On this Friday, we continued watching Wall-E. The majority of the day's viewing included Wall-E's developing relationship with Eve and Wall-E's mishaps in the space ship. Wall-E showing Eve his trinkets in his space was very cute and interesting in the way it develops the the robots' friendship. Wall-E's struggle to navigate the spaceship, including him annoying the cleaning robot, was also hilarious and endearing. Our viewing ended where the captain of the ship is confronted with a plant from earth and the mission to recolonize their home planet. As with every other day of Wall-E viewing, we had to write one major topic, tone, and theme, and one minor topic, tone, and theme. I wrote my major theme about the scene where Wall-E is pining at the TV screen showing lovers. My major topic is love, tone is wistful, hopeful, and melancholy, and the resulting theme is "Love is something everyone desires but only a few truly get." I wrote my minor theme about the debris Wall-E collects. My minor topic is trash, tone is comical, childlike fascination, and resulting theme is "Somethings people leave behind are really appreciated by others."
The interesting thing about theme is that they are really everywhere in every piece of media. Even if you're not setting out to create something meaningful or to drive home a point, there are still attitudes that seep into the work and themes drawn from it. The analyzer does not have to personally agree with the messages conveyed, but that does not negate the fact that they're still there. Take, for example, the pinnacle of poor literature, Twilight. I read an interesting theory recently that the series is an allegory for abstinence. Bella and Edward are obsessed for each other for the entire series, but have to restrain themselves until getting married before actually having sex. One scene from the first movie comes to mind: in the scene, Edward, unable to resist, kisses Bella, then throws himself away, blaming Bella for his loss of control. Bring together the topic of lust, and the tone of restraint and taboo energy, and one resulting theme of the scene is that men (or vampires) have trouble controling their urges around women they are attracted to. That, and the fact that the movie doesn't frame their relationship as toxic, is part of the reason so many hate Twilight.
Really strong analysis here, Soumya. It can be difficult to blog on a day that is largely spent watching film, but your analysis focuses largely on the learning that you did while watching rather than the plot details of the film itself. Very natural transition into talking about Twilight. I like how you place the emphasis on specific scenes in the film and your analysis shows the development of that theme (rather than flatly stating the theme itself). Great work!
ReplyDelete