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.

The Politics of Vision

Dianne Sachko Macleod’s “The Politics of Vision: Disney, Aladdin, and the Gulf War” is not only a thought-provoking essay, it is a marriage of film and real-world. She sets up her argument in the first paragraph when she states, “Fewer critics, however, have credited Aladdin’s success to another media event: the televised staging of the Gulf War that was taking place while the film was in production at Disney Studios. Mirroring and magnifying popular serotypes of Arab culture, Aladdin played to an audience already primed by media.” I thought this quote was important because what Macleod expands on in her essay. The concept of the article was exciting for me because I did not know that this war (which correlates so much to Aladdin) was going on during the film. I also appreciated the fact the she explains how to audience is primed. In Psychology 101, we just started learning about priming and this is very representative of how the media, in innocent (Disney) or adult (news) forms, can alter the way we think about things. Her thesis is located at the end of the first section when she states, “I shall argue that both Aladdin and Operation Desert Storm contrived to achieve their goals semiotically, by playing up stereotypes of the Orientalist Other…”. Her clear thesis statement sets up the reader with a concrete idea of what she is going to argue and helps to outline what the readers are going to see in the essay.

         Several parts of Macleod’s essay briefly reminded me of Carl Hiaasen’s book “Team Rodent”.  Macleod discusses Disney’s overbearing protection of its copyright (179). Similarly, Hiaasen writes about Disney suing a school for having Disney related images on their windows. Additionally, Macleod’s sentence structure and vocabulary choice reminds me of a reserved version of Hiaasen’s fictional writing-style. Notably to me, she calls Disney a “conglomerate” (181) and varies her sentence structure; She adds rhetorical questions like “how could I, an art historian, write about something I could not illustrate?” (180), which bring her word to life.

         I like the way Macleod breaks up her essay into Aladdin and then Operation Deseret Storm; However, several times I lost the connection between the two concepts. Overall, I think it was easier to understand, instead of comparing them sentence by snetance. I liked the song lyrics and quotes from Aladdin. They helped to prove her point that stereotyping of Arab culture is prevalent in the film. I thought it was unnecessary to add the information and monetary values of the Pentagon; Macleod seemed almost scatterbrained when she tries to connect the “gadgetry” from Pentagon to the Middle East. I think it detracted from the main point that the Pentagon plays a dynamic role in the media industry. I think it is important that Macleod brought the essay back to Aladdin in the final paragraph and refers to the façade of “innocence” that Disney continues to try to portray. Since the essay features many stereotypes and racist examples from films and news-based media, this brought it back to the main point I was interested in: Disney and racism.

Putnam's "Mean Ladies"

Amanda Putnam’s essay, “Mean Ladies: Transgendered Villains in Disney Films”, is a compelling piece on gender portrayal in Disney films. Putnam opens the essay with a personal anecdote about her daughter. Her daughter wanted a Disney movie without a “mean lady” in it, as in most Disney films the villains are scary, evil women. The real life evidence strengthened her claim that children are noticing the characterization of female villains in Disney films. The anecdote was brought full circle when she referred back to her daughter in the final paragraphs of her essay. Putnam explains that when her daughter asks questions about gender norms (boys having long hair, etc...), she knows that this is because of influences like Disney that establish and reestablish ‘correct’ gender standards in many of their films.

I disagree with Putnam’s idea of homosexuality, heterosexuality and feminism throughout the essay. She explains that some heroines/princesses are considered heterosexual because they are beautiful and wear “form-fitting clothes”. I think that those points reaffirm the princesses’ femininity, but I do not see how they relate to their heterosexuality. Homosexual women can be ‘sexy’ and wear revealing clothes, just as much as heterosexual women can. She also wrote about Disney royalty being characterized as hyper-heterosexual and provided the example of Mufasa’s family: his wife, Sarabi and son, Simba. To me, that does not seem hyper-heterosexual; It seems like a regular heterosexual relationship, and therefore I do not see the justification for picking on The Lion King when talking about hyper-heterosexuality.

I liked the way that Putnam put detail into each example that she wrote about. In other essays we have read, some authors write one line about a character and provide little textual/film evidence. Putnam goes into depth and provides several different examples from each character in her essay.

I love the sentence, “This allows my daughter, one of Disney’s intended audience, to recognize more easily who is “good” in these films – and who is not.” She is referring to appearance as an indicator of good and evil in Disney movies. This sentence brings the idea of prejudice back to real life and shows the potential consequences of showing these movies to children. Certain movies have the potential to cause children to believe that homosexual or transgendered people are innately bad or ‘evil’ because of their villain-status in movies, which is completely unfair for people identifying as anything other than heterosexual.  Putnam is able to both bring in textual evidence and personal evidence to make her essay both informative and thought-provoking!