Review of WALL·E (2008) by Conradb. — 30 Jun 2008

I saw the movie with my 12-year-old son the day it opened. Like most, I love Pixar's movies and we couldn't wait to go see it. My own reaction and that of my son both are negative. When the fat people plot was revealed, my son leaned over and whispered, "That is so wrong.

" Of course, he's grown up in a size-positive environment, but he is quite capable of deciding himself what he feels is good old-fashioned fun, what is clever speculation, and what is just a cheap grab for laughs at the cost of fat people.

Both he and I felt it was the latter. I mean, what with exhaustion of renewable resources, our ability to nuke ourselves into oblivion, global warming and whatever, the worst that can happen to our planet is that we drown in garbage and then become hugely fat and lazy? Ha ha ha.

I am sure one can construct some sort of justification into this movie, but in a society where fat people (and no, fat people are not a majority of the population, only statistically fat people are) are ridiculed, discriminated against, and exploited, is it really necessary for the next big Pixar megamovie to equate garbage, eating, fat, and lazy? Is it necessary to gleefully portray a ship full of obese people plop around, unable to walk or reach or anything? In my opinion, with Wall-E, Pixar is so far off, it's off the scale.

Sure, some of the Pixar folks may be fat themselves, but that just makes them apologists. They did our children and the fat people in this nation and anywhere a huge disservice with this movie. More, really; a cruel slap in the face.