A new message from the media has arrived! Get this: Humans are the last thing the planet needs, actually, we are destroying it and it would be better for dear ol' Earth if we got the hell off of it.
Is that what easily-influenced kids need to be hearing?
As you might've guessed from the title, this post just might be the spilling-over of my sentiments after seeing the newest Pixar movie Wall-E. Even though the film didn't spell out their message as clearly as I did, it was still there in plain sight - quite literally. If you haven't seen the movie, much of it was placed in a setting of mile-high piles of garbage. In the movie, the little robot Wall-E has the daunting task of compacting the trash into small squares and stacking them, most likely so there will be more room when the humans come back from space where they are residing until Earth is cleaner.
But that's not quite what upset me.
The film's target audience is children, there's no doubt about that. The film grossed $63 million its opening weekend. Deduction: A lot of kids saw it. A lot of kids saw humanity's role in trashing the planet until there's no walking room, until there's garbage halfway up the walls of the supermarkets. They saw skies filled with smoke and yellow haze that doesn't look breathable (after all the talk in public schools about global warming and air pollution, who wouldn't make the connection?). All this in the ... 22nd century?
There was another section in the movie that was scientifically questionable yet carried some weight. In one of the last scenes, just as the humans return to earth after their 700-year sojourn into space, there were plants beginning to cover the hillsides. Plants that had grown while the humans were away, with the sole reason that there were no humans around to prevent the growth. That's a little unrealistic to me, and would send a very false, The World Without Us (Alan Weisman)-type message if people do not analyze it beyond the growing epidemic of information-swallowing apathy. I'll put it this way: CO2 is one of a plant's basic needs. If anything, lots of Co2 is better than no CO2, as far as plant life is concerned (http://www.purgit.com/co2ok.html).
So riddle me this: why, in Wall-E, are more plants growing without humans than with humans?
It's certainly something to ponder.
My opinion is: kids do not need to hear that they are a blight on the planet at such a young age, as they are not mature enough to know that they should question it (sadly, a good-sized portion of adults aren't, either). Now, Junior is going to grow and live his life with an idea (that he is just a harmful earth-trasher) that was impressed upon him by teachers, television and - even more influential than that - movies that star lovable animated robots.
There was another section in the movie that was scientifically questionable yet carried some weight. In one of the last scenes, just as the humans return to earth after their 700-year sojourn into space, there were plants beginning to cover the hillsides. Plants that had grown while the humans were away, with the sole reason that there were no humans around to prevent the growth. That's a little unrealistic to me, and would send a very false, The World Without Us (Alan Weisman)-type message if people do not analyze it beyond the growing epidemic of information-swallowing apathy. I'll put it this way: CO2 is one of a plant's basic needs. If anything, lots of Co2 is better than no CO2, as far as plant life is concerned (http://www.purgit.com/co2ok.html).
So riddle me this: why, in Wall-E, are more plants growing without humans than with humans?
It's certainly something to ponder.
My opinion is: kids do not need to hear that they are a blight on the planet at such a young age, as they are not mature enough to know that they should question it (sadly, a good-sized portion of adults aren't, either). Now, Junior is going to grow and live his life with an idea (that he is just a harmful earth-trasher) that was impressed upon him by teachers, television and - even more influential than that - movies that star lovable animated robots.
2 comments:
HEY!!! I love your blog -- I can tell that you work hard on it.
WALL-E didn't suggest that humans ought to pack up and fly into space. Plants began growing again when people left, but the climax of the movie centered around the people's desperate need for the earth.
In space, their bone mass had become almost non-existent in space, and they needed the earth for their health. The computer running the ship wouldn't let the humans come back. However, the people decided that their needs trumped the earth's, so they came back anyway.
The movie does show how people should act responsibly, but they still return to the earth despite the mess they'd made of things before.
Kristin
Hey Kristin,
The reason why this movie ticked me off was - yeah - the fact that plants began growing when people left, and a few other things I mentioned that suggested people were 'bad' for the earth. All this was imposed on the age group watching it - kids - and they may not grasp what we are able to see (that the seemingly environmentalist message was only a launching pad for the plot), and may get the idea that humans really DO destroy the earth. If the media plants enough seeds in the minds of kids, someday, they will reap a harvest of unadulterated following.
Thank you so much for commenting, please come again! =)
-Emily
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