"Wall-E" and Cybercommunication Dependency

I chose to watch the movie Wall-E in which there are two different types of characters: the robots who seem to talk to each other through immediate communication and the humans who seem to talk to each other through mediated communication.

During the first half of the movie, the earth seems desolate; the only forms of “life are a roach and a robot. Then “Eve” appears and communicates with Wall-E through direct unmediated contact. However, during the second half of the movie, when human characters are introduced, their communication is completely mediated. At one point a human character (human A) is floating down a hallway, speaking to another human (human B) via a cybercommunication-like device. As the scene develops, the audience is shown that the human B is also floating in a chair, down the hallway, right next to human A. Even though they are right next to each other, they choose to only communicate through cybercommunication. This speaks to our potential for cyber communication. The fear of most, myself included, is that if cybercommunication (and technology for that matter) goes unchecked, we will eventually end up stuck in a chair, in a life void of physical activity or interactions.

What Wall-E shows to its audience is the worst-case scenario of a technopoly, which Neil Postman describes as “the submission of all forms of cultural life to the sovereignty of technique and technology” (52). Postman goes on to state one reason for the rise of a technopoly is “the success of twentieth-century technology in providing Americans with convenience, comfort, speed, hygiene, and abundance” (54). This reasoning is evident in the human life aboard their ship The Axiom in that they live in a society driven by what Wood and Smith call technological determinism. “Technological determinism assumes that our growing ability to alter or replace nature provides a central reason for most personal and social trends” (27). The humans have completely surrendered their personal freedom or independence from technology. Everything is controlled by “Buy n Large,” a company that offers the latest technology which is required in order to live their lives. They have robots which brush their teeth and comb their hair for them; they spend their entire life in a floating chair; they play sports by virtually controlling robots that perform the physical activity for them. Their form of culture has been replaced by one that is consumption/consumer oriented. At one point during the movie an announcement is made on their ship declaring the newest and latest technology in clothing is “Blue” because, “its the new red” and everyone digitally changes their clothing color from red to blue only because, as it seems, its new.

Ultimately, the humans, led by the captain of the Axiom, rebel against the control of their technological culture, returning to Earth with the hopes starting over. Their rebellion has shades of a “Luddite” movement, however, it was still dependent on the help of robots. Ultimately however, the final message was that while technology is important, we can not sacrifice basic functions like walking/eating/breathing (living) to cybercommunication and its subsequent dependency.