19th
Rage Against The Machine
In Wall-E, humans have become bloated, fat, emotionally neutral beings, who have lost their ability to walk and are served upon by robot chairs, robot cleaners, robot teachers etc. These humans are suggested as being only a fragmentary section of society (under/working classes are non-existant, ominously replaced by a robot underclass), who are rich enough to afford a life in one of the never-ending space-homes intended as only a temporary measure whilst ‘the corporation’ cleans up the earth ready for ‘recolonization’. Inevitably, this never happens, and earth becomes a rubbish dump, where human emotions are oddly kept alive by a waste disposal robot, with a penchant for ‘Hello, Dolly!’. The comical events which result from this become the ‘system’s’ (an intended pun - i.e. ‘system - robot’, ‘system - fuck the system! Chuck D style) self-assesment, as we see the juxtaposition of the globalized, human-controlled ‘system’ created by ‘Buy N Large’ and the sub-system of programmed, robot-controlled capitalism, and the fight between these once humans understand their own mistakes (personified in the John Goodman-esque wikipedia-informed emotions of Capt Jeff Garlin). Even the robots become humanised; as emotion as a force opposed to capitalism becomes recognised.
Heavy stuff. It really is Pixar’s answer to ‘No Logo’. And as the product of a huge corporation (Disney), it questions its own status in the wake of Disney’s mass-marketing strategics. It’s also cute as a button. Wow!
