Gene Meh

Note: Not to be confused with Gene from Wreck-It Ralph.

Gene Meh is the main protagonist of the infamous 2017 film The Emoji Movie. He is an emoji who, unlike the other emojis in Textopolis, is diagnosed with a malfunction that causes him to have multiple expressions. Determined to have a normal expression like all of the other emojis, he enlists the help of Hi-5 (his best friend) and Jailbreak (whom he develops a crush on). He is voiced by T.J. Miller.

Why He's 😒 Meh Indeed

 * 1) Gene is nothing more than just another overused basic and clichéd "the odd one out misunderstood protagonist". In fact, he is enough of a badly written character that he makes good protagonists like Emmet Brickowski from The Lego Movie and Ralph from Wreck-It Ralph look bad. And unlike Emmet Brickowski and Ralph, who both got character development later in the film, Gene himself absolutely gets zero character development, other than almost getting Alex’s phone deleted and being the one responsible for all the troubles that happened throughout the movie.
 * 2) He is mostly unfunny, unlikable in some ways (mainly in relation to his irresponsible actions, and in some cases, unintendedly), and clumsy.
 * 3) His design is uncanny, even for Sony Animation standards. He looks like a Pac-Man that comes out from Chernobyl with the head of Mike Wacowski thrown.
 * 4) His romantic relationship with Jailbreak is just forced, bland, and dull.
 * 5) His last name, "Meh", is rather lazy, but who on earth would name their families after a word of what is supposed to be not great?
 * 6) One of the main complaints with The Emoji Movie is that Gene is supposed to be the main protagonist, but he caused more damage than the main antagonist, almost got everyone killed and deleted, and somehow, we are supposed to root for him.
 * 7) * Speaking of which, writers Tony Leondis and Eric Siegel did a very awful job representing the characters' roles in the movie. Smiler is depicted as the villain even though all she wanted to do was to protect the Emojis world while Gene Meh, despite being the protagonist, was the one really responsible for all the troubles that happened in the movie, as he actually caused the deaths of many characters such as the trolls and the Just Dance girl and almost caused the entire phone to almost have its data deleted. Basically, Tony Leondis and Eric Siegel keep trying to force viewers to like the protagonist and despise the villain without giving the usual proper characterization to them as a reason to do this.
 * 8) * He can also be very gross sometimes, such as he farted after he left the Facebook app, right in front of Jailbreak (although Gene didn’t notice Jailbreak was there, so he could’ve done it by accident).
 * 9) * Not only that, the film portrays teenagers and insults them as phone addicts who don’t even communicate at all other than just text messages and that’s it, instead of criticizing that problem, it encourages it. They can’t even get off their phones for just 5 minutes, even in class, all because of what Gene said in the opening scene, “Emojis are the most important thing in the history of communication”, which is completely false. Face-to-face, calling, and writing letters are far more important than texting, and also, when one uses their phone, they call and text to communicate, and when one tries to text, they must know that letters and numbers are far more important than just emojis (no talking, no calling, no phone, just emojis). Teenagers in the real world can’t just glue their eyes to their phones all the time, that’s bad for them, because the film clearly knows absolutely nothing about phones (because the movie was produced by Sony Pictures Animation, whose parent company Sony Corporation is a company that makes electronics and Xperia smartphones).

Redeeming Qualities 😃

 * 1) He redeemed himself by saving Textopolis by being an animated emoji showing that Alex loves Addie.
 * 2) The only reason Gene is a misunderstood protagonist is that his father was also diagnosed with the malfunction that he has.
 * 3) Unlike Jailbreak, he has an ok relationship with Hi-5.
 * 4) He does care about other people around him, including his friends. He even explains this to Jailbreak right after Hi-5 goes into the phone's recycle bin.
 * 5) T.J. Miller plays him decently, despite wasting his talents.
 * 6) "Hi-5 don't do it, don't you do it, it's already been there once. Don't do it."
 * 7) Gene Meh can be a bit sympathetic at times.

Videos🎥
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