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.
the obesity thing didn't bother me so much because i was impressed by how harsh it was, initially. this sounds mean-spirited, but i kinda admired the fact that something that tough found its way to the final cut? i do worry about the impression it might make on children though, and having read some responses, i wish it had gone farther with the ties between commodities and obesity (which i think is really the heart of the problem). i'd have liked, for example, to have seen some punchy, allegorical equivalent to "high fructose corn syrup" or something like that... some rotten, expense-cutting poison that people don't even realize they're consuming. does that make sense?
in the film's defense though, i think it does a decent job of avoiding an ideal body to refer back to (other than fred willards, if that counts!). obesity almost transforms the people into a different, futuristic "species"... in the same way that other sci-fi movies will give people webbed hands or whatever. it seemed very deliberately involuntary, and not the result of any personal shortcomings. the introduction scene with "john", and his subsequent parallel romance struck me as really integral. i liked that it stressed these people's inability to perform basic functions, and i really liked that implied they could learn to do them (and enjoy them) with relative ease. though that does tread dangerously close to "fat people are just lazy", i guess. so yeah, it's probably the most troublesome part.
also, i'll be curious if you do begin to formulate some thoughts on this... i thought briefly of how we were talking about sci-fi and disability a while back when i was watching it.
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 the post itself, one of the things that irks me about stuff white people like is how it buys into this logic by reversing it. 'recycling programs' and 'decent food' are just more guilty white liberal fodder, which kinda implies that pollution and junkfood are authentic ways of keepin' it real.
the deeper problem, as i see it, is profiteering. it's the fact that we get high fructose corn syrup instead of cane sugar (and subsequently, diabetes), because it's cheaper for lobbyists and attractive to politicians at the time of the iowa caucases, etc. it's the fact that poor people often can't afford to eat well. in philly, a low-income neighborhood is lucky to have a rite-aid, let alone a real supermarket. also, when you work long hours, or several jobs... and when your job involves an hour long commute because you've been gentrified out of a closer neighborhood, no one has the time to prepare decent food, let alone afford it.
i don't think WALL-E is at its strongest on this issue. and it certainly doesn't delve into commute times or class relations. but it does poke fun at the commodification of food-- the cupcake in a cup for example. and more importantly, it presents this consumption as almost free of agency. i didn't get a sense that these people are really choosing anything, just kind of passively accepting things that had been plopped into their lap. as a staging of that kind of fake pleasure, i think it's really successful, and steers the conversation away from "lazy fat people who need to exercise," and so forth.
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.
the obesity thing didn't bother me so much because i was impressed by how harsh it was, initially. this sounds mean-spirited, but i kinda admired the fact that something that tough found its way to the final cut? i do worry about the impression it might make on children though, and having read some responses, i wish it had gone farther with the ties between commodities and obesity (which i think is really the heart of the problem). i'd have liked, for example, to have seen some punchy, allegorical equivalent to "high fructose corn syrup" or something like that... some rotten, expense-cutting poison that people don't even realize they're consuming. does that make sense?
in the film's defense though, i think it does a decent job of avoiding an ideal body to refer back to (other than fred willards, if that counts!). obesity almost transforms the people into a different, futuristic "species"... in the same way that other sci-fi movies will give people webbed hands or whatever. it seemed very deliberately involuntary, and not the result of any personal shortcomings. the introduction scene with "john", and his subsequent parallel romance struck me as really integral. i liked that it stressed these people's inability to perform basic functions, and i really liked that implied they could learn to do them (and enjoy them) with relative ease. though that does tread dangerously close to "fat people are just lazy", i guess. so yeah, it's probably the most troublesome part.
also, i'll be curious if you do begin to formulate some thoughts on this... i thought briefly of how we were talking about sci-fi and disability a while back when i was watching it.
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 the post itself, one of the things that irks me about stuff white people like is how it buys into this logic by reversing it. 'recycling programs' and 'decent food' are just more guilty white liberal fodder, which kinda implies that pollution and junkfood are authentic ways of keepin' it real.
the deeper problem, as i see it, is profiteering. it's the fact that we get high fructose corn syrup instead of cane sugar (and subsequently, diabetes), because it's cheaper for lobbyists and attractive to politicians at the time of the iowa caucases, etc. it's the fact that poor people often can't afford to eat well. in philly, a low-income neighborhood is lucky to have a rite-aid, let alone a real supermarket. also, when you work long hours, or several jobs... and when your job involves an hour long commute because you've been gentrified out of a closer neighborhood, no one has the time to prepare decent food, let alone afford it.
i don't think WALL-E is at its strongest on this issue. and it certainly doesn't delve into commute times or class relations. but it does poke fun at the commodification of food-- the cupcake in a cup for example. and more importantly, it presents this consumption as almost free of agency. i didn't get a sense that these people are really choosing anything, just kind of passively accepting things that had been plopped into their lap. as a staging of that kind of fake pleasure, i think it's really successful, and steers the conversation away from "lazy fat people who need to exercise," and so forth.
Reply
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