Garbage is something we turn our nose up, a sign of disarray, a sign that something is wrong, and is also a common prop amongst many apocalyptic films. I find it interesting that there are so many films of that nature that display the world as ruined in both terms of people being wiped from the earth, and the actual earth itself being turned into garbage.
One film that seems to take that to the next level is Disney-Pixar’s Wall-E. The world has come to an end because garbage has taken over, and when we are introduced to the the title character, Wall-E is trying to “clean up” the world. What the viewer sees though, is a city being built out of garbage. So while Wall-E may be “cleaning” the world, we as viewers see him simply making a new world out of garbage.
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Zombieland also used garbage as a way of showing that the world has come to an end. A strip of highway where two of the main characters meet is scattered with abandoned and destroyed cars, garbage is strewn across the roads, and yet the two characters move in and out of this garbage as if it has become part of their lives, and to them it has. There is even one scene within the film when the characters destroy and entire store, adding to the garbage that litters the world. Yet to them, it was a way of release, a way to forget what the world has become for a moment.
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Does this mean this has happened to the rest of the world? People were angry, they wanted to forget that zombies, or what ever was causing the world to end, were now roaming the streets, so they destroyed every day objects, and didn’t think it was worth picking up? It’s interesting to wonder why the world turned into what it did for films like Zombieland and Wall-E.
Then there are films that have an apocalypse of sort occur within them, yet there is no sign of struggle or garbage. For example, The Host, a novel that was turned into a film where the human race was inhabited by a foreign alien race, yet the world did not have to be destroyed, it was not turned into a large floating sphere of garbage that exists in space. Why was this apocalypse-like film different, why were they able to portray the world as we know it coming to an end without having garbage being shown every five seconds?
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Perhaps we as viewers are unable to imagine an apocalypse without there being some form of destruction. The meaning behind apocalypse is simply the world coming to an end, it never states that there has to be destruction and garbage. And yet nearly every movie involving the apocalypse involves the world being destroyed in some way.
Films Cited
The Host. Dir. Andrew Niccol. Perf. Saoirse Ronan, Max Irons, Jake Abel, Diane Kruger. Universal Pictures, 2013. Film.
Wall-E. Dir. Andrew Stanton. Perf. Ben Burtt, Elissa Knight, Jeff Garlin, Fred Willard. Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures, 2008. Film.
Zombieland. Dir. Ruben Fleisher. Perf. Woody Harrelson, Jesse Eisenberg, Emma Stone, Abigail Breslin. Columbia Pictures, 2009. Film.
I think the Host featured a world that wasn’t destroyed because this alien invasion took place because these aliens wanted to utilize earth as a new home- rather than destroying the planet they wanted to inhabit it. In this film the species are viewed as superior to man due to their rationality, therefore they in many ways make earth a better place for the other existing creatures.
I think we as humans want to showcase earth as garbage without us because we are very self-centred. “If we can’t have earth no one else can”. “If it’s ours to live on then it’s ours to destroy”. This thought process certainly coincides with all the damage our species is doing to the earth via global warming. I think in Wall-E it is very interesting that people have destroyed the planet so immensely that we can no longer live in it. This kind of apocalypse is rarely explored yet in my opinion it is definitely the most likely if not completely inevitable.
I think the garbage wasteland ideal for the apocalypse is an interesting idea and a great comment on the consumer nature of humans. I remember when Wall-E first came out it was revolutionary due to the obvious comment on consumerism and the garbage that it produces. As humans we are very wasteful and even now we have a garbage problem. We have nowhere to store all the waste we throw away, especially in Western society. I think that the garbage and obvious capitalism shown in the movie is a statement about the path we are currently headed down. The Host is an interesting counter example, I still feel like there is a comment that humans are wasteful beings somewhere in the novel, but I do not fully remember. The Host also plays upon a different fear we have, that of the Other. Wall-E is a human induced apocalypse, where as The Host is an invasion style apocalypse. But one thing they do have in common is the waste, if the human body is not to their standards; they dispose of it, the same for the humans experimenting if they can remove the alien from The Host. The removal is done with brute force, which destroys both life forms. So I think waste is a part of almost every narrative, as it is so rooted in human nature.