In an interview with Christianity Today‘s Mark Moring, WALL*E director Andrew Stanton talks about how his Christian faith has informed his creative process at Pixar and the making of his latest film. You’d barely know from Moring’s side-stepping intro and Stanton’s many quotes that there’s a strong anti-corporate, beware-of-unbridled-consumerism, save-the-earth-before- it’s-too-late theology that runs all through WALL*E.
Pixar’s John Lasseter and his nervous-nelly lieutenants have clearly put the word out to downplay this aspect of the film out of fear that American Jabbas and other impulse consumers will avoid WALL*E if they get the idea that it’s some kind of lefty message flick that Al Gore would be proud to call his own.
I’m starting to feel vaguely offended, I must say, by a p.r. policy that’s totally fine with sucking up to Christian moviegoers (a conservative bunch that harbors a faction of global-warming deniers) but shilly-shallies away from acknowledging that a significant side of WALL*E is dealing with the most pressing and life-threatening issue of our time. Sorry, but there’s something a wee bit sickening about this.
Kids are going to get what they want to get out of this (cute robots, etc.) but the glory of the Pixar product is that it’s concurrently written for and angled to adults.