Review
AI
Character
Culture
Film & TV
4 min read

The utter humanity of Wallace and Gromit

Choices in front of and behind the camera tame technology.
A still from a claymantion film shows three characters, Wallace, Gromit and a robot garden gnome marching out a garden shed.
AI: here to help.
Aardman Animations.

In 1993, Aardman Animations released Wallace & Gromit: The Wrong Trousers. It follows hapless inventor Wallace and his long-suffering dog Gromit as they rent out their spare room to a penguin, Feathers McGraw, who is subsequently revealed to be a master criminal, narrowly pipping Anthony Hopkins’ Hannibal Lecter and Javier Bardem’s Anton Chigurh to the title of cinema’s most sinister villain. (Trust me: you will never look at a red rubber glove the same way after The Wrong Trousers). 

At the film’s climax, perpetual good-boy Gromit chases McGraw through the house via a series of increasingly convoluted model railway tracks, even as he has to build the very tracks he’s riding on. There is a strong argument to be made that it is best scene in cinematic history.  

Fast forward to Christmas, 2024, and Wallace and Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl is shown on BBC One on Christmas Day. It tells the story of Feathers McGraw – who has lost none of his quiet menace – plotting revenge on the eponymous duo, this time by taking over a series of technologically advanced garden gnomes Wallace has invented.  

While nothing in Vengeance Most Fowl tops the train chase from The Wrong Trousers – indeed, how can one improve on perfection? – it is another magnificent addition to the Wallace and Gromit oeuvre.  

Moreover, it is a remarkably prescient tale about the dangers of technology, and the beauty of humanity. It is the perfect antidote to much of modern cinema and almost single-handedly restored by faith in film as an artistic medium. Vengeance Most Fowl is such a success because it oozes humanity in every single frame. However, this humanity appears most clearly in three distinct ways.  

First, in its story. The inciting MacGuffin of Vengeance Most Fowl is the new garden gnomes Wallace has concocted. Feathers McGraw takes control of Wallace’s gnomes by hacking into its software and switching it from ‘good’ mode to 'evil’ mode. (Like everything in life, this is a joke The Simpsons got to first: in 1992’s “Treehouse of Horror III,” Homer accidently buys Bart a Krusty the Clown doll accidently set to ‘evil’ mode rather than ‘good’ mode.) 

Vengeance Most Fowl offers a more nuanced take on technology than most. It’s neither straightforwardly good nor straightforwardly bad; it depends entirely on the user. We see the benefits of the gnomes as they help people with their gardening. But put them in the hands of the wrong person – or penguin – and they become tools for evil. Vengeance Most Fowl is not an anti-technology film, then, but is realistic about the fact that some humans – and, indeed, penguins – will inevitably seek to use technology for nefarious ends. 

Second, in its voice acting. Vengeance Most Fowl is the first Wallace & Gromit film released following the death of long-standing Wallace voice actor Peter Sallis. It is genuinely remarkable, then, that no AI was used by Aardman to replicate his voice. Instead, this is left to Ben Whitehead and the results are certainly worth it. 

Where many film studios or production companies would have used technology to offer a ‘fake’ Sallis performance – think Peter Cushing in Rogue One: A Star Wars Story, for example, or even the use of AI to reconstruct John Lennon’s voice for the lost Beatles single “Now and Then” – Aardman did not. Instead, they made a very conscious decision to have Whitehead offer a deeply human performance as Wallace. When (SPOILER ALERT) at the end of the film Wallace tells Gromit that he can live without inventing, but he can’t live without his dog, the emotional pay-off is so genuine because it is real. Because it is a thoroughly human moment. 

Third, in its cinematography. Claymation is a medium only adopted by artists who hate themselves. That’s the only reason I can think for making an entire film using such a slow, tedious process. It is also a deeply human art form. It is the result of tens of thousands of hours of painstaking and repetitive work. It is yet another conscious choice by the team at Aardman to create something that is thoroughly and unmistakably human. 

All of this, I think, says something about how Wallace & Gromit manages to feel like such a breath of fresh air. It has not been committee-d to death, or market research-ed into beige-ness. It is full of stupid little jokes (like Gromit reading Virginia Woof) and localised references (“Yorkshire Border: Keep Out!” followed by “Lancashire Border: No, Your Keep Out!”).  

The cost of making Wallace & Gromit films is too costly for them to be cheap, mass-produced disappointments churned out at an increasing rate of knots. They are lovingly hand-crafted works of art and, given the current state of much cinema and TV, they are nothing short of minor miracles.  

Wallace & Gromit is an utterly human series of films. It isn’t perfect. And that’s what makes it perfect. 

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Article
Attention
Character
Culture
Film & TV
4 min read

Traitors holds a mirror up to this obsession of ours

The attitude that is eroding empathy.
The cast and presenter of a competition TV programme assembled in a montage.
BBC.

“So you’re basically calling me Harold Shipman or something?” 

2025 may have barely begun but BBC One’s The Traitors has already offered a strong contender for TV moment of the year. 

If you’re not familiar with the show – and if you aren’t, where have you been? – a group of strangers head off to a castle in Scotland to earn money through a series of challenges while show host Claudia Winkleman smoulders at the camera. Meanwhile, some competitors are designated ‘Traitors’ and can steal the money at the end of the competition, while the rest – the ‘Faithfuls’ – must unmask the ‘Traitors’, banishing one person each day. In return, the Traitors can ‘murder’ one Faithful a night. 

It's stupid and ridiculous and melodramatic. I love it.  

Something that has struck me this series is the inability of contestants to imagine that people might behave differently to them. Early on, Dr. Kas “Definitely-Not-Harold-Shipman” Ahmed raises a toast to a ‘murdered’ Faithful. “That’s sketchy,” everyone immediately thinks. “I wouldn’t have done that, and I’m a Faithful, so Kas MUST BE A TRAITOR!”  

The group votes to banish him shortly afterwards.  

The certainty with which contestants decide someone is a Traitor based on the most minute and innocuous details is incredible. Oooh, Glenda just coughed at an inopportune moment. Obviously a Traitor. Look at Keith taking the stairs two at a time. It’s like he wants to be caught! 

The ‘Faithfuls’ seem completely unable to imagine people might be different from them. That they might think differently, or act differently. There is, in other words, a complete lack of empathy.  

As the always-absolutely-right-about-everything Brené Brown tells us, sympathy is recognising someone else’s perspective. But empathy is feeling with someone; it is sharing that perspective. And it’s empathy that’s needed for human connection. And it’s empathy that is missing on The Traitors. 

All of this ultimately reminds me of the work of Canadian philosopher Charles Taylor. Taylor is arguably the most influential living philosopher. Much of his work – especially in books like Sources of the Self, and A Secular Age – is concerned with explaining modern western societies, their characteristics, and where those characteristics emerge from.  

Taylor claims that these societies have stopped privileging ‘exteriority’ and have started privileging ‘interiority’ instead. 

What on earth does that mean? 

In 1637, René Descartes says “I think, therefore I am,” and western philosophy never recovers. Descartes is looking for a foundation, a starting point from which he can make sense of himself and the world around him. But this is not easy. What’s to say he’s not hallucinating, or being deceived by a demon, so that the world around him isn’t as it seems? 

What’s the one thing he can be sure of? That he thinks!  

The fact he’s even thinking and doubting his senses tells Descartes that he is someone or something who exists and thinks. That sounds obvious, but it gives Descartes the foundation from which he can make sense of reality.  

As a result of Descartes’ philosophy, we imagine that our very ‘selves’ are located entirely ‘within us’ somehow, with the rest of reality found ‘outside’ ourselves. This is a ‘gap’ of sorts, between us and the world, while the interior self becomes the place where the meaning of our existence is discovered and understood. 

Modern life, Taylor says, therefore instils in us a sense of detachment from everyone and everything else. I have my interior world, you have yours. I can never truly know you, and you can never truly know me.  

I could be the next Harold Shipman for all you know.  

But it wasn’t always like this, Taylor argues. Modernity’s preoccupation with the inner self was preceded by a more outside-centred view of the world.  

In this outside-centred worldview, I and the people around me aren’t simply unknowable black holes of interiority. Instead, we are both parts of a broader created realm. And, by virtue of us both being creatures located within something bigger than either of ourselves, this outside-centred view of the world becomes a point of commonality from which we can get to know each other. 

Shared humility leads to connection, in other words.  

All of this, I think, goes some way to explaining why I’m watching a seemingly lovely doctor having a quasi-breakdown over being misconstrued as a serial killer. The Traitors shows how obsessed we have become with our own interiority. We are inward-looking creatures now. As such, we are often slow to recognise the ways in which our shared place within creation only unites us. 

While a little introspection and self-reflection is vital for healthy human flourishing, out-and-out navel-gazing only hinders our ability to connect with those around us. With a little help from Charles Taylor, The Traitors reminds me to get out of my own head and to see beyond myself. To look at the world around me, and to see the people with whom I share it.  

To see them with empathy, not as unknowable voids of interiority, but as fellow creatures walking a shared journey. 

​​​​​​​Join with us - Behind the Seen

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If you’re enjoying Seen & Unseen, would you consider making a gift towards our work?

Alongside other benefits (book discounts etc.), you’ll receive an extra fortnightly email from me sharing what I’m reading and my reflections on the ideas that are shaping our times.

Graham Tomlin

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