The figure I chose to analyze for this assignment is Wall-E from the Disney film. I think Wall-E is a good example because his story directly relates to contemporary technologies and social structures. Wall-E is no doubt a product of our time. I say this because the world that Wall-E lives in is portrayed as a post-apocalyptic world, where garbage runs rampant throughout all of earth. This is a product of our time because in times past the vision of the future was much more optimistic. As we talked about in class, the vision of the future during contemporary times is more often than not characterized by something of an apocalypse (Wall-E's world). Wall-E himself has certain fears and anxieties that we as humans can connect to him. I think in present times the fear of any type of apocalypse is very much so present in the human. Wall-E is living in this type of environment, so the fear of the outcome can be directly visualized. One area where Wall-E thrives is in the ability to raise question of what it means to be human. In the story Wall-E becomes rather fond of another robot, in what can only be described as love. Their love is a very prominent feature of the movie because the humans in the movie are portrayed as lazy and loveless, and it is interesting to see the major love story be between two robots who are usually thought to be incapable of loving. Wall-E also has a fondness for living things, more so than that of the humans in the movie. In the movie he takes care of a blade of grass, possibly the last on earth. This is another one of Wall-E's human reassurances. I think that humans as biological creatures themselves have an affection towards things that grow, and it is exemplified through the portrayal of Wall-E in the movie. I think that through Wall-E we has humans can see many similarities that reassure what it means to be human.
I think what's interesting about the movie Wall-E is that the world gets to that apocalyptic point because of the humans reliance on robot technology. Essentially, Wall-E's world is the ideal outcome of what the robots in R.U.R. tried to achieve. Where these stories differ however is the outcome of what happens when you give a robot a soul. As portrayed in R.U.R., giving a "soul" to the robots eventually ends up killing off the entire human race. Whereas in Wall-E, the "souls" of robots ends up saving the human race. Without the love and compassion that was presumably programmed into Wall-E, there would be no progress towards restoring the Earth in the movie. So really what Wall-E shows is more of a relief instead of an anxiety. It demonstrates that there is a chance that robots actually may be the key to existence, not the key to extinction.
ReplyDeleteI really like the way you relate the features of robots to the Wall-E movie. When discussing about robots in class, we usually think about them as auto-machines that are programmed for certain purposes and hence they are mostly emotionless. However, Wall-E is totally different because this robot shows that he also has love. Wall-E’s love is not only for another robot, but also for a biological creature, a living thing like a small tree. Wall-E has proved that what humans have done to the nature in the movie context is way worse than what an emotionless robot can do. Wall-E really makes us to reconsider what it means to be humans as you state.
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