Introduction
Pixar has made it impossible for people to ignore how technology is an enormous effector in our lives. The two extremes of how one can look at technology, techno-utopianism and technophobia, are depicted very effectively and predominantly in the computer-animated science-fiction movie Wall-E. Science fiction is a genre that typically has stories about science and technology of the future. Although coming across as mostly sci-fi, Wall-E contains several conventions of other genres such as romance, adventure, fantasy, family and comedy. The film is primarily made for a younger audience. However, the complexity and beauty of the animation, the messages it conveys and the concepts it depicts make it a movie for all audiences. In the movie, technology is both the protagonist and the antagonist. There are two different ideologies that can be observed throughout the film. Techno-utopianism is the ideology based on the belief that technology could or should bring about a utopia. Technophobia, on the other hand, is the dislike or fear of advanced technology and the belief that it is dangerous. The research question that will be answered in this essay is “How are the concepts ‘techno-utopianism’ and ‘technophobia’ tackled in Wall-E?” To answer this question, the movie will be analysed scene-by-scene to determine the obvious and the subtle depictions of technology. The following academic sources will be assistances for understanding the views on technology and relating these to genre films: “Genre Films: The Appeal of Genre Films.” by Bill Nichols, “Machines Out of Control: Artificial Intelligence and Androids” by Daniel Dinello, “WALL · E on the Problem of Technology, Perspectives on Political Science” by Sean Mattie and “The Post-human Utopian Paradise and the Impossible Gaze from Philip K. Dick to Spike Jonze’s Her.” by Andrei Simut. The report will consist of two sections about technophobia and techno-utopianism respectively.
Section 1: Traces of Technophobia in Wall-E
Technophobia is the ideology that supports the belief that technology should be feared because it is dangerous. In Wall-E, the background story of the plot is a very obvious case of technophobia. Wall-E tells the story of a robot that is responsible for cleaning the trash on Earth after humans littered it so much that the planet wasn’t habitable any longer. The film is set in the 2800s and the technology is highly advanced, the Earth is no longer the only place where humans can survive. The space debris -nonfunctional spacecrafts, abandoned launch vehicles and technological gadgets- shown in the beginning of the movie indicates that humans have clustered the Earth excessively with advanced technology most of whom is now simply garbage disposed to space. After the camera moves into the Earth from the space debris, the audience sees trash piles bigger than skyscrapers. Although there is no direct link with technophobia in this part, the audience is hinted that technology is the reason humans polluted the Earth to this point, as Wall-E picks up countless technological items that are thrown away as trash by humans. The important thing here is that technology is also abandoned, much like the polluted planet, which shows that there was an unnecessary technological production and usage on Earth. This unnecessary technological trash is also visible in the hologram billboards in the city, which is ironic because there is no one to see them.
Axiom, the gigantic starship in space where humans spend their time while Wall-E cleans the planet, hints to the over-dependence of humans on technology. In Axiom, “there is no need to walk” so humans spend their time lying on the hover-chairs, looking at screens and the immobilisation eventually leads to obesity. “His (Wall-E) intervention ultimately leads the ship’s captain, and then the rest of the passengers, to confront their artificial passivity and dependency and to challenge the totalitarian aim of the ship’s autopilot. This crisis and its resolution hinge on the question ‘how to live well’”. This is an example of technology drifting humans further and further away from the natural way. Human beings were made to move, but as technology takes that away from them under the name of “comfort”, they are slowly artificialised. Other examples of this would be how they eat food in cups as liquified nutrition and how the weather is always 22 degrees and sunny.
Another trace of technophobia in Wall-E is how technology brainwashes people. In the movie, infants are put in front of a screen and taught the alphabet in the most artificial and biased way: “A is for Axiom, your home sweet home, B is for Buy N Large, your very best friend.” Here, the audience is urged to see how technology could make you forget where you come from, who you are and what values really matter. In other words, technology redefines everything humanity stands for. Another claim made in the movie is that technology makes people blind and turns them into zombie-like beings. In the movie, people are constantly exposed to the screens that are attached to their chairs. After 700 years of living on the Axiom, they have even forgotten that there is an Axiom and a world outside of their screens. That is why in the movie, as two of these people are accidentally ripped apart from their screens, they are shocked beyond belief over what they see.
The main antagonist of the movie, “Auto”, who controls the spaceship in command of the Captain, is a great example of technophobia. Resembling, even physically, the infamous HAL 9000 of 2001: A Space Odyssey, Auto is a corrupt technological, AI-generated machine that undermines humans’ plans for survival. Auto is the only counter-force rejecting the idea and plan of humans to return to Earth. The fact that the Captain finally outsmarts Auto and turns him offline, is the overall moral of the story; which is that humans are capable of just as much as and maybe more even more than technology. “For the sake of the happy ending, this sub-genre of science fiction assumes that unruly nature will somehow survive the ravages of technocratic dystopia.” This is exactly what the movie supports, “unruly nature will somehow survive the ravages of technocratic dystopia.”
Perhaps a subtler indication of technophobia is reflected in the movie in the context of art. In the film, there are no traces of art whatsoever in any setting. None of the people who live on the Axiom draw, sing, write or dance anymore. This criticism is not as obvious as the others, however, it is clear to see that literature has died in the scene where the captain of the Axiom is given a book. That’s where the audience sees that after almost a thousand years living in space, people don’t even know what a book is anymore because everything is so technologised.
Finally, it is important to point out perhaps the most clever indicator of technophobia. As many viewers notice, the opening sound of Wall-E after charging is the opening sound of Apple MacBooks. This indicates that this techno-dystopia portrayed in the film is not as impossible as it seems and we are not too far away from experiencing catastrophic effects of technology if it is not monitored and controlled in the right way.
Section 2: Traces of Techno-utopianism in Wall-E
Techno-utopianism is the ideology that supports the belief that technology will save humanity. In Wall-E, even though technology is what got humans to the point where they can no longer live on the planet, ironically, it is also the way out of this problem. In the movie, the most important indicator of techno-utopianism is Wall-E himself. In the beginning sequence of the movie, the billboards on the abandoned skyscrapers say “Wall-E: Working to dig you out”, which is a clear indication of how Wall-E will be the saviour of humankind. Wall-E is also given a lot of human qualities and characteristics. This makes it easier for the audience to relate to and identify with Wall-E. Wall-E sings, decorates his home, loves and needs love and scares just like humans. This creates a positive felling in the audience about technology. Also, the idea that technology is something that emphasises non-materialistic values is conveyed through Wall-E, in the scene where he finds a ring box with a diamond ring it, throws away the ring and keeps the box instead.
Another example of how technology can be beneficial for humankind is Axiom, which is filled with technological innovation for humans’ comfort and convenience. In this utopia, every service is provided by technologies and humans don’t have to do anything physically. Whether or not this immobilisation is actually good can be debated, however, in the movie, the claim that technology makes life easier for humans is supported through creating a technological heaven such as the Axiom. “As BNL’s ads on Earth promised, a wide range of sophisticated machines offer passengers novel conveniences, or what Bacon would call ‘new 4 modes of operation’ for new freedom and power.” This is a typical convention of the science-fiction genre. In most sci-fi productions, there is a technological safe place that is usually built to save humans. (The Ark in The 100, Starship Avalon in Passengers, Endurance in Interstellar, etc.)
Finally, the credits animation sequence suggests that with after returning back to the Earth, humans learn to do things in the natural way and restore Earth with the help of technology. Learning to dig a well to get water, but using technology to drill the soil and realising they need fire to survive but using technology to light the fire are examples of how technology and humans can co-exist and live in harmony. “The arts are instrumental in this story, which is a process of progress, though not Baconian; natural ends of the soul rule over artificial means used materially.” (Mattie, 19). In this quote, “the arts” refer to the technological machines. This quote suggests that in Wall-E, after landing on Earth, the dominance is humans’ but technology assist them in reshaping their existence. This co-existence of the natural and the artificial is the ideal that is set in between techno-utopianism and technophobia.
Conclusion
The 2008 animated science-fiction movie Wall-E is a great example to look into the concepts “techno-utopianism” and “technophobia”. Technology, and more specifically, advanced technology which is the core of every science-fiction movie, can be taken from two extreme approaches. These two extremes are both visible in Wall-E and are conveyed to the audience through the characters and settings in the film. To understand how Wall-E fits into the genre of science-fiction, more than a family or adventure film, it is crucial to lay out the conventions of the genre evident in the movie. These conventions include a world altered by technology, futuristic setting, outer space, robots, spaceships and an overall conflict between technology and human values. Through these conventions, Wall-E reflects the idea that technology can be both good and evil for humankind, showing examples of both techno-utopianism 5 and technophobia. It conveys the idea that if humans are not dominated by technology but instead, if it’s the other way around; technology is a whole of tools that makes life easier for people. However, the most important moral of the story is that humans shouldn’t depend on technology excessively to the point where the entire existence of human life is altered and is estranged from the natural way of living.
LIST OF REFERENCES
1. Nichols, Bill. “Genre Films: The Appeal of Genre Films.” In Engaging Cinema: Introduction to Film Studies. W.W Norton & Company (2010): pp. 248-286;
2. Dinello, Daniel, “Machines Out of Control: Artificial Intelligence and Androids”, TECHNOPHOBIA! science fiction visions of posthuman technology. University of Texas Press (2005): pp. 87-115
3. Sean Mattie (2014) WALL · E on the Problem of Technology, Perspectives on Political Science, 43:1, 12-20, DOI: 10.1080/10457097.2013.784576
4. Simuț, Andrei. “The Post-human Utopian Paradise and the Impossible Gaze from Philip K. Dick to Spike Jonze’s Her.” (2015). 6
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