The Incredibles?

[Lance D. Allen]

Sean,

There are people who will, quite honestly, believe anything they come across is laden with political messages and propaganda. Your reviewer was very likely one of those.

Great movie, capable of being mindless fun or tongue-in-cheek commentary, as you like it.

[Mike Holmes]

I'm with Vincent.

My family actually resembles the Incredibles somewhat if you take away the superpowers which are, of course, simply a layer of metaphor. My by Alex even looks and sounds like Dash. It was so much a movie of trying to be a family despite corporate America that I can only assume that something remarkably transformative has happened to me in being a father that I find this so blazingly obvious and others don't see it.

Is it deeply philosophical? Yer telling me somebody went to a Disney animated film looking for deeply philosophical?

Mike

[quozl]

Do you have kids?

-Vincent

One, and she'll be 4 in July.  Am I missing something?

[Judd]

I saw The Incredibles with my girlfriend and we pick movies apart for shit like that.  We adored it.

I do not see that agenda going on in that film at all.

[Matt Wilson]

Sean,

There are people who will, quite honestly, believe anything they come across is laden with political messages and propaganda. Your reviewer was very likely one of those.

I guess it depends on how you define "political", but something doesn't have to be propaganda to have a political message, and it doesn't even have to be something the author intended. In fact, it's pretty hard for a movie of any substance not to have a political message. We just don't notice it as much when it's status quo.

I mean, even the Nutty Professor is political.

[lumpley]

One [kid], and she'll be 4 in July.  Am I missing something?

Who knows! I wouldn't have seen the movie the way I see it now before I had kids, and I wouldn't have also before my kids went to public school.

There's this moment in the flick, right, where they've been fighting the guys in the spinning blade helicoptery things all through the jungle, all individually. We've watched the kids learn how cool they can be. We've watched the parents remember how cool they can be. We've watched them all see how cool each other can be. Then there's a new wave of guys in spinning blade helicoptery things and the family lands naturally and instinctively in we-work-together-unbeatable-and-strong stance. You know the moment I mean?

Sometimes my family feels exactly like that. That moment touches me in a way where I'm like, YES. That's what a family can be, when everybody sees everybody truthfully. We can stand together against ANYTHING.

-Vincent

[quozl]

I got that and it's a cool moment but I'm not sure how that makes it deeper than a 30-second commercial.  Don't get me wrong.  It was a cool movie that was very fun.  There just wasn't anything to think about.

I wouldn't have also before my kids went to public school.

Now that sounds interesting.  Wanna talk about it?

[Callan S.]

So yeah, in the flick there's the exceptional and the mediocre, and the exceptional triumph over the mediocre. That's fine; it's not saying that that's how the world is. It's saying that your family - thus everyone's family - can triumph over mediocrity.

Bah! Triumph!?

It shows the heroic inner spirit of humanity flattened under corporate wheels. Then there's a happy 'beat on the bad guy' ending, to make that easier to swollow. Sorry, wrong bad guy!

About the only triumph is the father and the mother breaking their respective denial over what each want for their lives. Breaking the denial they hold and instead what they both want can be...and if they want it, is...the same thing.

And what was with Mirage! She never turned invis or nuffin! That suxors! It was like she was just some metaphor for another life the man may have wished for! What the hell is that!? That's not turning invisible! That sucks!

[zephyr.cirrus]

Disney?  Right wing?  NOOOO!

(Well, perhaps in some alternate reality)

[Jason Mical]

According to the Liberty Film Festival, The Incredibles was one of the top 5 conservative films of 2004:

http://www.libertyfilmfestival.com/ (scroll down for list).

When The Incredibles came out, Andrew Sullivan raved about it for promoting conservative values: using your talents rather than conforming to be like everyone else, a clear moral imperative, and of course the traditional nuclear family.

Frankly, I'm not sure when those values became "conservative" values, but I suppose it comes from the same place where Martin Luther King Jr. was a "conservative" person because he fought for the civil rights of black people. Which is to say, not at all, but it has been re-invented as such by Karl Rove and the lazy left has done nothing to counter it.

So if you want the argument, there you go. I didn't find The Incredibles to be conservative in the least (the main character does fight against a soul-crushing and unethical corporation), but people can find patterns in peanut butter if they look hard enough, and repeat their message enough times.

[Lance D. Allen]

Jason, you remind me of something I had pointed out to me recently, by my aunt.

Our Founding Fathers weren't conservative. However, their beliefs, what they fought for, are now lauded as "conservative". Martin Luther was hardly a conservative, but now the things he fought to change would be considered conservative these days.

My guess is, if the gay/bi/lesbian movement ever wins this thing about marriage, in a generation or two, it will be considered conservative.

I guess what I'm trying to say is that liberal and conservative are iffy stances; they change with the times. Whatever set of values is currently widely accepted as good, normal and "American" are conservative values.

Oh and Matt:

I guess it depends on how you define "political", but something doesn't have to be propaganda to have a political message, and it doesn't even have to be something the author intended. In fact, it's pretty hard for a movie of any substance not to have a political message. We just don't notice it as much when it's status quo.

I think, in the case you're commenting on, it's more a matter of how you define "laden". In my phrasing I was indirectly implying intent, and more directly implying volume. A small political theme, especially one not intended by it's creator doesn't count. I'm talking about people, real people whom I've met and thereafter tried to avoid, who will believe every movie, TV show, news article and book to have a strong, readily apparent and wholly intentional political bias.

[DevP]

Disney's Robin Hood? Steal from the rich and give to the poor? Commie.

Disney's Hunchback of Notre Dame? French, and ergo, commie.

Disney's Aladdin? Where you just release the "genie" (read: a-bomb) and you get "whatever you want" (read: Stalin) as the poor supplant the rich and/or political class? Commie.

Disney's Finding Nemo? More like FINDING STALIN. Commie.

      -dev has read too many political blogs

[John Kim]

OK, I don't see the movie as right-wing or anything, but taking it plainly, it is unabashedly a retro throwback to many motifs of early comics.  It does this consciously but not mockingly.  We have the strong-jawed man who is hero, breadwinner, and protector; woman who becomes housewife and mother; boy with great physical powers; girl who can disappear and defend.  

Elastigirl spouts feminist talk in the beginning interview, but goes on to become a dedicated housewife and mother, who argues against heroics.  What actual accomplishments she makes are primarily in saving her children.   (For example, while she manages to sneak into the villain's base, she doesn't actually rescue Mr. Incredible.)  She helps and fights when needed, of course, but doesn't break out of her role as supporter and mother.  

True, Mr. Incredible is convinced to be open enough to let his wife help him in the final battle.  It's not a complete atavism, but it's not terribly liberal either.  We see similar themes if we look at the kids.  Dash's subplot is his athletics; Violet's subplot is her shyness of boys.  When left to themselves, Violet worries about her parents' marriage, while Dash goes off to explore.  

Outside of the gender roles, there is a peculiar sort of essentialism in the plot, shown in the attitude around powers.  The motifs of this is that a crushing system -- driven by lawsuits -- is keeping down the greatness of the protagonists.  For example, this is visually displayed by showing Mr. Incredible at his job where he is literally too big for the cubicle he is put in, and jabbered at by an extremely small boss.  

The villain is shown as distinct from the real heroes in that he doesn't have "true" powers.  Real heroes in this world apparently all have innate powers (which are shown to be genetic by the kids).  The terrible end he threatens is that he will make his gadgets available to the world and thus empower everyone -- making no one "special".  The thrust of the film, then, is perhaps more properly libertarian than conservative.

[Jason Mical]

Jason, you remind me of something I had pointed out to me recently, by my aunt.

Our Founding Fathers weren't conservative. However, their beliefs, what they fought for, are now lauded as "conservative". Martin Luther was hardly a conservative, but now the things he fought to change would be considered conservative these days.

My guess is, if the gay/bi/lesbian movement ever wins this thing about marriage, in a generation or two, it will be considered conservative.

I guess what I'm trying to say is that liberal and conservative are iffy stances; they change with the times. Whatever set of values is currently widely accepted as good, normal and "American" are conservative values.

I see this as something a little more problematic with the left and the right these days. Traditionally, the left has been more concerned with civil rights (the 1960s, and gay rights now), and in the past religion has been a central part of that - Martin Luther King Jr. and Malcolm X both being religious leaders. Lately, the left has begun to eschew religion despite the tradition of religiousity supporting many of the left's causes - Liberation Theology in Latin and South America, the American Civil Rights Movement, and so forth. The right, in its effort to reinvent itself, has gladly taken up this more religious aspect of Civil Rights and has begun subverting it. Can you imagine a message that Martin Luther King was a conservative, and the Klansman that burned down churches were the liberals?  I can, and it's a scary piece of revisionist history.

Which is all to say that the values espoused in The Incredibles are neither left nor right, but the right is attempting to label them as exclusively conservative values - making it seem that the left lacks them.

[joshua neff]

If anyone wants to hear more right wing, crypto-Objectivist rhetoric, there was an interview with Brad Bird, writer/director of The Incredibles, on NPR's Fresh Air today.