Wall•E

If you’ve seen Wall*E, you probably remember “Put On Your Sunday Clothes,” the tune from Hello Dolly that opens the film with it’s expectant “Out there...”

If you have a young child who really likes Wall*E, it  has probably played enough you can’t get it out of your head. In which case it might be worthwhile to look at some generational aspects of the film.

First, it’s not a film about a Crisis. Yes, Earth is a trash heap with only a cockroach, a plant, and a trash-compacting robot calling it home. It has been that way for hundreds of years as the film opens, though,  and isn’t undergoing any noticeable changes. Indeed, generational analysis only makes sense in the context of human culture and striving and  renewal, and without any humans there are no sociological structures like generations to analyze.  

Wall*E himself, however, was born during the actual Crisis - the one that was sufficiently dire for all of humanity to consider five-year tours in space as an acceptable option. That he is almost silent for the first part of the film makes it appropriate that, like the Silent Generation, he acts much like an Artist archetype. He is able to work independently, doesn’t intentionally take on the system - quite similar, in fact, to Jack Lemmon in The Apartment, heading home after his work day to be domestic and watch television. (And eventually taking on the corrupt organization that created him, but that's getting ahead of the story...)  As far as artistic leanings, he wants to dance like Michael Crawford (Silent, 1942), and  his collection of knick-knacks is like one of those art installations that resemble an artistically arranged garage. 

 From the point of view of the humans on the Axiom, meanwhile, it has been post-Crisis for seven hundred years. Organizations - the Captain and Auto and all the infrastructure that keeps the ship going - were made strong to confront the Crisis, and haven’t had any reason to change. It’s been bland, unchanging, “doing the exact same thing as [our forefathers]” for that entire time.

Which is unreasonable by generational thinking - at SOME point in those 8 saeculums, somebody would have rebelled... And perhaps tomorrow we will see what happens when when an Artist starts doing what comes naturally in the company of a younger model that IS willing to speak truth to power and fight City Hall.