Today we went to see the movie WALL-E. It’s pretty stark for a kids’ movie, portraying the Earth as a trash-filled wasteland in the aftermath of obsessive consumption fueled by a Walmart-like corporation.
In fact, it has become so polluted that all human beings have had to escape it aboard a giant space cruise ship, where they must stay until Earth is habitable again.
It’s pretty grim, but one might argue it’s a good lesson for kids. One that may make them think about how they can change the course of things. Except the promoters blew it. Big time.
Every kid going into the movie gets a little rubber watch wrapped in plastic wrap. A watch that, if it works to begin with, surely won’t by the end of a weeks’ time. So it will end up in a landfill. So if half a million kids see the movie? That’s right. A half million little watches will end up in landfills.
That doesn’t even take into consideration the rest of the marketing juggernaut. The toys in the fast food kids’ meals. The plastic WALL-E action figures in the toy stores (making their way here from China, no doubt). So what kind of message is that sending?
This could have been a great opportunity to disseminate kid-friendly information about ways to protect the environment, instead of contributing to its destruction with a lot of useless junk. Or at the very least, don’t give away anything at all. Let kids take away something far more important that a rubber watch:
The message.
Tip 29 – Just say “no” to the little plastic toys in fast-food kids’ meals.
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