Anderson's Nostalgia and Garbage in WALL-E

In the article, “Post-Apocalyptic Nostalgia: WALL-E, Garbage, and American Ambivalence Toward Manufactured Goods” Christopher Todd Anderson explores the connection between garbage and nostalgia and relates it back to the Disney film, WALL-E. In the opening paragraphs of the essay, Anderson distinguishes himself as an English professor who specializes in environmental and garbage studies. This piece of information establishes ethos and thus, it made me fully trust the authors ideas.

I liked the way in which Anderson formatted his “They Say, I Say” paragraph. He defines the views of both movie watchers and scholars, then states what he will be writing about. He writes, “Many viewers would agree … For many reviewers, … I will be discussing … I will focus …” (Anderson 269). The formatting and word choice in that paragraph clarifies his intent and the interpretations by others on the subject to the reader. Following the “They Say, I Say” paragraph, Anderson skillfully places his formal thesis, in which he explains his stance on the topic: nostalgia and garbage are related in WALL-E. Again, this simplifies the authors ideas and prevents confusion for the reader.

Anderson brings another dimension to his argument when he references religion. I thought it was especially poignant when he wrote, “Ancient apocalyptic narratives (such as the Biblical Noah tale or the Book of Revelation) were unlikely to evoke nostalgia because of the presumption that the destroyed civilization was entirely corrupt and irredeemable, its destruction justified.” The comparison between biblical stories and WALL-E brought new information to light (for me); The portrayal of human destruction should be viewed as the fault of the humans and thus we should feel no sympathy for them; However, in WALL-E, we do not focus the blame on humans, rather we focus on the tragedy that the environmental destruction is. That illuminates Disney’s goal of showing the younger generation that we need to save the environment.

Some of Anderson’s sentences were slightly hard to follow. Many of them were very long with several ideas in them which made it difficult to connect to previous paragraphs/ideas. It forced me to reread many sections of the article. The diction throughout the piece enhanced the content. He used words like “wistful” and “retro” to explain different portions of the concept of nostalgia and used words like “dump”, “unfettered” and “whimsical” to describe garbage. The diction furthers the attitude Anderson has towards both nostalgia and trash. Additionally, many of the words he used were relatively simple, so the reader was not intimidated by the scholarly vocabulary. I did not like Anderson’s very narrow theme throughout the article. EVE (my favorite character), was not mentioned until the last part of the essay. I think he could have broadened the essay and included more connections of trash and nostalgia to EVE and the human race.