Entry #5: Wall-E

I have never watched the Disney movie Wall-E before, but now since I watched it, I am impressed. The message to us-humans is: If we continue with our reckless behavior towards our environment, we will destroy our planet. If we continue to rely on technology for our basic needs, we will not be able to serve our basic needs; we will forget to communicate, and we will lose the ability to see the world around us.
 The video clip about the robot Wall-E and the humans he is serving is very close to our reality. The humans are not talking, even sitting next to each other. They use their mobile devices’ screens to communicate. This is our reality of communicating with the cell phones. This reminded me of something that happened at my house not too long time ago. I have been sitting on the second level of my house and I received a phone call from my teenage daughter. When I asked her where she is calling me from, her answer was: “From downstairs”. She used the cell phone to communicate with me, instead of coming upstairs, because she thought it was more convenient.

The picture of the mall is the same as our malls. The commercial message: “Everything you need to be happy is very important to us” we hear every day in the media. There are big signs, “EAT”, “FUN”, “WIN” -the same we see everywhere in our malls. Then a voice is heard overhead: “Time for lunch in a cup” and then a line brings the food to the peoples’ mouths. The people do not even chew the food; they drink it with a straw. This reminds me of Starbucks, Dutch brothers’ slashes, smoothies, and all kind of “drinks” with 500-1000 calories in them that we consume. The beauty shop is not very different from our beauty shops. The robots that make peoples’ hair remind me of the machines we use in the hairdresser shops. 

The overhead announcement: “Attention, shoppers! Try the blue. Blue is the new red” and everybody changes its costume in blue color. This is nowadays psychology of the followers of Fashion. We would not be considered “cool” if we don’t follow what our fashion industry is dictating. The fashion models are much thinner than the people. This is our society and culture teaching that the beauty is being skinny, but at the same time convincing us to buy the double cheeseburger. This is our psychology of consumers, invented from our industry of making money no matter what.

     

The people forgot how to walk, because of the constant use of the mobile devices. This reminds me of us driving everywhere in our cars. We do not walk too much nowadays. The guy felt on the floor, he couldn't even get up. The people do not take care of the trash. They wait for the robots to take care of every need they have. Willie (the robot) had to do everything for people, even to lift the guy from the ground, when he felt. There is a robot teaching babies the alphabet. Robots have feelings, but people do not, because they do not have a real communication.

When Willie removed the screen away from one of the girls, she suddenly woke up, she get up on her feet and started seeing the real world around her. This is the same feeling we have when we have been on our cell phones, revolved in our own world of entertainment; concentrated on what we are watching, almost hypnotized and do not see the world around us; and suddenly get away from the cell phone and started seeing the world around us.

People on the beach are so lazy, that they clap their hands and a robot umbrella comes in to cover them from the sun. They are focused in their monitors that they do not see and enjoy the environment around them. They do not do any physical activities at all. They do not walk or play on the beach. The only thing they do is to watch the monitors in front of them. This is very similar picture to what we see nowadays. People prefer to play a video game or “chatting” on some of the social media instead of going outside to have fun with family or friends.

This movie is a wake-up call for our society. If we do not take any actions to correct the disconnected, not physically active, food consuming all the time behavior, we would end up like the people from the movie-car-ridden, obese, unable to talk, to communicate and to see and enjoy the world around us.