between WALL-E and EVE to include all three of the necessary components for human-like interaction. First, there is a clear language or system of understanding between EVE and WALL-E. They make each other happy and sad, worry or celebrate, and can portray that information to the other effectively. Second, it is quite clear WALL-E can understand himself and EVE in relation to other robots as he specifically seeks her out numerous times in the giant spaceship. There are even other robots identical to EVE, but WALL-E is able to pick her out of the crowd. Finally, WALL-E shows clear normative understanding in his relationship to EVE. He puts an umbrella over her when it rains, he makes a replica of EVE to try and impress her, he even understands the consequence of leaving the spaceship without her and refuses to do so. All of these actions require some thought of what he ought to do in a situation and he satisfies the condition in every instance. If WALL-E and EVE can carry out these seemingly simple requirements for human interaction, but the humans on board of the spaceship can't, what are we to make of the social commentary? The light-hearted tone of the film doesn't inspire fear of robot domination; rather it suggests a need to reassess human ideals. We are to take WALL-E and EVE as a critical allegory for the world we may soon be facing and turn our fears inward to see if we are slowly slipping into an autonomous lifestyle.

To truly understand the message behind WALL-E (2008), the best method is to ask the writer and director. Andrew Stanton, credited for both writing and directing credits on WALL-E (2008), has given many interviews about the film. When asked about WALL-E's character, he stated, "Reality forces itself through all this manmade material to exist and that's WALL-E. He's this manmade object but he's got more of a desire to live than the rest of the universe" (McConnell). This desire to live, as he states it, is the thing that is missing in the spaceship folk until the captain makes his climactic statement. But as for the other topics of environmentalism and future fears, Stanton denies any intentional allusion when he states, "And that was my theme: irrational love defeats life's programming. That's a perfect metaphor for real life. We all fall into our habits, our routines, our ruts. They're used quite often, consciously or unconsciously, to avoid living, to avoid doing the messy part of having relationships with other people, of dealing with a person next to us" (McConnell). The idealization of irrational love is reminiscent of 12th-century Provencal troubadour love lyric, but its application to robots is genuinely new. Thus, the rebellion against a life of constant adherence to laws and regulations is not a modern invention; it is simply different laws and regulations that become the target of the criticism. In WALL-E (2008) we see that target as consumerist ideals and technological substitutes for human interaction.

In the past, robots have represented a fear of the future in which human ideals cede to the superior technology we have created in automatons. In WALL-E (2008) though, it is not the fear of robot supremacy that is apparent, but rather the fear of human apathy. WALL-E shows us how simple interactions based in physical contact and friendship should be idealized above the base routines and structure of a mechanized lifestyle. Stanton is reminding us that we are human and as such we need other humans to live. A life based on sustenance and virtual pleasures is merely survival compared to the real experiences we can find by simply talking to another person. Stanton shows us that the future is not scary because of the unknown anymore; it is scary because we know we have the power to shape it however we please. Instead of using that power to distance ourselves from our trivial problems, we should harness it to make human-human interaction easier. In this light, we can replace the valueless society of today with a redefined model of love and appreciation in the future.

Works Cited:

McConnell, Mariana. "Interview: WALL-E's Andrew Stanton." 27 June 2008. 11 May 2009.

Zhao, Shanyang. "Humanoid Social Robots as a Medium of Communication." New Media & Society 8 (2006): 401-15. Sagepub. 10 May 2009 .