Wall-e Movie Analysis (Free Essay Sample)

Wall-e is a relatively short movie developed by Pixar animation studios following a worker robot left on a futuristic version of the earth as it has been abandoned in waste as a result of mass consumerism and pollution. At first glance this kids' movie is a short about two robots who fall in love to save humanity and restore the health of the earth; however, there are multiple themes deeper hidden within the hour and a half film. Through Halberstam’s The Queerness of Failure, this essay will develop an analysis of the effects of consumerism, queerness, gender, and Halberstam’s low theory. “The desire to be taken seriously is precisely what compels people to follow the tried and true paths of knowledge production around which I would like to map a few detours. Indeed terms like serious and rigorous tend to be code words, in academia as well as other contexts, for disciplinary correctness; they signal a form of training and learning that confirms what is already known according to approved methods of knowing, but they do not allow for visionary insights or flights of fancy.” (Halberstam p.6) This excerpt from the intro of Halberstam’s book establishes how movies like Wall-e can utilize creativity and storytelling to demonstrate complex ideas to mass audiences without the barrier of academia. One of the most difficult aspects of education and philosophy is the disconnect from common people. 

The main romantic couple in the film as the focus of the base storyline is Wall-e and Eve these two robots are not defined or established to have a particular gender although the assumption through Wall-e’s dirty, clumsy, and eccentric personality is assumed masculine while Eve’s is perceived feminine as smart, graceful, and clean. However, since they are in fact robots therefor the sex can not be determined biologically and therefore only be established by the audience's perception of gender identity. “From the perspective of feminism, failure has often been a better bet than success. Where feminine success is always measured by male standards, and gender failure often means being relieved of the pressure to measure up to patriarchal ideals, not succeeding at womanhood can offer unexpected pleasures.”(Halberstam p.4) Not only is Wall-e’s gender perceived as masculine but the failure to uphold the strict program and a shift to an individualized personality give room for the failure of femininity. In comparison to other Disney films, Wall-e rejects stereotype propaganda especially prevalent in the classic Princess which removes the value of accuracy or respect but instead promotes collect cultures for non-white characters. Coinciding with that is the damsel in distress stereotype; instead throughout the film both Wall-e and Eve save each other on multiple occasions, but it wasn't until the 90s with Mulan that we see a woman in a powerful role. “The early Disney cartoons, in tandem with Chaplin’s films, built narrative around baggy caricatures and eschewed mimetic realism. The characters themselves fell apart and then reassembled; they engaged in transformative violence and they took humor rather than tragedy as their preferred medium for engaging the audience. But as Benjamin recognized and as Leslie emphasizes, the Disney cartoons all too quickly resolved into a bourgeois medium; they quickly bowed to the force of Bildung and began to present moral fables with gender-normative and class-appropriate characterizations, and in the 1930s they became a favorite tool of the Nazi propaganda machine”(Halberstam p. 22)

“Chisholm writes, “The porosity of the city of queer constellations enables us to see the confluence of history even as it is engulfed in the capital(ism) of post-modernity. The gay village is exceptionally porous. Here gay life is lived out on streets that are conduits to intimate and communal contact and prime arteries of commodity traffic” (45). “ (Halberstam p.117) This commodity of traffic Chisholm illustrates is quite literally shown in the film as one of the first few scenes on the ship Wall-e finds themself on a high-speed road with other robots and consumerist humans. Queerness is brought about through Wall-e failure not to go with the flow of this consumerist speedway and instead of finding a group of supposed broken robots as an innuendo to the found family of the queer community. Although these robots are broken they all contribute and utilize their “imperfections” throughout the movie.