Just Don’t Say the ‘E’ Word
The marketing for Pixar’s Wall-E has been superb thus far. They’ve managed to control who saw the film first (which always devolves into a pissing contest) and I have been wondering for a while now about why they were doing this – why was it not being seen by everyone and what were they hiding? Well, Devin Feraci at CHUD may be onto something when he writes:
The new Pixar film Wall-E presents a wonderful message about environmental stewardship and about conservation. It graphically shows us both the fragility and strength of the ecosystem, the dangers and hopes facing us as a species impacting the Earth with our pollutants and our junk. It also contains unsubtle jabs at corporate megapowers, out of control branding, insidious advertising and rampant consumerism.
But apparently that’s all there by happenstance – at least according to writer/director Andrew Stanton. “The most I do is recycle, and sometimes I’m even pretty bad at that,” Stanton said at the Wall-E press junket when asked about the ecological and political themes of the film. And he wanted to make sure that the assembled journalists didn’t think he was smuggling a subversive message into his kid’s movie. “I don’t have a political bent, I don’t have an ecological message to push.”That’s sort of a weird statement to hear after seeing the film. Creativity is a mysterious thing, and themes and meanings can become embedded in a work in such a way that even the creator isn’t aware they’re there, but the environmental and political themes of this movie are well beyond subtext and are so blatant that you’d expect to see the Wall-E character being used in conservation ads and for the life-size animatronic Wall-E built to promote the film to show up at environmentally-themed events. Instead Stanton and Pixar are all but disavowing these obvious, in-your-face messages and pushing Wall-E as a simple robot love story.
So far the film has been nothing but positive buzz. It’s hard to imagine that Pixar would seriously want to “hide” the film’s message. Then again, it’s a Drudge headline waiting to happen and there are vast numbers of Americans who might just tune it out if they think it’s a message movie. But, as Feraci points out, its message is on the hypocritical side – selling a lot of stuff to create the very thing the film deplores. On the other hand, the marketing is, well, the marketing. What can be done about it when there are contracts signed and truckloads of cash to be made? If Pixar says its standing by “the message” it will have a lot of splainin’ to do, like where the toys are made, what materials, how green was the production itself, whether a portion of the sales are being donating to environmental causes. Isn’t it just better all the way around not to go there? Wall-E opens on Thursday.
As far as Oscar goes, Pixar’s Cars was beaten by the gladly exposed environmental movie, Happy Feet. That was a film with a message which made money. But did it make SERIOUS money? Did it hock junk? Happy Feet’s director, George Miller said that the original script didn’t have an environmental message but “In Australia, we’re very, very aware of the ozone hole,” he said, “and Antarctica is literally the canary in the coal mine for this stuff. So it sort of had to go in that direction.” He went on to say, “You can’t tell a story about Antarctica and the penguins without giving that dimension.”
Sam Juliano says:
Tuesday, June 24, 2008 at 8:26am
Interesting piece here……..but in the case of WALL-E, the buzz and exposure has been deafening, so even if there is a pointed perception that there is a spoon-fed agenda befind all the hoopla, I think the die has been cast.
Everywhere you look—on buses, on huge billboards—on subway station panels—on bus stop plexiglass you see nothing but WALL-E all over Manhattan. If this promotion isn’t the most thorough ever, it certainly pushes close. And as was pointed out two weeks ago in a previous post from Sasha, WALL-E has the additional benefit of early critical praise, making this entire venture a can’t miss….a win-win situation in the making.
Ryan Griffin says:
Tuesday, June 24, 2008 at 10:56am
I think Feraci is taking the piss out of the movie just because he can, looking too deeply into anything there. If there’s one single reason that the Earth is covered in garbage, it’s not because there’s some environmental/political slant. It’s simply so Wall-E can go through it and interact with all our stuff. It’s character building, and it’s amusing to see him come across objects familiar to us and use them incorrectly. Of any Pixar movie, I believe this one is more about building character than any of them. They’ve already been doing this through the marketing with the little shorts, some of which have been posted on this site.
Scott says:
Tuesday, June 24, 2008 at 12:12pm
I could see them saying stuff like this to ward off negative reviews from people who don’t feel that kids films should be used as vehicles for political messages. It’s a pretty good strategy because people who want to see these messages are going to see them. And the people who don’t want them can move on. Either way, it’s going to be a really entertaining film. I saw about 15 minutes of it at WonderCon and it was great.
RRA drove right into the Wall-E says:
Tuesday, June 24, 2008 at 12:29pm
Funny fact: CASINO ROYALE was the biggest 007 hit picture ever, but never hit #1 in American theatres….all because of HAPPY FEET.
As for the message, hey Devin, its a fucking early 70s sci-fi-esque story…and those pre-STAR WARS Hollywood science fiction movies all had a message of some kind.
THX-1138* – Finding individuality in a policed-conformed society
SILENT RUNNING – Save the mother fuckin trees man!
SOYLENT GREEN – Don’t fuck too much, or overpopulation will make us eat old people.
PLANET OF THE APES – Do WW3, and you’ll become some ape’s pet.
LOGAN’S RUN – Breaking your self-held ideals of the world as you mature.
ROLLERBALL** – Sports used to disguise/shift focus away from societyal problems.
*=Great movie, I can’t believe that same director would later shoot something like THE PHANTOM MENACE. What the fuck?
**=Ignore the 1970s art deco, and its a tale still eeriely relevant for today’s time….lot more than its retarded remake. Plus, James Caan is badass.
RRA is Incredible says:
Tuesday, June 24, 2008 at 12:33pm
Ryan Griffin, well its Devin Feraci…what you expect?
This was the same guy who gave thumbs down for BATMAN BEGINS…alright, fine, you don’t care for comic book movies. Not everyone does.
Then he goes later that summer and writes a solid write-up for FANTASTIC FOUR…which was a pretty terrible picture. My mind boggles!
Anyway, I’m still shocked that Devin didn’t piss and moan about the Ayn Rand Objectivism ideology within THE INCREDIBLES.*
*=Still a great movie, and only time that ideology made any sense ever to me in any context.
elessar says:
Tuesday, June 24, 2008 at 1:39pm
Thanks for spoiling Soylent Green, RRA! Oh, well.
I need to check out some of those films (especially Silent Running and THX-1138).
SO looking forward to Wall-E.
Bebe says:
Tuesday, June 24, 2008 at 2:39pm
This is a non-story. It’s clearly a quality flick, and the movie’s storytelling and subtext will speak for themselves. The quality of the movie has zero to do with whether Stanton recycles. Disney makes toys in unregulated sweatshops in China – that’s a fact. They all do. Pinning that phenomenon on Wall-E is opportunistic at best and reeks of “filler.” If these themes do exist in Wall-E, the best one could hope for is that the generation of kids seeing the movie will one day grow up to have some friggin’ decency, which today’s generations don’t when it comes to environmental stewardship.
Ryan Adams says:
Tuesday, June 24, 2008 at 3:45pm
Happy Feet
· overt environmental message
· subtle endorsement of “alternative identity”
· charming
· hilarious
· crowdpleaser
· enduring classic
· Oscar winner
It’s a pretty sick society that abhors moral messages and deeper meanings in works of art.
“…the best one could hope for is that the generation of kids seeing the movie will one day grow up to have some friggin’ decency, which today’s generations don’t when it comes to environmental stewardship.”
Word, bebe.
I guess there are some parents who not only refuse to teach their kids about difficult subjects, but also get their hackles up when anybody else tries to teach them.
Sucks for them if that’s their attitude.
They’re gonna miss a brilliant movie.
RRA sponsors Soylent Green: The Breakfast of Champions says:
Tuesday, June 24, 2008 at 4:12pm
elessar, there was a SNL sketch back in the early 90s about SOYLENT GREEN and its sequels…..in each clip, Phil Hartman is Charleton Heston, and they outright spoil GREEN.
“This typing paper is made out of PEOPLE!!!”
Hell, anyone that ever sees GREEN, by the midway point, everyone has figured out what the substance is made of except for the hero…which really hurts that film.
Tufas says:
Tuesday, June 24, 2008 at 4:38pm
Sigh… CHUD.com is NOT what it used to be.
And by the way, only in a country overthrowned by The Worst Administration Ever ™ and its own Political Propaganda would an environmental message become a faulty factor for buzz, not an inspiring one….
We are, indeed, moving dangerously close to a new world we did not expect so soon, and America needs to wake the f* up
Andre says:
Tuesday, June 24, 2008 at 6:02pm
I agree with Ryan and Bebe… he’s just trying to separate himself from the pack by going into a non-issue. So it’s okay for “Finding Nemo” to have truckloads of toys, but not okay for “Wall-E”?
he sounds like a guy who thinks he’s making a huge difference by not drinking Coke or eating at McDonald’s (or any bland and useless way of “standing up to ‘The Man’”).
In the end, this is Disney for Christ’s sakes, the weird thing would be if there WEREN’T any toys.
It’s a non-issue.
Fidel says:
Tuesday, June 24, 2008 at 9:48pm
YAY…WALL-E…CAN’T WAIT. No matter what I read, nothing can discourage me from wanting to see this as soon as possible, and then probably three or four times more.
Stark Raving Beale says:
Wednesday, June 25, 2008 at 9:46am
I actually think he has a valid point. This IS going to send mixed messages to children after all. And if Devin’s right about the level of control Stanton and Lassiter have over marketing (he intimated something to that effect in a post on the forum), they just might be bloody hypocrites.