All-Star

In this article I’m only focusing on the “Consumerism” and “Environmentalism” parts, because they are the most crucial. The author of this article, Ross M. Hayduk, dives deeply into this cautionary tale about the environment and the consumers, which is called, Wall-E. The whole movie revolves around the company Buy N Large, and how they have monopolized the whole world, and even space. From the supermarkets, the gasoline, the banks, and the transit systems, they now have reign over everything. Doing so destroyed all small businesses and created mass production which now lead to mass waste. Leaving tons and tons of garbage for poor Wall-E to clean up. As Hayduk states, “Wall-E attempts to show that the human species doesn’t need aliens to destroy us and our planet.” Through our anti-environmental individual habits, such as growing dependence on machines, a largely indifferent attitude towards our societal and environmental issues as well as anti-environmental collective policies such as the corporate-dictated government policies whose sole motif is profit, without any real concern for environmental issues, we are walking straight into an environmental apocalypse. These points are the main reason I choose this movie, besides it being my favorite movie, it foreshadows our inevitable doom. Though the corporate dictated policies, and convenience of major companies are the main reason for our impending doom, regular citizens involvement (aka consumerism) is a huge issue too. It’s not fair that the government is trying to blame the consumer for these issues, but sadly that’s what is happening. In Wall-E, the technology provided by Buy N Large is so advanced that the consumers now have no need to think for themselves anymore. Honestly, I feel that is where we are heading today. Self- awareness is key, without it, like seen in Wall-E, humans will drown in the technology and convenience of large companies to the point where they don’t think for themselves ever again, like robots.

I choose this because analyzing this movie was such a fun experience, it was my favorite thing I did all semester. This movie has been my favorite for a long time and analyzing it like I did was very surprising. I was basically writing down everything I’ve been thinking while I watched this movie occasionally throughout the past year. It related to the larger themes throughout the semester because it consisted of the major issue which is climate change, that is effecting everyone. This issue is becoming more and more widespread which is great, I became really involved when the rallies began in the city. But I still feel like a lot is being unsaid, and the public might misunderstand who’s to blame for this issue.