I have actually not read a ton of reviews of wall-e because I wanted to minimize spoilers, but I'll bet not a lot got beyond the basic premise(s) like you did here. Thank you-- I think you are probably a perfect person to review it too since you have the combo of art school and sci-fi geek (though I suspect you are a low-level geek) to get what Pixar people were doing
( ... )
the comment made sense to medanschankJuly 30 2008, 18:44:54 UTC
being that i live with a high-level-geek, i'll say yeah... "low-level" all the way for me... let's just say i don't watch battlestar gallatica for the spaceships, hahaha.
i agree that there's more pleasure to kids' films sometimes, but i think you could kinda apply that logic to anything? i think it's important to never brush aside pleasure as part of a discussion (i try not to do that when i write here), but i don't think animation or children's films should necessarily follow a different critical model than anything else. to push this idea in a positive direction, i was chatting with chocolatebark about how WALL-E could be interpreted as a more successful update of alphaville-- as another futuristic dystopia in which love is "a glitch in the system" (i think that's how chocolatebark put it). its pixar-ness doesn't necessarily disqualify it from measuring up to godard-ness
( ... )
Obesity in the United States is much more likely to be an indicator of poverty than wealth; I take a lot of anti-fat polemic to be submerged classism, but then I still can't get this Marx monkey off my back no matter how hard I try.
I love this list, by the way. atthesametime says your lists are some of the best reading on the Internet, and he is right.
Re: the comment made sense to mevillagecharmJuly 30 2008, 19:14:55 UTC
Ha! I just noticed I posted the same Wall-E Fat Criticism link as you did. Great minds, etc.
This link isn't about Wall-E but it sort of goes to the point about why so much of the discourse on obesity is oversimplified, and it involves a book title that could be a Pop Group song ("The Biology of Human Starvation"):
Re: the comment made sense to medanschankJuly 30 2008, 19:47:51 UTC
this article is really interesting, thanks. i think it honestly applies as much or more to what i was getting at with in treatment though. the psychology behind food intake is really troubling, and seems to only be getting worse.
let me be more clear about what i liked about WALL-E in relation to all this. it's not that it implies that fat people need to get off their asses (though, in a more spiritual or philosophical way, it kinda does). i like that it implies a culture of inactivity, where commerical impulses outbid public health. i think this is what the slate article misses out on, choosing instead to dismiss the film for being "preachy", which i think is a cop-out (as well as just plain old wrong). i agree that there's an underlying classism to discussions about obesity. i hate the fact that whole foods or organic produce are seen as some conceit of the rich. and i hate the stereotype of fat "red state" people at NASCAR or whatever. this stuff is cheap bullshit, and it distracts from real conversations. in fact, to move back to
( ... )
Reply
Reply
Reply
i agree that there's more pleasure to kids' films sometimes, but i think you could kinda apply that logic to anything? i think it's important to never brush aside pleasure as part of a discussion (i try not to do that when i write here), but i don't think animation or children's films should necessarily follow a different critical model than anything else. to push this idea in a positive direction, i was chatting with chocolatebark about how WALL-E could be interpreted as a more successful update of alphaville-- as another futuristic dystopia in which love is "a glitch in the system" (i think that's how chocolatebark put it). its pixar-ness doesn't necessarily disqualify it from measuring up to godard-ness ( ... )
Reply
http://www.slate.com/id/2195126/
Obesity in the United States is much more likely to be an indicator of poverty than wealth; I take a lot of anti-fat polemic to be submerged classism, but then I still can't get this Marx monkey off my back no matter how hard I try.
I love this list, by the way. atthesametime says your lists are some of the best reading on the Internet, and he is right.
Reply
This link isn't about Wall-E but it sort of goes to the point about why so much of the discourse on obesity is oversimplified, and it involves a book title that could be a Pop Group song ("The Biology of Human Starvation"):
http://junkfoodscience.blogspot.com/2008/02/how-weve-came-to-believe-that.html
Reply
let me be more clear about what i liked about WALL-E in relation to all this. it's not that it implies that fat people need to get off their asses (though, in a more spiritual or philosophical way, it kinda does). i like that it implies a culture of inactivity, where commerical impulses outbid public health. i think this is what the slate article misses out on, choosing instead to dismiss the film for being "preachy", which i think is a cop-out (as well as just plain old wrong). i agree that there's an underlying classism to discussions about obesity. i hate the fact that whole foods or organic produce are seen as some conceit of the rich. and i hate the stereotype of fat "red state" people at NASCAR or whatever. this stuff is cheap bullshit, and it distracts from real conversations. in fact, to move back to ( ... )
Reply
Leave a comment