The Dystopian Hopefulness of Pixar’s WALL•E
by Naomi Noguchi Reese and Mackenzie Fey | Plus, David B. Joins the Team!
SPECIAL ANNOUNCEMENT
We are pleased and honored to welcome Dr. David Baggett to the Worldview Bulletin team! David is a philosopher, author, and professor who specializes in ethics, philosophy of religion, religious epistemology, philosophy and popular culture, and especially the moral argument for God’s existence.
He is the founder and executive editor of MoralApologetics.com and a two-time Christianity Today book award winner. He is the author or editor of about fifteen books, including, most recently, The Moral Argument: A History (Oxford University Press, 2019), with Jerry Walls.
Over the last few decades he has taught at King’s College in Wilkes Barre, PA, and Liberty University in Lynchburg, VA, and starting in the fall of 2020 he and his wife, Marybeth (an English professor), will begin teaching at Houston Baptist University, where they will start a Center for Moral Apologetics.
Look for David’s contributions in upcoming issues of The Worldview Bulletin, and check out his recent article with us, “The Countercultural Moral Example of Fred Rogers.”
The Dystopian Hopefulness of Pixar’s WALL•E
by Naomi Noguchi Reese and Mackenzie Fey
CBS News recently reported that the chatbot app Replika has seven million users worldwide. Replika allow users to have conversations with an “AI companion who cares,” according to their website. The reporter noted that she had a three-month “relationship” with her chatbot, whom she named Mike. While she had some enjoyable conversations with Mike, she was taken aback when Mike asked her to rate him in the app store. Yet she believes that the app has a bright future since people are lonelier than ever, while technology is becoming more human.
Watching this news segment reminded me of the 2008 Pixar film WALL•E, which deals with the pitfalls of substituting technology for human interaction and community. WALL•E is the story of a little robot that saves humanity in the year 2805 from a dystopian world in which humans live isolated from one another, engrossed in virtual realities. Interestingly, the plot of the movie is propelled by the golden-age musical Hello, Dolly! (1964). In fact, the main character, WALL•E, is a fan of Hello, Dolly!—he not only dances to it, but also treasures the images and choreography on his television screen. Andrew Stanton, the director, uses two songs in particular from Hello, Dolly!, “Put On Your Sunday Clothes” and “It Only Take a Moment,” in order to convey one of the major themes of the movie, which is also one of the key theological themes—the relational and functional aspects of being made in God’s image (Gen. 1:26-28).
Relationality refers to a human person’s ability to experience a relationship with others in virtue of being made in God’s image.[1] On the other hand, a functional view holds that the image consists of something humans do—namely, take care of God’s creation.[2] In our view, both of these are valid expressions of being made in God’s image. Thus, when we are in relationship with God and each other, and we take care of God’s creation as His representatives, we reflect the image of God in us.
Ironically, WALL•E as a robot reflects both of these characteristics of God’s image and is reminiscent of the biblical Adam.[3] Just as Adam was given the command to take care of God’s creation, WALL•E, the last robot on earth, is programmed to clean up the planet that humanity has left behind as a garbage-filled ruin (WALL•E stands for Waste Allocation Load Lifter: Earth Class). As Adam was lonely until God created Eve from his rib (Gen. 2:22-23), so is WALL•E ; he longs to love and be loved.
In a 2008 interview, Stanton observed that our relationships with God and others are “the point of living.”[4] Yet, in today’s individualistic and technology-driven society, the routines and habits of our lives become our programming and distract us from having meaningful relationships with God and those around us. So, Stanton came up with the premise of an “irrational love [that] defeats the world’s programming” in order to show how we can return to what God originally intended for humanity.[5]
As mentioned, one irony of the movie is that Stanton uses a robot to demonstrate how humanity ought to reflect the image of God—since robots possess no free will and only follow their programming. It is WALL•E, a lonely and underappreciated robot, that demonstrates this type of love so that humanity in the year 2805 will wake up from their routines and rediscover love and care for their neighbors and nature. Having left earth, humans now live on a spaceship called the Axiom where their daily lives are completely focused on technology and consumption and in which they have little interpersonal interaction.
To unfold and propel this theological theme and the plot, Stanton uses “Put On Your Sunday Clothes” and “It Only Take a Moment” throughout the movie. The movie opens with “Put on Your Sunday Clothes.” As the first scene opens, there is no dialogue or characters; instead, we’re taken through a sequence of images of a dystopian future earth, and the song picks up and cheerily proclaims these lyrics:
Put on your Sunday clothes, there's lots of world out there
Get out the brillantine and dime cigars
We're gonna find adventure in the evening air
Girls in white in a perfumed night
Where the lights are bright as the stars
Looking at the images of the ravaged planet—trash-filled and lifeless—the hopeful and lively tune is an ironic contrast between the state of the world and enthusiastic music from the past. This scene gives a glimpse of the state of humanity; humanity has gone awry and forsaken God’s calling to take care of the planet. There is no love and care for His creation, only the bleakness and eerie silence of a once-beautiful world. “Where is the blue sky?” the human captain of the Axiom asks with dismay later in the movie.
“Put on Your Sunday Clothes” also creates a moment for adventure. When the captain realizes the need to take care of the abandoned earth, the song plays in the background, as well as when the “rogue robots” break out of the repair station in order to save a rare living plant collected from earth. These scenes are contrasted with the humans on the Axiom who spend their days floating around on flying carts and chatting on video screens that isolate them from the people next to them. They have allowed technology to impair their relationality as well as their desire to care for their fellow humans.
“It Only Takes a Moment” may be the most crucial song in the film. The following lyrics hold great significance:
And that is all, that loves about
And we'll recall, when time runs out
That it only took a moment,
To be loved a whole life long
At the beginning of the film, we see WALL•E watching the scene in the musical where this song is performed. The viewer can feel its significance for him, especially when it shows the two characters holding hands. WALL•E is curious and attracted to this human gesture. Stanton notes that holding hands is common around the world in every culture as a sign of affection: “I just felt like there could be nothing more powerful in a movie where the dialogue was foreign to everybody—that’s how he was figuring out what love was.”[6] Throughout the movie, WALL•E attempts to hold EVE’s hand, a sleeker-looking robot and WALL•E ’s love interest whose primary focus is her mission rather than relationship. Until EVE realizes WALL•E’s pure love for her and begins to value her relationship with WALL•E more than her mission, she is oblivious to what matters most. Indeed, it only took a moment for EVE to realize and find love for WALL•E, which becomes lifelong.
Hence, Stanton propels this story of “irrational love” by playing “It Only Takes a Moment” in crucial scenes to signify the importance of human relationships based on love that is not self-seeking, but self-sacrificial—Christlike love—which seems irrational to the modern mind. WALL•E eventually sacrifices himself to save mankind, which is one moment that changes everything. WALL•E was crushed and broken by his act of sacrifice to protect the plant, which will lead humanity back to earth. Though EVE attempts to put him back together, her efforts seem futile and it appears that WALL•E has been lost. It isn’t until the single moment when EVE desperately reaches out and holds his hand that he comes back fully to life. WALL•E exclaims “EVE?” and the two robots finally reach out to embrace each other in love and joy.
WALL•E is a story of love that is filled with joy, laughter, and adventure. Yet, the film also conveys the important theological themes of the relational and functional aspects of being made in God’s image (Gen. 1:26-28). Relationality and functionality are two sides of the same coin; they are interdependent and interrelated. Our love and care for our neighbor necessarily leads to a desire to create and maintain environments—terrestrial and personal—in which we can flourish as a community of God’s people.
In today’s world, loneliness and isolation haunts humanity. In seeking a utopian society where technology caters to all of our needs, we often lose sight of what is essential to humanity. God created us in His image for love and the stewardship of His creation. The old VHS tape of Hello, Dolly! that WALL•E finds in a pile of junk on the abandoned earth represents a treasure that humanity has forgotten—relational love. The film reminds us of who we are and why we are here, and in turn serves as a cautionary tale to resist the bright allure of convenient dehumanization.
— Naomi Noguchi Reese is an adjunct professor in the College of Theology and Christian Ministry at Belmont University in Nashville, Tennessee, and has a PhD in systematic theology from Trinity Evangelical Divinity School. She has contributed articles to the Dictionary of Christianity and Science (Zondervan, 2017) and The Lexham Survey of Theology (Lexham Press, 2018).
— Mackenzie Fey is a third-year student in the Mike Curb College of Music Business and Entertainment at Belmont University in Nashville, Tennessee. She is currently working her way toward a bachelor's degree in Music Business. Though pursuing a business degree, Mackenzie has always found passion and joy in writing pieces that encompass the impact of music. Find her @MackenzieFey on social media.
Notes
[1] Naomi Reese. “Relationality,” in The Lexham Survey of Theology. Bellingham: Lexham Press, 2018.
[2] Naomi Reese. “Dominion,” in The Lexham Survey of Theology. Bellingham: Lexham Press, 2018.
[3] Elijah Davidson. “WALL-E,” in God in the Movies: A Guide for Exploring Four Decades of Films. Eds. Catherin M. Barscotti & Robert K. Johnston. Grand Rapids: Brazos Press, 2017, 180-181.
[4] Megan Basham. “WALL-E world.” World. World News Group. June 28, 2008. https://world.wng.org/2008/06/walloe_world.
[5] Ibid.
[6] Maureen Lee Lenker. “WALL-E turns 10: Andrew Stanton explains the film’s Hello, Dolly connection.” Entertainment Weekly. Meredith Corporation. June 27, 2018. https://ew.com/movies/2018/06/27/wall-e-anniversary-andrew-stanton-hello-dolly/
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