A Childlike Ragpicker: Toward a Benjaminian Reading of WALL-E

破舊機器成為拾荒小童－與班雅明一同閱讀《瓦力》

楊麗中(Li-chung Yang)

Animated Films ； Environmentalism in Motion Pictures ； Walter Benjamin ； WALL-E ； 動畫電影 ； 電影中的環保主義 ； 班雅明 ； 垃圾文化

興大人文學報

61期（2018 / 09 / 01）

1 - 20

英文

WALL-E, a multi-award winning film released in 2008, compels our attention to the entanglements of consumerism and environmentalism in a capitalistic society. This essay argues that WALL-E illustrates an ecological approach that taps into the articulation of nature, commodity, and technology when its film narrative is read along with Walter Benjamin's theoretical perspectives of the child and the ragpicker. The essay examines the extent to which the character WALL-E is figured as a childlike ragpicker, who collects odds and ends, tracks trash, debunks the myth of technological progress, and helps find life on the abandoned Earth. The character and presence of this childlike ragpicker suggests an ecological approach which does not celebrate the ostensibly pristine nature that capitalism often markets, or the advancing technology that humans seem to have too much faith in, but instead copes with the obsolete commodities or trash heaps that humans have discarded along the way.

本文主張電影《瓦力》藉由主角瓦力，一部廢棄物處理機器，道出並處理有關商品、科技與自然之間糾結的議題。本文認為這部動畫連結三個看似獨立的領域之間的關係，並提供進一步的展演，探索環境生態議題與資本主義基本價值間無可避免的衝突與共謀關係。本文視《瓦力》為促進彼此對話的「環保動畫」，以充滿想像的方式勾勒上述問題。文章嘗試從班雅明關於兒童，拾荒者和垃圾的論點閱讀這部動畫的敘事，探究班雅明的觀點如何協助進一步理解《瓦力》中自然與商品之間的關係。文章中指出，這部動畫將主角瓦力刻劃成拾荒小童，堆疊垃圾，收集各種不起眼的小玩意兒，打破「商品豐富､科技進步即生活美好」的神話，並重新喚醒人類對地球的意識。本文認為，瓦力這個拾荒小童所意味的環保取向，不再是繼續頌揚資本主義行銷的自然，一個外表純淨的自然，而是必須應對資本主義沿途揚棄的各種垃圾或過時的商品。

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