Cockroaches Inherit the Earth? What Wall E Gets Wrong About The Apocalypse

Pixar's post-apocalyptic love story Wall-E finished No. 2 at the box office over the Fourth of July weekend after hauling in $65 million the weekend before. The film depicts a future Earth abandoned by humans, blanketed in garbage, and nearly devoid of life. At the outset, Wall-E, a robot, has but one companion: a friendly cockroach. How did we come to believe that cockroaches will outlive everything else on Earth?

The cockroach survival myth seems to have originated with the development of the atom bomb. In The Cockroach Papers: A Compendium of History and Lore, journalist Richard Schweid notes that roaches were reported to have survived the blasts at Hiroshima and Nagasaki, leading some to believe that they would inherit the Earth after a nuclear war. This idea spread during the 1960s, in part due to its dissemination by anti-nuclear activists. For example, a famous advertisement sponsored by the National Committee for a Sane Nuclear Policy and referenced in a 1968 New York Times article read, in part, "A nuclear war, if it comes, will not be won by the Americans ... the Russians ... the Chinese. The winner of World War III will be the cockroach."

Read the whole story here.

Comments

[Schallvain]

This blog is about insects surviving nuclear radiation. What does the earth being toxified by overproduction and buried under garbage (which is the basis for the destruction of earth in this movie) have to do with nuclear war? I think we can agree that in our current political, social and economic climate, total nuclear destruction is low on the list of things that are going to destroy the planet. I'm not saying that the use of nuclear weapons will not happen, but I am saying that widespread usage of these weapons (global scale) is unlikely. I thought the movie did a great job of showing a more likely demise of the planet, caused by our consumerism, greed and glutiny.

[RTIII]

I don't know about the article's assertion about a cockroach living without its head for more than a month. When I was growing up in the deep south, as a boy of 7 or so, I had it as a safe "sport" to use a home cleaning trigger sprayer (like Windex) set to stream, with the bottle filled with dish-soap laden water to shoot cockroaches.

At first, they were scared and would run, but after getting hit, they'd turn and bravely face the oncoming soap-water stream, and die shortly thereafter. I presumed it was because the soap film interfered with their breathing...
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[loki]

I was surprised that this movie didnt get the usually Neo Nazi bashing like Happy Feat did . I remember Rush and espeically spin Beck went on and on about how insulted they were than Happy Feat would even suggest that man kind had anything to do with the destruction of the environment, and how dare they make this movie for children. and yet, at least I have not heard a thing about Wall E

[RTIII]

Well GARBAGE GENERATION is something they DO believe in!
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[loki]

No, what they got wrong is that they show the Corporations taking the people to safer environments in space after the world is so polluted nothing can survive on earth. Corporations would never want to help anyone. Sure they would take all their money and promise them the moon, so to speak. But actually helping the human race?? Not for all the money in the universe. Its just bad business . Ask any IVy Greed educated person who is running out gov or one of the largest corporations in the world.

[Coyote2]

agreed. But if Wall E was picking up human bones the film would not not have had a children's designation.

[RTIII]

Yes, you've hit on it EXACTLY.

I was thinking about that as I watched... Where's the economy for the corporation on the ship? It's all internal. Without external sources of income, there's no expansion of profit!

It's the theme of corporate beneficence helping overcome human over-consumption that made it acceptable to the fascists in power, I'm sure.
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[Schallvain]

Ok, so if the corporations want to destroy the planet and kill all the people in the name of business, then that would mean that they must have someone lined up to sell their products to. Martians? Venusians? Hmmm...

[Coyote2]

The error point of the movie Wall E wasn't getting the cockroach thing wrong as implied by this article. More importantly what it got wrong was the idea that the earth's resources could sustain such an onslaught of production as to produce such mounds of garbage AND interstellar space ships.

We have already consumed about half of the earth's available oil reserves. Most of that oil was consumed within the last thirty years, meaning that there is only about 30 - 40 years of DECLINING available supply left. Because the supply is declining (limiting production), and because we can already see metal resources reaching capacity, such a future is impossible.

While it was a good metaphor for capitalist wastefulness, we need to realize that a sustainable approach is needed to get us through the next thirty years. And that there is NO interstellar-space-salvation option. We need to abandon our consumer model of capitalism and develop a recycling model. Growth can no longer come from consumer goods, but from New Energy.

[Schallvain]

If you don't think we have enough resources to pollute our planet beyond viability, then why have any environment regulation at all? Let's pump out as much crap as we want, and we can just recycle the material when we run out. We can sit around at our computers until we get so fat we can barely move (oh, wait, that is already happening) and suck off the conveinences of our technology. What a great idea.

I think the point of this movie went over your head. It is representing an extreme view of the direction or world is heading. It may never reach what is portrayed in the movie (after all, it's primary goal is to entertain, with a little kick in the side for the environment) but it does make us think about our planet and that we cannot stay on the same path and remain viable indefinitely. Also, it would be nice to buy something as small as a usb drive and not have to throw away a 6" x 12" plastic package (that I sliced my fingers on opening) and weighs twice as much as the product contained within it.

[axt113]

The film was a great warning about human tendency to become complacent, Wall-E becomes the $5 a gallon gas that forces them to change

[SouthJerseySteve]

So why aren't scientists using cockroach DNA for gene splicing with humans? Forget stem-cell research, let's get into cockroach-human DNA splicing!

[axt113]

Been waatching horror movies have you?

[sparkey]

The cockroach-human splicing has already been done. There are two of them who have infested the white house.

[RTIII]

Oh, that split my gut with laughter, thanks!
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[MKJeeves]

I thought they added the bug as a reference to Jiminy Cricket . . .

[Kurt]

There was a very short story in Astounding Science Fiction in the last 1940's by (I think) Fedrick Brown about someone who brought back the first object from the earth's future which turned out to be a finely wrought silver globe of earth's land masses held up not by a human but by a cockroach.

[KillTheMessenger]

One might think about the scientific correctness of Wall-E's scenario what one think, one thing is for sure certain: it takes very gifted animators to make something as repulsive as a cockroach into an adorable creature that the audience will identify with.

I certainly enjoyed the movie and, to be honest, I would not want to try the humans against cockroach survival experiment. We might just draw the truly short straw.