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Doing the analysis so I don’t have to

Mr. J

wall-e and eve

Pixar’s Gender Problem, by Caitlin GD Hopkins at Vast Public Indifference, via ill Doctrine.

. . . Whenever a new Pixar movie comes out, I wrestle with the same frustration: Pixar’s gender problem. While Disney’s long history of antipathy toward mothers and the problematic popularity of the Disney Princess line are well-traveled territory for feminist critiques, Pixar’s gender problem often slips under the radar.

The Pixar M.O. is (somewhat) subtler than the old your-stepmom-is-a-witch tropes of Disney past. Instead, Pixar’s continued failure to posit female characters as the central protagonists in their stories contributes to the idea that male is neutral and female is particular. This is not to say that Pixar does not write female characters. What I am taking issue with is the ad-nauseam repetition of female characters as helpers, love interests, and moral compasses to the male characters whose problems, feelings, and desires drive the narratives . . .

That’s why I didn’t want to see the movie. My friends were all psyched at Wall-E’s impending release, whereas I cringed when I saw the trailer last year. It seemed like the same old Hollywood heteronormative story: a male protagonist, of course, saves the world with a female secondary character that exists almost solely to be the love interest. But with robots! And one of them is name EVE, winky-wink to the Judeo-Christians in the house. w00t w00t!

But maybe I’m wrong about the movie:

Another Perspective on Wall-E, from Kathy Najimy (!) at Women & Hollywood.

. . . Eve [is] a fantastic example of a strong non-compromising, female character for girls. (One of the best I have ever seen and as the mother of an 11 year old girl– I have seen them all and am frequently disappointed– I LOVED EVE!) The thing that impressed and delighted me the most is that Eve is one of very few female animated characters that isn’t female identified by red lipsticked lips or a big pink bow in her hair or long false eyelashes or high heels to indicate she is female. She is, instead, a sleek white round ipod looking character that could be any gender. I applaud Pixar for not drawing or writing her in the usual, gross stereotypical manner. She is strong and in charge and saves the day . . .

If it does contain the subtle criticism of American consumer culture that Jay Smooth mentions, then maybe I will rent the movie later. What say you, good Feministe readers?

74 thoughts on Doing the analysis so I don’t have to

  1. Wall*E is easily one of the best films I have seen this year. The little boy sitting behind me kept chanting Eves name as she repeatedly saves the day. The fact that the usual chanting of the right about the devious messages in the movie should say something in it’s favor. It’s definitely a challenge to mindlessly “following our programming” and consumer culture. I adored Eve and Wall*E and exciting characters with solid personalities. And considering that they speak almost no dialog between each other’s names? That is an accomplishment.

  2. It’s a good movie. Obviously. Wall-e drives the narrative, but Eve is a good character, too. And I don’t think the critique of American consumer culture was subtle at all. I went in expecting to be disappointed, and all of the previews made me even more cynical. But the movie itself was great. The characters were engaging, the cinematography was beautiful, and I think it had a good message, too.

  3. I *did* wish we got more Edna Mode…

    but a pop reference must stay a pop reference and get off the stage, no?

  5. I generally find that refraining from the types of critiques reactionaries make against movies (in this case, libertarians and National Review drones decrying anti-consumerism) makes us look a little better in the long run.

    But seriously, though, isn’t Johnny 5 gonna get some royalties off of this?

  6. I have seen the movie twice and it is absolutely wonderful. I think that your concerns are pretty much unfounded in this case. It is pretty obvious (at least to me) after two viewings that Eve is the central figure of this movie. She is depicted as being smarter than Wall-e and for a good part of the movie she is his protector. I was also pleasantly surprised by the love story as it is portrayed in a very genuine, unique way. The environmental message of the film is also very brave and appropriate given the times that we live in. You should definitely see this movie now. Don’t wait for a rental. I’m sure you won’t be disappointed.

  7. The “female” robot Eve — who hardly conforms to any Hollywood femmebot archetype — is the character who both saves the “male” robot Wall-E and saves the world. She is bigger, faster, and stronger than Wall-E, and also implicitly smarter. Far from being a macho Terminator-style male robot, Wall-E is a little guy who spends his time watching musicals.

    I am usually the first to cringe at gender representation in movies like this, and for good reason. Hollywood flicks generally give us lady sexbots and male killer bots. But that just wasn’t the case here. Wall-E broke the mold. My only complaint was that the robots had to have gender at all, when they were clearly non-gendered beings.

  8. I say, I still don’t understand why they had to give robots gender to begin with. I mean, they’re robots. =/

  9. I loved Wall-E, and I have to agree with the second review – E.V.E.’s character was very well-developed. I mean, I suppose it’s problematic that the robots have to have a gender at all, but the way it’s done here is … refreshing. I’m afraid to say more in case of spoiling it, but suffice to say that he doesn’t save the world, and the major accomplishment he does manage is totally overshadowed by E.V.E.’s actions at the very end of the film.

    I was actually more worried with the way fatness made its way into the film than the gender issues, although the explanation was somewhat sound (loss of bone density due to generations in space), the representation was more straightforward: the future is FAT, unless we stop buying into big corporations and start taking better care of the earth. Sustainability and anti-capitalism were huge issues, which was surprising coming from the folks behind this.

    My favourite character is still Mo, though. 🙂

  10. Also, in terms of the human characters, of which there are 3 (the captain, John (voiced by John Ratzenberger) and Kathy (voiced by none other than Kathy Najimy)…I don’t want to spoil anything, and all three take heroic action when necessary, but, while the captain is certainly the “most” heroic of the three, Kathy is certainly more proactive than John at a crucial moment near the end (of course, given the action she takes, it could certainly be critiqued from a feminist perspective as well). Man, I hate trying not to spoil the movie and explain things at the same time. Folks who’ve seen the film will probably figure out what I’m talking about.

  12. I saw that too, Sam 🙂 And I liked her, even if the line itself was a bit – predictable? Still, she had spunk, and unlike … that other guy whose name I can’t remember … once she got off her telescreen, she stayed off. The other guy Wall-E interrupted first went right back to it, and Kathy had to intervene before he stayed off for good.

    Also, having read the first linked post in its entirety, I think it’s less fair to call it a criticism of Wall-E so much as it’s a criticism of the male-centeredness of all of Pixar’s films. It’s a bit tough to compare the critique of a portfolio to the critique of a single piece within that portfolio, you know? Because sure, on its own, Wall-E shines; taken as part of a whole, however, there’s room for growth. I feel duped into having believed that there were two different “sides” to this issue being represented.

  13. Just some observations:
    1) Wall-e is, outside of his primary function of trash compaction, the mostly-incompetent, passive, nurturer that gets other characters in touch with their feelings and likes musicals. He does things by accident.
    2) EVE is a goal oriented, powerful, frightfully competent, shoot-first agent who actually has to challenge a power structure (with a gun) to move the plot, and actually makes decisions.

    Are the gender roles traditional? Sure, but their gender associations are inverted, if you assign Wall-e male-ness and Eve female-ness. I was honestly surprised that the kids in the theater we saw it in were able to identify Eve as the girl (which they did). It must be the names- Eve’s a levitating phallus with a big gun, ffs.

    This isn’t even getting into the fact that, while the humans in the movie appear to be hetero-normative at the level of appearance, the movie suggests that the humanity in place is largely asexual. In fact, as I type this, I’m beginning to think that Wall-e might be a mainstream attempt at queer cinema.

  14. I was so pleasantly surprised when I saw “WALL-E”. It is amazing how trailer-makers can take a good movie, especially a kids’ movie, and make it look like it sucks (Oscar nominated “Babe” too). Of course, they can also make a sucky movie look good…so c’est la vie

  15. It seemed like the same old Hollywood heteronormative story: a male protagonist, of course, saves the world with a female secondary character that exists almost solely to be the love interest. But with robots!

    If that’s your worry then, as everyone else said, you’re free to see the movie, because that’s not how the characters interact at all. Eve has a vitally important mission that must be accomplished, one so vital that Wall-E sacrifices himself to make it a success.

    I knew the iconography of the humans would worry people, but it’s not that they’re fat and lazy: they’re infants. They ride around in carriages all day babbling to themselves while wearing onesies and drinking liquid from a bottle. They’ve been infantalized by the corporation and have to work to break free and grow up.

    I knew that the “fat+lazy” trope would be the first one people saw, but they do take a lot of care to make the baby analogy as obvious as possible.

  17. Mnem and Benjamin are right on here. I expected to like it, as most of the Pixar offerings are pretty good, even if there are issues with most of them. But I took the kids to see it yesterday and I was very pleasantly surprised and how they portrayed Eve and Wall-E. I know the name of the film is Wall-E, but Eve is really the hero of the day.

    Plus, I kind of teared up a bit at the end.

  18. Thank you for all of your comments!

    sara no h, there are many sides to Wall-E and to other Pixar movies. The articles I linked to were just the first ones I found over the past 12 hours that interested me. There are other questions I could ask, like if EVE is the one who does the saving, then why isn’t the movie called EVE? Also, why are most of the main characters voiced by white American actors, just like in other Pixar movies and other animated movies in general? Were Will and Jada not available?

  19. As others here have said, Eve is an awesome character–she’s career-driven, infinitely capable (she seems to be an expert robot mechanic!), and she saves the day on several occasions.

    Really, gender representation doesn’t seem to be the issue in this case. I’m more troubled by the fact that every single human being in this utopian, futuristic society is white.

  20. I kind of like that it is not the titular character who does most of the action and saving-and that it’s the “guy” who needs to be saved. Especially since so many films “centered” on a woman in American films are about her being “saved” by a guy who enters the picture. It’s kind of a nice flip on that.

  21. Kate-there was one black guy-the character John was talking with him-and some non-white babies. Though the entire ship seemed populated by Americans.

  22. You are right that Pixar seems incapable of basing a story around a female perspective. This all the more exacerbated by the fact that they are imposing genders on objects like robots and cars, and they really could have gone the other way quite easily. But they never do. It is hard not to find this irritating.

    Eve is a strong character, and they could have done a lot worse. No pink bows here. Of course, we have another example of a truly fabulous female pairing off with a guy who is totally not worthy of her, she is far too hot for walle.

    The thing that jumped out at me, and really sort of ruined the movie for me, was the nasty strain of fat-hate. They made a not-at-all subtle connection between fatness and laziness—and that is physical, intellectual AND moral laziness. It was both classist and body hating, and really spoiled the whole thing for me.

  23. I noticed the white thing, too, although if you look closely there are SOME non-white people. Er. I guess. But I really did see one… or two.

    Although a single, isolated ship of people + 700 years = everyone looking essentially the same. You’d think they might look all mixed maybe? *shrug*

  24. Also, I would hardly call it “Utopian”. Dystopian, maybe.

    It was like an extra light and fluffy Brave New World to me (Wall-E = John the Savage, captain = Bernard and his other Alpha friend who use their privilege to question society, the autopilot being a world controller, etc)

  25. Is Wall-E another example of Pixar’s gender problem? Yes. However, by itself, taken apart from the fact that it is the 9th movie in a series of 9 movies to focus on a dudely character, I didn’t find it super gender problematic. EVE is in fact a legitimate badass, and not one who just needs to be taught to be better by the male lead (hi, Ratatouille!) She also gets a ton of screen time. Wall-E himself is sort of a doofus, but the movie manages to portray their relationship as really believable, without falling into the whole competent-woman-in-love-with-total-schlub sitcom trope (what it says that the most believable screen romance I have seen in a long while is between robots, I do not know); you can totally see what they see in each other.

    I did have some problems with the way fat made its way into the movie–I get what other posters are saying about it, but I still felt it was overall played as more of a punchline than I would have liked. However, the movie overall was seriously great.

  26. If they don’t gender the robots, then the human characters would call them “it” instead of “he” or “she”, which would detract from the story. In theory, you could use one of those nifty degendered pronouns, but in practice, 99.9% of the audience has never heard those and would just be confused.

  27. Wall-E himself is sort of a doofus, but the movie manages to portray their relationship as really believable, without falling into the whole competent-woman-in-love-with-total-schlub sitcom trope (what it says that the most believable screen romance I have seen in a long while is between robots, I do not know); you can totally see what they see in each other.

    I agree with that completely because EVE is actually trying to get rid of WALL-E until she realizes that they hold common values. It’s not the “oh he’s an incompetent moron I’ll just have to love him” syndrome.

  28. I agree with Juan and yolio.

    My specific complaint about WALL-E was not that EVE was insufficiently badass, but that the decision to gender the robots was problematic.

    Amanda, I’m not sure whether any of the human characters refer to the robots by any pronoun at all, which is why I thought this would have been such a great opportunity to test the need to gender non-human characters. Since WALL-E and EVE don’t really speak much, their voices could have been neutral (like R2D2). I’m taking my little sister to see WALL-E tonight, so I’ll pay special attention to whether any robot is ever spoken to or of in a gender-specific way.

    Thanks for the link, Mr. J. I’m honored and a little bit nervous.

  29. The “female” robot Eve — who hardly conforms to any Hollywood femmebot archetype — is the character who both saves the “male” robot Wall-E and saves the world. She is bigger, faster, and stronger than Wall-E, and also implicitly smarter. Far from being a macho Terminator-style male robot, Wall-E is a little guy who spends his time watching musicals.

    You see, that’s a little problematic to me. No matter of the male character is “better” or the female character is “better”, the story is always told from the point of view of the male. It’s rarely told from the point of view of the female protagonist.

    A more blatant example would be, say, King of Queens (and other similar sitcoms).

  30. I’m more troubled by the fact that every single human being in this utopian, futuristic society is white.

    I was beginning to be bothered by that, until I realized that sadly, the future they offered was probably correct. If humans had to retreat into space to save ourselves from our own trashy self-inflicted/created wasteland, all it takes is a quick look at the demographics of the folks who could afford to bust out. Sadly, most of them would be white.

    And Mnemosyne, I see your point now about the baby analogy; it was something that had been tickling the back of my brain but not quite making it. I just have to wonder if it was completely necessary to make them so obese to do it – because I have a hard time believing that most of the audience is getting the analogy, or that they’re laughing at the Captain’s first steps because “he’s a grown-up now!” versus “oh my gawd, fat man walking! fat man walking!” etc.

  31. But seriously, though, isn’t Johnny 5 gonna get some royalties off of this?

    THANK YOU!

    The first time I saw the ad in a theater I said, “Looks like they’re remaking ‘Short Circuit’.”

    BTW, didn’t Johnny 5 get sold on eBay?

  33. Although a single, isolated ship of people + 700 years = everyone looking essentially the same. You’d think they might look all mixed maybe? *shrug*

    I would definitely love to see that in more futuristic movies. Although in this case, I’m almost glad they went in a mostly-white direction, since the bleak vision that humanity will devolve into a society of totally incompetent, lazy, “fat”-looking babies would be even more problematic if they were a brownish color.

    For those who have seen the movie — I get that this is basically portrayed as the future of ‘America’ in its instant-gratification, consumer direction, but is there any mention of what happened to the rest of the world? Is it assumed they’ve all died out?

    Funny how even though the movie is “all about EVE,” the title is still Wall-E.

    Exactly. I think the big criticism of Pixar is not that all their female characters are weak (I have such a love for Jessie in Toy Story 2) but that every one of their movies is told from the point of view of a male character.

    The little boy sitting behind me kept chanting Eves name as she repeatedly saves the day.

    That is adorable. I’m hoping for the ‘common sense’ myth of “girls will watch male heroes, but boys won’t watch female heroes” will die soon.

    Thank you to everyone who posted on this thread — I am still really excited to see the movie.

  34. I’m not sure whether any of the human characters refer to the robots by any pronoun at all, which is why I thought this would have been such a great opportunity to test the need to gender non-human characters.

    Why do we feel the need to humanize non-human characters at all? And yet we’ve been doing it since at least the days of Aesop’s Fables, and probably before.

    I think we’re looking at a human failing, not a culture-specific failing, when we wonder why all of these movies have characters that have been humanized and genderized.

  35. My second-to-last line should say:

    That is adorable. I’m hoping that the ‘common sense’ myth of “girls will watch male heroes, but boys won’t watch female heroes” will die soon.

    …Grammar isn’t my friend today.

  36. For those who have seen the movie — I get that this is basically portrayed as the future of ‘America’ in its instant-gratification, consumer direction, but is there any mention of what happened to the rest of the world? Is it assumed they’ve all died out?

    They don’t come right out and say it because, after all, it is a kids’ movie, but yeah, anyone who didn’t get on the single ship available clearly didn’t survive. The only living thing near Wall-E is his pet cockroach. And it’s also pretty clear that if you couldn’t afford to get on the ship, you were SOL, sorry, suckers, better luck next time.

    They managed to keep it light and kid-friendly, but there were a lot of dark, dark corridors that they whizzed right past.

  37. I thought this was better than most Pixar films re: gender. It still is told largely from a male perspective, but it does switch to Eve’s viewpoint on occasion (most noticeably at the end, when Wall-E is inactive), both characters are well developed and integral to the story, and Eve isn’t sporting a pink bow or any such nonsense. If judged on its own merits and not as part of a long series of animated movies, I’d say it’s quite excellent.

    As the latest of Pixar’s films though, it continues the problematic trend of focusing on white male protagonists, with mostly white male side characters, and a sprinkling of females. The few humans who have important roles are all white. You can see it in Pixar’s animated short flicks at the beginning, too. Always male characters in them, and when they are human, they are white.

    Good film, and I definitely recommend seeing it. But Pixar still needs to work on diversifying its material.

  38. There are other questions I could ask, like if EVE is the one who does the saving, then why isn’t the movie called EVE?

    For the same reason that the Lord of the Rings trilogy is about Frodo and not Aragorn. It’s an extremely effective narrative technique to place a flawed protagonist in a situation for which that protagonist is especially unsuited. Of course, it wouldn’t have killed them to put EVE’s name in the title too, but it’s enough for me that she’s in it. I loved this movie, I loved WALL-E, and I loved EVE.

  39. I thought there were multiple ships? Although I’d have to say that in order for the world to get so messed up, a considerable number of cultures/people would be eradicated. And if there were any other ships, they’re never shown coming back to Earth…

    EVE theoretically could be any gender, but I found that the female voice, coupled with the giggling thing, to be pretty gendered. AUTO and the little cleaner bot seemed much less gendered than EVE. I loved her though. Who wouldn’t love a laser-arm?

    Still, Pixar’s body of work tends to follow the Star Trek model for me. In the Star Trek universe race/gender prejudices are supposed to be practically non-existent, but the casting choices tend to follow prejudices in our time. (Ex: 4/5 Star Trek series leaders are male/white.) Pixar’s films group themselves around universal themes such as environmentalism, family, and so on; but these themes tend to be expressed to a white/male/middle-class audience. And of course, the ‘universal themes’ tend to be presented and studied from a white/male/American perspective. (Ex: Many of Pixar’s films deal with friendship, but these friendships are always between two males. The human protagonists in Pixar films are all white; while the non-human protagonists are voiced by white actors. WALL-E deals with environmental issues, specifically over-consumption and the leisure lifestyle, but not from the perspective of humans who are not primarily consumers or who cannot afford a leisure lifestyle.)

    I still enjoy Pixar movies and Star Trek. They’re generally interesting, and I can identify with the dilemmas faced by the characters, including the white/male ones. The inclusion of compelling, multi-dimensional female/non-white characters like Uhuru, Sulu, EVE, Jessie, and Frozone as vital (if secondary) characters goes a long way towards establishing a setting where white/male figures are not automatically the focus of every tale, just this one. But ultimately there comes a point when I have to ask why TPTB aren’t telling the tales that focus on something other than a white/male perspective. Why, after Sisko and Janeway, was the next Star Trek series about the white, male, Captain Archer; and why are Star Trek movies only made about the white male captains, including the upcoming one (where recapturing the appeal of the original series will be at least as difficult/risky and making a movie about a new crew or any of the other series)? Why is the first film Pixar makes with a heroine who does not share the spotlight with a male protagonist a variation on the princess theme? And why, in a movie where EVE is just as essential and important to the theme and plot of the movie as WALL-E, did Pixar choose WALL-E’s name as the title, rather than WALL-E and EVE or something generic like Robots or Axiom?

  41. Why, after Sisko and Janeway, was the next Star Trek series about the white, male, Captain Archer

    Because Enterprise was pretty craptacular all round? As a Star Trek fan I do agree.
    But yeah it is dissapointing that with so many movies under their belt the first Pixar movie to star a female is going to star a princess I mean is there really anythingthat can be done with princesses that hasn’t been done ten times before? It’s a pretty sad effort.

  42. I just saw the movie today and I was afraid in the beginning of the movie — the robots were definitely assigned genders and it seemed like at first that Wall-e was just rescuing Eve — but I definitely think the film avoided that. For one, unlike a lot of movies, the female character was dynamic and didn’t just serve as a muse to the male lead — that was more Wall-e’s role. She also, as has been mentioned, kicks ass.

    What bothered me was the racial composition of the humans. 😐 All the human protagonists (there were three) were white, and it played into the gender binary as all the members on board looked either white or black. That, to me, was far more problematic than any gender representation.

  43. I really liked WALL-E, and disagree with the thought that Pixar was hatin’ on fat people – It seemed fairly apparent that their obesity of was due to lack of exercise and over consumption. We ALL know that eating too much and not exercising are bad for us, and that’s exactly what those space-goers were doing.

    The movie could have been less gendered (Robots are not sexual in the traditional sense, as far as I know) but at least the female character was a strong one. There can never be enough female role models! 🙂

    The thing that really disturbed me was in the trailers before – “Beverly Hills Chihuahua,” anyone? Now there’s a movie that looks to play into racism and classism if I ever saw one. The dog’s girlfriend is white! The whole movie premise squicked me out.

  44. Nothing I have heard about this movie makes me particularly want to see it; in fact, I’m inclined to avoid it. The “well, it might not be *that* bad, really” argument leaves me cold. Its gender issues, its handling of body size, even its supposed critique of corporate, consumer-driven culture coming from a consumer-driven corporation all sound like great reasons not to give Pixar my money.

  45. Casey:

    I really liked WALL-E, and disagree with the thought that Pixar was hatin’ on fat people – It seemed fairly apparent that their obesity of was due to lack of exercise and over consumption. We ALL know that eating too much and not exercising are bad for us, and that’s exactly what those space-goers were doing.

    Casey, that’s exactly why it’s hating on fat people. The assumptions buried within that statement and their depiction of fat people is stereotyped, biased and largely inaccurate.

    Fat people are lazy – check.
    Fat people over eat – check.
    Fat people over consume our resources – check.
    Fat people are fat precisely because they are lazy, over eat and over consume – check.
    Fat people cause environmental crises – check.

    You don’t actually know what you think you know about fat people. You just think you know it. If you know what I mean.

  46. Well based on what I’ve read here it sounds like it’s a step in the right direction. I do get severely shitty with people being all “but look, there are strong female characters!” when I’m thinking “uh, yeah, only they couldn’t possibly be allowed to be stronger than the male characters and only exist as the love interest”, but this sounds like an improvement. Frankly, I think babysteps are better than nothing.

    For the same reason that the Lord of the Rings trilogy is about Frodo and not Aragorn. It’s an extremely effective narrative technique to place a flawed protagonist in a situation for which that protagonist is especially unsuited. Of course, it wouldn’t have killed them to put EVE’s name in the title too, but it’s enough for me that she’s in it. I loved this movie, I loved WALL-E, and I loved EVE.

    Have you read LOTR? That is not an apt comparison, it’s really really not. Aragorn is not a huge character in the books, the scope of the books dwarfs the movie to a huge degree, for obvious reasons. And I’d hardly describe Frodo as flawed – it was a main point that Aragorn would not have been able to resist the ring for as long as Frodo.

    Sorry, that just really annoyed me. The movie/s were fantastic but not a particularly accurate representation of the actual LOTR (especially the ending. The end of the 3rd movie made me want to cry, it ruined the entire trilogy. But I can understand that there’s no way Peter Jackson would have been able to finish the movies on a down-note like the books). I’m just happy someone made a fantasy movie without turning it into some patronising kiddy crap

    *cough* Anyway

  47. Funny how it never even occurred to me, but the commenters who said that there was no reason for the robots to be gendered were absolutely right. My memory isn’t the best, and I can’t remember if they were referred to as “he” and “she” in dialogue. Because if they weren’t, and were they given gender-neutral names (Jordan? Sam? Alex? Ariel?) then it could be a neat study in gender roles and romance w/o gender barriers.

    I also thought Wall-E’s dragging coma!Eve raound (on a leash) was problematic.

    In general (not “genderal,” fingers) Eve was awesome, though.

  48. Dana: But Frodo is flawed. He tries to take the Ring, too, like everyone else – true, it takes longer to break him down, but he’s not perfect. He’s never been away from home before and he’s got the fate of the world on a chain around his neck – I’d say that’s “unsuited.”

    I was disappointed that the films left out the Scouring.

  49. “I say, I still don’t understand why they had to give robots gender to begin with. I mean, they’re robots. =/”

    Word!!

  50. Eh, to be honest, I’m kind of glad they gendered Eve as female. Not because I think robots should be gendered — I don’t — but because non-gendered things (like robots) are almost always gendered male by default. And then you get stuff like the robots in Asimov’s universe — always referred to as “he,” treated as male, etc., even if technically they have no gender.

    In fact, when I first saw the pictures from the film I figured it was the usual Pixar thing — a guy buddy flick, but with robots. Glad it wasn’t.

  51. I haven’t seen this movie as yet, but I’m just wondering, for all those people who wouldn’t go to watch this movie because there is only one “female” robot, did all of you also decided not to see the Transformer movie by Michael Bay for the same reasoning? (None of the Autobots or Deceptions have a “female” voice…they all had MALE, AMERICAN-accented voices….).

  52. What bothered me was the racial composition of the humans. 😐 All the human protagonists (there were three) were white, and it played into the gender binary as all the members on board looked either white or black. That, to me, was far more problematic than any gender representation.

    @Phrone, word to that. It’s nice that there were some PoC on the ship, but why did none of them get speaking parts? Why are all the characters in Pixar films white? Of course this is true of blockbuster films in general, animated or otherwise, and not limited to Pixar, but…

    Srsly. Do we need another white male protagonist? Like, ever? There is nothing universal about whiteness or maleness. The company pushes the boundaries in a lot of ways; but this is not one of them.

  53. @timothynakayama, I grew up on Transformers (and Thundercats, and The Real Ghostbusters, and all that 80’s stuff), and I refused to go to the movie because of the sexism. I’ve also heard that the black robot (Jazz) is the only one to die in the movie. Hah! So no, I haven’t seen it.

    And there’s actually more than one female robot in WALL-E. The makeup robot is female, and the computer has a female voice. The autopilot is male, and so is the little cleaning robot. The rest don’t speak if I remember rightly, but would probably fall under the “male by default” category. They are not, though, explicitly gendered (unlike Transformers, which are).

  54. Really, gender representation doesn’t seem to be the issue in this case. I’m more troubled by the fact that every single human being in this utopian, futuristic society is white.

    hahha. But since it’s made in Hollywood……

    That’s what I always notice about movies. All the aliens who invade Earth will attack America first. Any mission to save Earth from comets that could destroy Earth…The American Government is the one that creates the whole Space team to destroy it. It is always a white American male paired with a WOC, never the other way round. All heroes who save Earth from invasion of Aliens/Eater of All Worlds…why, of course they’re Americans (white ones of course! and mostly men).

    I guess it’s because white American men are making the movies, so that’s who they cater for.

  55. What about the assumptions inherent in the fact that Eve’s physical appearance is meant to tell us to see her as female?

    Eve
    smooth
    sleek
    graceful
    white (pure)
    egg-shaped

    In addition to her egg shape, her ‘directive’ is to bring back life. She’s kind of a reproduction robot.

  56. That’s what I always notice about movies. All the aliens who invade Earth will attack America first. Any mission to save Earth from comets that could destroy Earth…The American Government is the one that creates the whole Space team to destroy it. It is always a white American male paired with a WOC, never the other way round. All heroes who save Earth from invasion of Aliens/Eater of All Worlds…why, of course they’re Americans (white ones of course! and mostly men).

    That’s why I like Independence Day. Because that’s how the movie was constructed, and then came Will Smith. And now he’s Mr. Fourth of July. Whatever happened to President Bill Pullman and Jeff Goldblum and Randy Quaid? And more importantly, what happened to Andrew Keegan?

  57. I saw the movie with my daughter and thought it was fantastic. I would absolutely love to see more female lead roles in children’s films, but I don’t think this one was particularly sexist at all. Eve was a very strong, independent character who played a large role in saving the day. I also loved the fact that WALL-E was a very caring, sensitive character. When Eve went into some sort of shut down/sleep mode for several days, WALL-E stayed by her side and nurtured and cared for her. I thought it was very sweet and touching.

  58. Sarah: I actually found Eve’s physical appearance kinda androgynous – had it not been for her name and voice (and the fact that a male-gendered robot is in love with her, oh, Pixar), she didn’t necessarily have to be female.

  59. Rebecca, I think that’s the point. I could tell that she was female from the moment she entered the screen in the trailer. I didn’t hear her name or see her voice, but you could tell she wasn’t Wall-E’s male platonic friend. She was presented as most other female characters are in major motion pictures: as the gendered love interest. It is telling that children are supposed to recognize this and react to this, and then they do so accordingly.

  60. Mr. J, I’m aware of that – I was responding to Sarah’s concerns about female body issues via Eve’s design.

    Sarah:

    What about the assumptions inherent in the fact that Eve’s physical appearance is meant to tell us to see her as female?

  61. Mr J: That’s why I like Independence Day. Because that’s how the movie was constructed, and then came Will Smith.

    I must have missed something: is Will Smith not an American male?

    This is why I like Doctor Who – aside from everything else cool about it, it educates Americans that there are other countries in the world that the aliens might just choose to attack first. 😉

  62. In addition to her egg shape, her ‘directive’ is to bring back life. She’s kind of a reproduction robot.

    That’s a valid point that hadn’t really sunk in for me when I analysed Eve as “career-driven”. Her career is, after all, to find life, “incubate” it within that cavity in her robot abdomen, and “deliver” it. The scene where she’s being wheeled around the ship strapped down to some kind of robot gurney was vaguely reminiscent of the typical hospital birth scene–Wall-E, the husband figure, following behind her trying to offer support.

    Still, I thought she was fucking hardcore. And that counts for something in my books, despite the weird gendered representations.

  63. “Eh, to be honest, I’m kind of glad they gendered Eve as female. Not because I think robots should be gendered — I don’t — but because non-gendered things (like robots) are almost always gendered male by default. ”

    So true.

    And a truth that has been tested by quizzing kids after reading them stories about gender neutral characters.

    Little kids especially are obsessed with gender because they are very into putting people into categories, including themselves, (it’s a way of organizing the world and establishing independence) and gender is a nice simple way to identify people and say “this is me/this isn’t me.”

    Which is why Pixar continuing to tell stories from the male point of view is really frustrating. It’s more subtle than what is in most movies for adult audiences, but a lot more insidious and much less justified.

  64. I loved Wall E. And about telling the story from WALL E’s point of view, or naming the movie WALL-E; I think it’s understandable. The movie wouldn’t have been the same if the main character had been a strong, independent and proactive (female or male) robot. The main character was supposed to be a little sensitive and innocent robot, and EVE obviously wasn’t that. I liked both WALL-E and EVE, and I loved the relationship between both. There are a lot of aspects they can improve in, but I think this was a good step, and I hope they continue making characters that don’t fit into the traditional gender stereotypes.

  65. you know, i don’t think EVE seemed obviously male. and here is why.

    because when i first saw the trailer, i got REALLY REALLY psyched about it because i actually thought it was TWO MALE ROBOTS falling in love. and i was like ‘OMG! ROVERS! WITH BIG EYES! AND GAY! AND IT’S A POPULAR KID’S MOVIE! OMG!’

    i very strongly thought that EVE’s character was male (i’d never seen her character’s name mentioned during the preview somehow) because in ALL movies, pixar and otherwise, female characters are ‘signaled’ by their attributes (lipstick, hair, dress, etc) so i assumed that since that wasn’t happening, that the robot was male. which is the schema i grew up with, to naturally default to male, unfortunately. 🙁

  66. as a total aside, and totally OT
    Jeff Goldbloom’s character in ID4 is Jewish.

    so in ID4 the two main heros were a black guy and a jewish guy 😀

  67. It’s all about the flying scene for me. I don’t want to give away too much, but there’s a moment where Eve literally catches Wall-E in her arms, which was such a reversal of gender roles that I laughed out loud. I loved it.

  68. Not that this is going to solve anything, but for what it’s worth: I’ve worked in the animated film industry for 12 years. When movies get made (especially at a company like Pixar) it’s because someone had a story they wanted to tell. The stories people want to tell are generally based on their own life experiences, and the directors and creative heads at Pixar are all men. They write from a male point of view because it’s *their* point of view. It isn’t like they come up with a story, and then decide if the characters will be male or female, and somehow magically always pick male protagonists. From the get-go, the stories are conceived with a male POV. There are notable exceptions (Lilo & Stitch, Disney – Chris Sanders) but they are exceptions to the rule. So to my mind, the string of male-dominated movies is only a symptom. The root cause is that there are few female directors or creative heads at Pixar and the other big animation houses (maybe none?)

  69. Jesurgislac, Will Smith is American, but he is not white.

    denelian, Jeff Goldblum’s character is indeed Jewish. If there was any question about that, one only need see his character’s father, played by Judd Hirsch, who was quite proud of their heritage. However, both of those characters were also white.

    beth, I agree. Though I think that white male-dominated movies are both a symptom and a cause, part of a vicious cycle. Movies that are successful (those about and for white heterosexual males) get repeated, and the people who make them (white heterosexual males) get more work.

    I do understand that people write what they know. I wrote a whole book about me. However, I don’t run a company like Pixar that dominates the market for animated children’s movies, a company that chooses 1) to constantly present them with a white, heterosexual male universe, and 2) to make money off of these kids while doing so. That is irresponsible and bigoted. Their movies have a huge influence on American children, and on children around the world, and Disney and Pixar know that. That is their business model: dominating brand awareness in children. To consciously ignore most of our society, including the women who make up over 50% of the American and world population, is wrong. It’s 2008. “We didn’t realize we were doing that,” is no longer an acceptable excuse for Disney or Pixar.

  70. Fat people are lazy – check.
    Fat people over eat – check.
    Fat people over consume our resources – check.
    Fat people are fat precisely because they are lazy, over eat and over consume – check.
    Fat people cause environmental crises – check.

    It is not “fat” per se, but those are overconsumputive ways that causes many problems. But, yes, PART of this results in obesity being a problem in this country. Obesity and “fat” is simply not the same thing, but obesity IS a problem in overconsuming countries.

    The fact many fat people are wrongly smeared in no way should lead us to ignore such things. Furthermore, the life on the ship is simply doing nothing, consuming, and vegating. One need not be “fat” to do that, but sorry, if you do that, there is a good chance you are going to be fat. It was also explained that space and gravity issues also affected body shape.

    They could have had drugs or surgery to be skinny, but bottomline, besides that, the “look” was accurate.

    btw since non-whites also have money in this country, and some show of color probably would be important for reputation reasons alone, money issues wouldn’t explain the white focus. But, talking stereotypes, white bread is pretty symbolic of the empty consumerism that the movie satires.

  71. I quite liked it. It is funny that the robots are gendered, but many of the roles are quite reversed. Some things have already been mentioned, but also Wall-e chooses to sacrifice himself for Eve and her mission (the rest omitted for spoiler potential).. but anyway it’s something that is usually done the other way ’round gender-wise.

    I was a bit uncomfortable with the portrayal of fat people in some ways.But I also think the person above is going at it backwards. –what would people look like if they sat in chairs all the time, never got out of them, just ate a lot and lay around and didn’t exercise and lived in low gravity? and this lifestyle lasted for 700 years? How would you portray them, physically? Maybe I’m short of imagination but I would imagine them to be quite large, lacking in muscle tone, with atrophied fingers etc..

    I understand that looking at the folks in the movie could encourage people to generalize unhealthily towards people who look like that IRL who are active and healthy. that is a problem.

    But actually I found the people in Wall-E to not look quite like actual fat folk (of varying levels of health), but quite specifically out of shape in a way that suggests muscle atrophy and bone loss. and then there’s the fact that by the end they are in their way heroic, and lovable, and their role vis-a-vis the future of humanity is definitely cast as a triumph..

  72. As to the “fat” issue in the movie: One scene actually showed the skeletal degeneration (shorter, thinner bones since they don’t have any bodyweight to support in the permanent reclining chairs) of the people on the Axiom. To me, this signalled first and foremost the consequences of the BnL corporation’s mega-capitalism on the biological “evolution” (which some of us might characterize as “devolution”) of the human body–evolution as in a subject’s body changing in response to the environment, without the moral overtones some of us might attribute to such changes; nobody in the film ever said that fat was necessarily bad (or perhaps I missed that line). I admit, though, the whole thing would have been even more convincing (and much creepier) if the capacity for independent thought had gone down the drain, as well, since all characters on the ship are constantly fed standardized programs from their handy little TV screens.

  73. I also agree with beth. I think a solution would be for Pixar to have some female writer/directors.

  74. We just saw it last night, so sorry for being so late to the party, but I wanted to put something down for posterity’s sake:

    My wife picked out the sexism right away (Wall-E: Dirty boy; Eve: Clean girl. There’s more below), and it was hard not to watch scenes with Eve that didn’t hew to a sexist paradigm.

    I could very easily be seeing too much here, but from what I saw, Wall-E “fell in love” with Eve at first sight, determined that he was going to get her to hold his hand (that’s what he thinks love is from watching his Hello Dolly! tape), and does whatever he can to get her to do it. While Eve is in standby, he stays by her day and night in the hope that she’ll reactivate, which I saw as kind of creepy (he even holds her deactivated hand in some scenes). He and Eve do not share the same objective, even when he gets the plant from the escape pod, because he’s trying to please her so that she’ll hold his hand.

    Doesn’t this all wreak of Nice Guy ™ syndrome? Not in the severely psychotic way like that Sears guy in Toronto, but in the banal quid pro quo “do nice things for a girl to show her you love her and she’ll love you back” way that gets taught by…movies like Wall-E!

    Then there’s the “schlub gets the girl” angle, which the movie resisted for a little bit. Eve did come close to literally telling Wall-E to shove off, but that’s as far as it went. After that, the most we hear is Eve admonishing Wall-E in the way she says his name: “WALL-EEE!!!” (I will say that it’s good that the movie doesn’t judge Eve for reacting that way; they don’t portray her as a nag). The last straw, though, is that Eve eventually falls for Wall-E when she sees her security cam of Wall-E waiting for her to reactivate: The Nice Guy ™ syndrome works! How’s that for a lesson for impressionable kids?

    To me, though, the most disturbing thing is the design and directive of Eve. Here we have the strongest, and most important female character in the movie, and she’s egg-shaped, with a directive to find a seed and carry it inside her. When she puts the seed inside her, she shuts down and waits for her superiors to pick her up, put her on a gurney, and remove the seed.

    I mean, wasn’t anyone else disturbed at the image of Eve, looking angrily at Gopher holding the plant, and pointing expectedly at her empty womb? Perhaps I was reading something else into it, but Eve seemed to be saying “You idiot! Give me back that seed! That seed belongs inside me! I must fulfill my directive!“

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