My little brother was watching Wall-E for the first time, and while he was busy laughing I was busy analyzing. The society in Wall-E reminded me of Brave New World's. Buy N' Large, a mega corporation in Wall-E, reminds me of The World State, which teaches it's denizens from birth to value several aspects it deems necessary, such as mass consumerism. Similarly, the young children in Wall-E are taught from a small age to buy goods and products from BnL, as evident in a scene where a robot is teaching infants the Alphabet. "B is for Buy n Large, your very best friend," the robot says. Just like in Brave New World they are taught from birth to consume goods in astronomical numbers.
A powerful example of this consumerism in Wall-E is in one scene the citizens are going about their daily routines; they all wear red outfits. However, a holographic billboard remarks "blue is the new red," whereupon the citizens react by quickly, and almost mechanically, pressing a button on their hovering chair(yes, they don't walk, they hover around in chairs)and their outfits are instantly turned blue.
Their society greatly resembles that of Brave New World's, where everything is orderly, homogeneous, predictable. I can provide more examples of how the two are alike, but I'll refrain from turning this into a rant.
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Don't worry, Raul, it doesn't sound like a rant. In fact, I totally see what you mean. The people onboard are happy and stable, sort of like the World State. Also, the (fill in random food here)-surrogate is similar to the shakes in Wall-E. The "blue is the new red" could even be compared to Fanny's envy of Lenina's Malthusian belt in chapter 3.
ReplyDeleteWhat's more, they have absolutely no idea what is going on. Their holographic screens in front of them only serve as a communication device with other people who, when listened to closely, talk about absolutely nothing at all.
I have no doubt at all that the brilliant writers at Pixar and Disney know their Huxleyan influences.
This is a very true point. There are a lot of similarities. Wall-E can be compared to John, they were both from "another world" and both moved to this better place and part of their influence was a girl.
ReplyDeleteAnyway, everybody in their society is conditioned to think eating, sitting, and not doing anything is the way to live. Even the captain demonstrates this. He could barely operate the ship without his fancy computer. Little did the captain know the computer was keeping them from going back to Earth. He got rather violent and was doing everything in his power to continue controlling them. Similarly in Huxley's book people like the director and other higher powers made sure that everyone stayed how they should be. They would even exile people from their society who wanted change.
So I agree with you Raul, and I had never thought about that. It is weird that Disney would make a Utopian type movie but luckily there is a happy ending.