Comments on: Wall-E: The Gender-fication of Robots

By: Canomia

Canomia — Sun, 15 Nov 2009 19:32:08 +0000

The big problem isn’t the gendering of the robots. I mean, did you miss the rape scene? WALL-E has a rape scene!
There’s a section of the film when EVE is unconscious. WALL-E tries to wake her up but when he can’t do that he takes advantage of her state and takes her on dates and, this is the rape part, he puts her on a bench and bends her arm open so that he can hold her hand. She didn’t want to hold his hand, he has tried to do it a few times during the film and she refuses. Holding hands is the physical act of love, as he has learned in films. So It’s date rape. For children.

By: Gendering Wall-E and EVE « oceans deep

Gendering Wall-E and EVE « oceans deep — Mon, 15 Jun 2009 11:23:30 +0000

[...] and female in a heteronormative fashion, in some ways traditional gender roles were reversed (see this article for a discussion of this). Wall-E can even be reinterpreted as a butch-femme love story: WALL•E: [...]

By: Harmy G

Harmy G — Fri, 29 May 2009 18:05:39 +0000

The gendered robots ruined the movie for me. I enjoyed “Kung-fu Panda” much more.

By: Torri

Torri — Sun, 02 Nov 2008 12:35:32 +0000

this is something I’ve noticed in myself recently while watching anime.
Some recent anime characters I’ve loved/hated have been Haku, a small arch character from early on in Naruto, and Utau, an antagonist in Shugo Chara.
I loved Haku because he was completely devoted to Zabuza (sevrves him in a ‘battle butler’ fashion), who took him in when he was young and going to die, he then uses him as a tool and only comes to care and acknowledge his love for him when Haku has died.
I did not like Utau much at all because she was obsessed with Ikuto (fellow antagonist potential love interest of main character). Utau is doing everything she does for him and is affectionate towards him and jealous of the main character getting some of his attention while Ikuto seems totally romantically uninterested in her.
As I was watching Utau and noticing my dislike of her as a character I did notice that aside from a few differences the characteristic which made me love one character made me hate another…. I’m not sure if the fact that I started to like Utau more when she was not thinking about Ikuto makes this better or worse…

By: Chris

Chris — Sun, 20 Jul 2008 21:24:42 +0000

I have to say, I love the film, but I didn’t take EVE as a woman, or WALLE as a boy at all; and neither did my kids. Since it was pretty well explained that WALL*E was Waste Allocation Lift Loader thing, and E*V*E was Extraterrestrial Vegetation Extractor, we just thought of them as robots.

In fact, my kids were pretty sure WALL*E was also a girl, or at least made that reference when WALL*E opened up and “gave birth” to the plant, so to speak. At least that’s how a 8 year old viewed it.

In the end, I’m not sure whether Boy/Girl was at all important, as much as it movie of love between two very different friends.

And, if WALL*E is the super-male character that’s being asserted (I didn’t think he was) then I’m surprised no one has made the assertion if it’s a he, he would be gay, or a fetishist if nothing else. Let’s go over the fact.. if he’s male, then they do everything they can to establish that:

(1) WallE works to recreate the choreography of “Hello, Dolly” which WallE watches incessantly.

(2) WALLE puts on women’s undergarments at one point.

(3) In an almost shot-by-shot recreation, WALLE uses the same Christmas lighting effect in his loft, with the same pattern, as seen in the movie & Play “Rent” to spice up the home.

(4) Pixar has a far greater history of characters people feel are associated as “gay” rather then stereotypical male/female romance stories.. (See: T-Rex in Toy Story; several characters in Monsters, Inc.)

If you chose to see WALL*E as a straight male, which is never once really asserted, then he must be one of the great to see a woman in the true power role (as above, EVE was the badass of the film).

WALLE was the best story/film of the year so far, IMO.

By: Melpomene

Melpomene — Sat, 19 Jul 2008 11:16:59 +0000

Thanks for the info, Mickle! I just finished reading *Fairest* by her and it rocked my socks.

By: Mickle

Mickle — Sat, 19 Jul 2008 08:55:34 +0000

“Gail Carson Levine has been penning them, tho, and she’s responsible for Ella Enchanted which is like, my favorite young adult book ever).”

FYI

Levine wrote the book that kicked off the series, and a sequel to that. The shorter beginning chapter books, each focusing on a different character, are written by a couple of lesser known authors.

“I just ignored gender and identifying with an interesting lead that happened to be male rather than a female lead who was bland and boring.”

I could never do that, and I’m not sure why. But I often had a hard time imagining myself as the female co-stars as well, since they tended to be downright annoying. So I’d just be myself, but pretend to be a part of the story.

By: Jennifer Kesler

Jennifer Kesler — Fri, 18 Jul 2008 04:22:57 +0000

Hmm. I’m 35, so a different generation, but I despised Disney because I perceived all the female leads they offered as weak.

I agree that I wanted to perceive myself as the lead in those movies I did like, however. I just ignored gender and identifying with an interesting lead that happened to be male rather than a female lead who was bland and boring.

By: Melpomene

Melpomene — Fri, 18 Jul 2008 02:10:45 +0000

That actually brings up a debate we had briefly over in Books about whether or not a feminist author inherently produces feminist works. I think that there are feminist authors/companies and feminist products and that one doesn’t necessarily lead to the other. In the same way, Pixar might not deserve feminist cookies because it’s not a feminist company, but Wall-E might deserve one or two because it can be read as a feminist product. Not a whole bag, by any means, but maybe one or two.

I also am a bit weirded out by you saying little girls like Disney because they ID with the main character. In my experience (and granted, I’ve only worked with gifted and talented kids so maybe they’re all just weird) little girls like Disney films for a myriad of reasons, including awesome song-and-dance routines, kick-ass villains, intense marketing campaigns specifically oriented at their age group, and a general market lock-down. I don’t think it’s as simple as Disney offering more heroines, especially since a lot of these heroines end up not being the real movers/shakers of their own films.

Like, all this might be changing with Disney beginning to push the Disney Fairies line (if I recall correctly, Tinkerbell’s going to be pretty cool because she’s a tinker/fixer fairy which is a nice non-gender norm touch) but I don’t know if you could say that about the CGI movie (which I didn’t see) or the book line (which I haven’t been following recently… Gail Carson Levine has been penning them, tho, and she’s responsible for Ella Enchanted which is like, my favorite young adult book ever).

By: Doctor Science

Doctor Science — Thu, 17 Jul 2008 17:33:11 +0000

If there's a gender-roles contrast between Disney and Pixar, it's that Pixar *never* has movies with female leads, and Disney sometimes does. Little girls prefer Disney films not just because there are more pretty princesses, but because *they want to be the lead*. Cereta has a great analysis/rant about Pixar and female protagonists for more. Pixar deserves *no* feminist cookies.