The Emoji Movie doesn't do a very good job at conveying its morals, to say the least. They get broken and lost while the main lesson is handled cluelessly. In fact, it does such a bad job with its Aesops that it's the first individual piece of media ever to have a Broken Aesop subpage.
- Gene and Jailbreak's stories essentially cancel each other out, message-wise. One wants to conform and learns to value freedom, while another wants freedom and ends up conforming. This is especially ironic considering that the main focus was about Gene learning to reject the oppressive caste system and express himself, instead of just performing his one function.
- Wisecrack Edition made the case that
the lesson of "you should reject societal expectations and express who you truly wish to be" couldn't escape unbroken. Sure, Smiler was defeated and the Emojis learn that it's perfectly fine to express more than one emotion. However, there is still the fact that they are stuck with one ''function'', to serve Alex. Emojis were invented for this very specific purpose, so Textopolis is a terrible metaphor. The movie constantly validates the idea that they should only pursue society's intended purpose for them. In Real Life, the pressure to conform can easily prevent people from being themselves.- If emojis wanted to become more than merely vessels of conveying ideas or express whatever they feel, then Alex could simply delete them as they would have outlived their usefulness. After all, Gene didn't stop the phone from being erased. It was Alex who stopped it because his crush was so Easily Impressed, and the movie fails to call him out for attempting to delete the phone data.
- Aspects of the caste system still remain intact as the unpopular emojis remain in the Loser Lounge.
- Jailbreak learns to stop valuing her freedom and reverts back to being a Princess.
- Gene quickly discards the idea of leaving the phone forever.
- Hi-5 never dumps his narcissistic ways to become a more well rounded emoji.
- For a movie where women have "limitless potential" there don't seem to be any interestingly written female characters.note The only female emojis we see with major speaking roles are Smiler, a generic order obsessed villain who runs society like a dictator, a generic princess, Jailbreak, a Jerkass who accomplishes nothing except breaking Gene's heart, and the generic love interest. There is also Gene's mother Mary, who's little more than a particularly emotionless Extreme Doormat and Akiko Glitter, who's a genuine Nice Girl but who is so expendable that our hero Gene leaves her to die in the trash can. The most significant female character other than the villain, Jailbreak, fits three out of those six characteristics. And it gets even worse outside of the phone, where Addie is merely a Satellite Love Interest with less character than the emojis.
- Jailbreak is meant to be a strong independent-minded female role model, but ultimately "learns" to fit in with the same societal expectations that she found sexist. It seems to suggest that you can only save the day by following tradition, since revealing herself as a princess is treated as an empowering moment. The movie also treats her as being incredibly selfish for rejecting Gene's fairy-tale views of romance. The fact that it's the male character who learns to value freedom while the female character who learns to conform and become a potential love interest also sends uncomfortable implications about a woman's place in the world.
- Jailbreak's heavy-handed rants about women being denied positions of power and the ability to voice their own ideas seems at least a little misplaced when you realize that Smiler, the leader of the Emojis, is female! It actually makes Jailbreak's inability to achieve a high position in life seem like a product of her own Jerk Assery, incompetence, and unwillingness to conform to standards, rather than the product of a "broken system", and makes it seem like she's just whining and making excuses. This has the very unfortunate effect of implying the same about people in real life who complain about the Glass Ceiling...
- Even throwing in a lesson about Real Women Don't Wear Dresses undermines the Be Yourself Aesop because it involves defining your life in opposition to gender roles rather than accepting a unique identity of your own that includes a variety of traits.
- Jailbreak's cred as a sophisticated hacker falls significantly short of what the movie wants us to believe that she can do. Despite her claims to be strong and independent, she almost falls to her death in Just Dance, and her two displays of "hacking" in the movie (guessing the password to a firewall and deprogramming the bot that's trying to kill Gene) are both upstaged by Hi-5. Conversely, her only noteworthy accomplishment happens when she embraces her princess side and whistles for the Twitter logo, accidentally suggesting she was better off as a stereotype.
- If the movie was supposed to mock and critique excessive use of technology, then this is sure as hell broken when the simple act of sending a text ultimately saves the day. And because we don't get to see the real problems that it causes, none of the human characters learn the drawbacks of their obsession with smartphones. For their lack of trying, the movie just makes this behaviour seem normal.
- Hi-5 has to learn to stop being a narcissistic jerk and learn the value of having true friends. Yet he still yearns for popularity through the entire movie. Shortly after he comes back and says he learned his lesson, he shouts about how "they love us" without any humility whatsoever. He presumably reverts back to being a jerk. To make matters worse, he got along with Gene just fine and they were able to work together to accomplish their own goals, suggesting that narcissism doesn't really harm your relationships and life goals.
- The message about being a supportive father is undermined since Mel changed his mind and believed that his son was ready for the prime time, yet his doubts were correct since Gene got Stage Fright on his very first day. The movie calls him out for not being supportive, yet a good parent would understand their child's strengths and weaknesses so that they can help them succeed.
- The Mysterious Mr. Enter made the case that even the blatant Product Placement falls flat. Emojis are so great at communicating ideas that a normal emoji would be insufficient to communicate the basic idea of love. The main message of Be Yourself actually makes little sense when it comes to technology, because customers want smartphones that follow their commands, not for the apps to be whatever they want to be. The only reason that Textopolis was spared from destruction was because Gene glitched out when he was placed on the pedestal at the end, something that the creators of these apps want to avoid at all costs.
