Comparing The Themes In Feed And Pixar's Wall-E

In M.T. Anderson’s futuristic novel Feed, humans have become reliant on a chip in their heads called a “feed.” The novel follows the relationship of two teens, Titus and Violet, their struggle to fit into society, and Violet’s eventual death due to a feed malfunction. The novel depicts a scary idea of what the future may be like for our country- the futuristic society doesn’t care about the environment; all that they care about is fitting into society and having an entertaining life. Meanwhile, Pixar’s Wall-E shows the same themes but has a different message. The film shows the love story of two robots: Wall-E and Eve. Wall-E is an outdated robot who stows away on a spaceship to follow Eve to the Axiom- the huge space station that houses the

Anderson’s Feed and Pixar’s Wall-E, many similarities and differences are found. Both works are prophetic in that they give visions of what the future may be like. They show what we could end up doing to the earth if the human race doesn’t wake up and change its ways. The ruined earth, consumer culture, and unawareness warn us of what will happen if we continue to turn a blind eye. As shown in Feed, a society can get so far down the path to destruction that it is impossible to turn back. At the end of the novel, the world is literally about to end- other countries want to destroy America, the environment has killed almost every plant and animal, and the effects of the toxic environment can even be seen on humans. Everyone has lesions, and their skin is falling off. Lesions, sign of what humans have done to the environment coming back to bite them, even becomes a trend. The happy-go-lucky, live-for-now mindset of this futuristic America causes it to fall into ruin. At the end of Wall-E, however, things look a little more optimistic. Once the people find out what is happening, they actually want to fix it. The film ends with a scene of hope- the Earth with green sprouting from it. This is the vision of Earth that we should want for the future. Instead of waiting for the next iPhone (hopefully not one that comes implanted in our heads), let’s find a solution to the problems that plague us. Feed and Wall-E are both warnings about our future. These two works share one crystal clear message: technology is taking us over. If we wake up in time to realize it, maybe we will have a chance to stop both of the prophecies from coming