Consumption in Wall-E - Essay Example

Consumption is often thought of in regard to food; the act of hoarding food to the point of becoming overweight. Though this holds true in Wall-E and plays an essential role in the story, consumption can also mean the obtaining of consumer goods. Similar to hoarding food, this definition of consumption means to hoard consumer items, such as electronics or other material possessions, until there is simply too much of these items. In Wall-E, consumption is seen in both of these ways. The humans displayed in the film are overweight due to food consumption and are in the position of not being able to live on Earth because of the mass consumption of consumer goods while they were living on the planet.

Wall-E uses the conditions of the people and the Earth to show the message of how serious consumption can be and how close we are to follow some of the actions seen in the movie. The film opens up to reveal an empty, trash-filled Earth. Due to mass consumption, which essentially took over the Earth, the extensive litter left behind made the air toxic, therefore making the Earth uninhabitable to people. Until the Earth is cleaned and habitable once again, the humans live on a spaceship hovering above the Earth.

Far from being concerned about the state of their home, the humans lounge happily away in chairs that take them to whatever part of the craft they want to go to. They have all of the food that they could want, making it easy for them to gorge themselves on unhealthy weight. These people let consumption get the better of them, resulting in a decline in health and control over their lives. Instead of learning their lesson about what took place on Earth, they continued to consume now that they had a new place to do it.

The people in Wall-E, as well as the condition of the Earth, reveal how important we allow products to be in our lives. People have been known to throw away all of their money just so that they can have the newest top-of-the-line cell phone. A month later, when a newer model comes out, that first model goes in the trash and the new one is bought. The cycle continues, gradually covering our world with garbage, which is all due to our need of having stuff. More products are being created and thrown out than we can keep up with.

We begin to think less of ourselves, less of our surroundings, and more about the wonderful toys and gadgets that we can get hands-on. People would rather risk being unhealthy and living in a dirty world than giving up even a single material possession. We no longer allow ourselves and our world to define us; our products and our need to have as much stuff as possible are what define who we are. The world may be polluted, but we do not mind that as long as we have our cell phones. We have become both masters and slaves to material possessions.

We are masters in the sense that we create products to do what we want them to do, which usually includes having them be capable of completing a task that makes our lives easier and less busy. We control what these products can do. On the other hand, we have become so consumed by material possessions that we are also slaves to them. We have allowed them to take over our lives to the point where many of us are willing to admit to it, yet refuse to do anything about it. We may be slaves to them, but they seem to be doing us so much good.

We may not last forever either, but we have the opportunity to save what is left of our world and take back our lives by giving up our consuming habits.