As I was reading “Post-Princess Models of Gender: The New Man in Disney/Pixar” by Ken Gillam and Shannon R. Wooden, I couldn’t help but think of the movie Wall-E. Gillam and Wooden suggest that Pixar movies, with their male protagonists, redefine masculinity via three maneuvers: emasculating the male protagonist, providing the male protagonist with a homosocial relationship/interaction, and then having the protagonist assume his new status as a “new man.”
Wall-E, the robot, goes through this same trajectory in his film. First, Wall-E is established as an alpha male, much like Gillaim and Wooden track Lightning McQueen in Cars. Wall-E is introduced as masculine at the beginning of the film through showing his determination as he conducts his garbage collecting work. He is shown as being fast, efficient, and tenacious.
Wall-E stacks his compacted garbage cubes
Very soon, he experiences what Gillam and Wooden call the “emasculation of the alpha male” (3). As Wall-E is going about his trash collecting and compacting activities, a new being arrives on his desolate planet, and this new being, the female robot Eve, turns out to be magnitudes more aggressive than he is. Eve has lasers and attacks anything on sight, no questions asked. She is newer, sleeker, and more powerful than he is. She is new and modern, while he is obsolete and falling apart. He keeps spare parts in case he needs a replacement, within his personal collection (or horde) in his home.
He is emasculated not only through Eve’s status as being better and newer than he is, but by his loneliness. He begins the film as the only being on the planet. He has nothing in his life but his work and the objects that he collects that helps him pass the time. When Eve arrives, he sees the potential for companionship.
Wall-E has his own form of homosocial interaction. While not the homoerotic subtext of Mr. Incredible in The Incredibles, Wall-E’s instance of homosociality is his affinity for a musical. He finds comfort in the musical Hello, Dolly! frequently throughout the movie, with a particular attachment to the song “Put On Your Sunday Clothes.” In our homophobic and heteronormative culture, things like musicals and musical theater are associated with gay culture, so his attachment to this musical and this song further emasculates him. But, like Gillam and Wooden suggest in the article, his relationship with this song guides him towards his assuming a role as a “new man.” Gillam and Wooden say that “the intimacy emerging ‘between men’ is constructed through an overt and shared desire for a feminized object” (6).
Wall-E learns about love by watching Hello, Dolly!
By watching Hello, Dolly! over and over again, Wall-E learns about the importance of companionship, affection, and love. It teaches him socialization skills, such that he knows how to act when Eve arrives.
Finally, Wall-E fulfills the cycle described by Gillam and Wooden when he sacrifices himself at the end for Eve, exhibiting what Gillam and Wooden call an “express[ion of] care-taking, nurturing love, and a surrender to the good of the beloved” (6).
Thus, the film Wall-E becomes another example of Pixar’s mission of redefining masculinity, allowing children to see another path, another way to be, as opposed to the stereotypical alpha male, which has become problematized in today’s #MeToo culture.