The media is playing two pointless games of "gotcha" with Pixar's wonderful Wall-E at the moment. Eric Kohn addressed the first -- conservative critics griping about the film's "left-wing" message -- over here. The other, best articulated in this post by CHUD's Devin Faraci and this mind-boggling missive from the New York Post's Kyle Smith, but also showing up in Todd McCarthy's Variety review, is that Wall-E's supposed anti-consumerist bent is "hypocrisy" on account of it's released by Disney. I think that's a stupid and dishonest argument, and here's why.
In its latter half, Wall-E presents a vision of the future in which humanity is fat, lazy, basically immobile but for their hoverchairs, and in thrall to a mega-corporation called Buy 'N Large that tells everyone what to do, what to think, and what to buy. The rest of the film is dedicated to Wall-E, EVE, and the spaceship Axiom's human population defying the corporation and returning back to Earth to recolonize. This is disingenuous, the thinking goes, because the Disney empire bears more than a few similarities to Buy 'N Large and, in fact, cynically counts on unthinking, overweight masses, to see its movies, buy its merchandise, and ride the rides at Disney World.
What you'll notice from the folks making this argument is a coy ambiguity about who exactly is being hypocritical here. If the claim is that Disney is being hypocritical by releasing Wall-E, then that may well be right -- but it's also not surprising, newsworthy, or even worth mentioning. Is anyone really shocked that a large, profit-seeking corporation is being opportunistic and ideologically inconsistent? Where is all the outrage about Disney flicks that push the individuality and non-conformism message, when the Walt Disney Company is dependent on a herd mentality among its consumers?
So even if people aren't coming out and saying it, the argument has to be that Wall-E itself is hypocritical, or the Pixar artists who made it. And that's dangerous territory. We who love popular filmmaking -- and I'm pretty sure Smith and Faraci count themselves among our ranks -- depend on the notion that talented artists can flourish and retain some integrity within the merciless, money-hungry studio system; that Hollywood is at its best when it skillfully markets intelligent, worthwhile films to the public; that "mainstream" need not necessarily mean "mediocre." And to conflate Disney with director Andrew Stanton (or even Pixar as a whole) here is to deny that all-important premise. For Stanton and Pixar to keep making great films, their films have to earn money, and they've enlisted Disney to make that happen. If Wall-E is hypocritical -- and thus a lesser film* -- merely because its distributor is using it for its own ends, then we've given up on the notion that Hollywood can accommodate artists. Wall-E itself is proof that it can. If anything, Disney is to be commended for releasing a film that seems to advocate against its interests.
Besides, Wall-E's not really about consumerism anyway. It's about everything that's amazing about the human race: drive, spirit, ambition, resilience, love. It's a beautiful, deeply hopeful film, and I sincerely hope the tempest-in-a-teapot "controversies" springing up around it won't deter people from seeing it.
*Faraci, to his credit, does say that "none of this has to do with the quality of Wall-E as a movie on its own" -- he seems angry with the marketing campaign and merchandising over-saturation. (Kyle Smith is nowhere near this intellectually honest.) Fair enough, but I still think there are serious issues with throwing around charges of "hypocrisy" at artists who permit licensing and heavy marketing. It's a business. If we think art can flourish within it, certain sacrifices have to be made.
1. When is saying that people shouldn't be all-consuming thoughtless animals, a "conservative" or "liberal" message?
It's a cautionary tale about the direction of our culture. I think it looks negative for the conservatives who are, in a slight way, supporting the opposite viewpoint...that we don't need to worry or be scared of this type of society.
And as far as I know, artists and writers are not really the "fat cats, and are still able to take their movie in whatever direction they want, regardless of their massive distributor.
Posted at 1:30PM on Jun 30th 2008 by Oneiroi