The Incredibles

[selenak]

Months after everyone else did, I finally got around to watching The Incredibles. As I recall from the unspoilery posts, honorh loved it, londonkds enjoyed it but was troubled by the ideological subtext, and buffyannotater flat-out hated it. I'm with KdS on that one. There was much about The Incredibles I enjoyed, it made me laugh, and frequently I felt charmed, but I also had to constantly shut up that portion of my brain responsible for long-term analysis.



Firstly, there is the housewife and mother thing, although in that case you can argue that Helen's housewife persona was a parallel to Bob's Willy Loman status at the insurance company, and that once Helen got into action as Elastigirl, she ruled. Which is basically what I did tell myself.

The second subtextual problem, though, is far more serious. I've seen one post wonder whether The Incredibles is Watchmen for kids, and I don't think so. There are two or three distinct paralles, but the rest is too dissimilar. Both, however, are meta reflections on the superhero genre. But I don't think it's a coincidence that in Watchmen, there is only one superhero who is actually a metahuman, with super abilities, Jon/Dr. Manhattan. And Dr. Manhattan's metahumanness serves to alienate him more and more from the rest of humanity, until he becomes something else altogether. The rest of the superheroes are superheroes through choice and psychological make-up, some with gadgets, some without. (They essentially follow the Batman model rather than the Superman model.)

The Incredibles, by choosing to let all of its heroes be born as metahumans, and by presenting its villain motivated by obsessive envy and his attempts to gain heroic status via invention and technology as ridiculous and contemptible, presents a rather disturbing subtext of the genetic elite versus the lowly wannabe. You could it write it off as accidental or unintended were it not for such maintext as the "if all are super, none are" phrases.

I also can't help but compare and contrast to what Joss Whedon currently does with the "cure" storyline in Astonishing X-Men, specifically, the last issue and how the character of Wing is treated there as opposed to the relentless contempt heaped on Syndrome in The Incredibles. Both Eddie/Wing and Robbie/Syndrome can't cope with not having superpowers, but Wing is presented as sympathetic, and what happens to him is a tragedy that sucker-punches you as a reader. Moreover, he's the reverse image of established main character Beast who has perfectly sensible reasons to long for a life without superpowers and seriously contemplates this. Which makes for a presentation of a world where there are some superpowered people and some aren't which makes neither side lesser than the other.

Or, to return to my earlier Watchmen comparison: both Ozymandias and Syndrome stage an attack on New York via an elaborate plan and techonological means for a purpose involving deception, but Ozymandias doesn't do it for his own glory. Being one of the superheroes himself, he presents one extreme of where the psychology that creates and strengthens a superhero could go - the end (world peace) always justifies the means (mass slaughter). We're meant to be disturbed, even more since ultimately all but one of the other heroes concede that they can't expose him without making things even worse. Meanwhile, Syndrome does the whole thing to finally get worshipped as a superhero, fails (of course), takes petty revenge (of course) and fails again (of course). In both cases, you have the main couple of the story returning to the superhero activities they had retired from at the beginning of the story, which is presented as a good thing in terms of them being honest with themselves, but they are anything but the victorious elite.

On another meta level, Robby/Syndrome is the satire of a fanboy, but as opposed to the Troika over at BtVS, not one written with affection let alone identification on the part of the writers. Whereas you could really tell that Joss & Co. loved the Trio. Plus the darkest and least sympathetic of them, Warren, paralleled Willow and took some of her flaws to a larger degree, until he transformed her into the very thing he wanted to be. Now if something like that had been done with Syndrome, it might have changed the entire subtext, but no.

To make one last comparison: I always thought Shymalan's Unbreakable was underrated as a film. It, too, is a meta reflection on the superhero genre. And again we have a villain who is obsessed with superheroes, and who did horrible things due to that obsession. But Elijah is a tragic character; at no point is he patronized or made contemptible because of his longing for metahuman status, which is caused by the all-too-human torture his body inflicts on him at every minute of his life. I could buy this as a viewer without feeling I was meant to distinguish between the natural elite and the envy petty masses.

Comments

[ex_mrs260625]

I really need to see The Incredibles. Looks like a good film, and if you're comparing it to Unbreakable, it really has to be good!

[ide-cyan.livejournal.com]

I don't think that was quite the point of the comparison.

[selenak.livejournal.com]

It's definitely worth watching, and I think you'll like it, but you might be disturbed by the same things that irked me, and at any rate, my comparison with Unbreakable - a film which I loved - was not intended to be complimentary to The Incredibles, as I think the former did something right which the later did wrong...

[ex_mrs260625]

That's what I get for skimming. Sorry about that. (I was sort of trying to avoid spoilers, which really doesn't work if I'm going to try to draw conclusions as well.)

[honorh.livejournal.com]

Glad you saw the film, and you did nail something that bothered me re: heroic/non-heroic. It would've been nice to have seen some mundanes (other than Edna Mode) who were hero allies and heroic in their own rights. Nonetheless, I saw it rather as a commentary on how we tend to eat our heroes in modern society.

What's "the housewife and mother thing"? I saw some griping that Helen didn't seem to have a job outside the home, but that struck me as frankly silly.

[selenak.livejournal.com]

Given that Helen had three young children to cope with, I agree that a job would have been tremendously difficult and would have made her superhuman in an unrealistic way. However, we get introduced to her saying she doesn't want leave the world-saving to men, and then we see her in a rather traditional role doing just that for half an hour. Without even longing for her lost freedom, unlike Bob and Frozone. (Until she gets into the action and rules at it.) Now as I said, I can see this a parallel to Bob trying to live the normal life as quintessentially Willy Logan in the insurance business. But I can see why some people were bothered with it, especially since both Helen and her daughter were shown as reluctant to use their power/counselling not to use it, whereas both Bob and Dash are bursting with desire to use theirs, which again, traditional.

Anyway: I definitely don't regret having watched the film - by and large, I enjoyed it. I'm just irked by the implications and wish they wouldn't look so deliberate.

The eating of heroes: you really have to read Watchmen.*g*

I meant to respond to this before...

[alara-r.livejournal.com]

I actually don't think that being a mother is very comparable to being a Willy Loman-type. Many people (I suspect, mostly people who haven't done it, since this was an opinion I held once too) totally underestimate how emotionally satisfying it is to be a mother. It's a challenging job, working on a project with enormously high stakes, for the sake of people you love, utilizing many different skills, and, usually, with you in charge; even mothers who nominally defer to fathers rarely have husbands who are actually involved enough to override them most of the time. Mothers have far more autonomy in their profession than anyone but CEO's and small business owners. It is rather like volunteering to run a nonprofit. Your job is important, challenging, satisfying, unpaid, and totally underestimated by the rest of the world, and most of the emotional damage mothers suffer is because of the constant denigration of their skills by pretty much all of society. (Feminists, who should be the champions of mothers, spend much of their time arguing that it's such a lousy job no one should be forced to do it, rather than arguing that it's such a tremendously important and valuable job that no one should be forced to do it...)

Anyway, re Helen. Raising three kids, about seven years apart, means that she has been a mother for 14 years, she has never been without a small child, and so she has no *time* to pine after her old life. Fathers, and single people, have time to retreat into a room and gaze at souvenirs of the past while brooding, or go out with a pal and recapture lost youth. Mothers are not allowed this luxury. Helen's top priority is the welfare of her children, and she probably considers Bob's desire to go out and continue to play superhero dangerous and immature; it's not until it's directly to the benefit of her family that she returns to the superhero lifestyle. This seems to me not merely stereotypical, but actually quite normal for a mother of three kids.

Now, Violet is a problem for me. I can't imagine a circumstance under which an oldest sister whose parents have superpowers and whose little brother has superpowers would not use and enjoy her own superpowers. Maybe Violet is just going through a "everything to do with my family is sooo uncool" phase, or maybe her parents did a number on her head when she was little because they were so much closer to the time that they were forced into hiding and so much more fearful of displaying their powers. But she doesn't seem to me like any older sister *I* know; every girl I know who's six or seven years older than a brother would joyfully whomp on him with her superpowers just to teach him who's boss from an early age. :-)

[skywaterblue.livejournal.com]

I think though, that you're missing the point on the Watchmen/The Incredibles comparison, because I compared it in an unfavorable tone. In that yes, the Incredibles is a meta commentary on the superhero genre that obviously owes much of it's truly groundbreaking material to Watchmen. (In the frustrations of middle age and middle class creeping up on the superheros, governmental response to vigilantees, the way society reacts to superheroics, etc etc.)

I however, thought it was very much dumbing down the point of Watchmen into a palateable experience for middle America and its children. In response to tone though, I'm not sure how far you can go with it, because there's very little reason to expect the more seditious elements of Watchmen to show up in an American children's film.

And more randomly: I agree that Unbreakable is a fantastic meta treatment of superheros. "They call me Mr. Glass", indeed.

[selenak.livejournal.com]

because there's very little reason to expect the more seditious elements of Watchmen to show up in an American children's film.

Trying to think of subversive American children's films now... I sure there must be some...

Anyway. Yes, it's several elements of the thing made cute, which Watchmen (thankfully) never is. Though I think The Incredibles takes on the James Bond genre as much as the superhero one. (And really, Bond parodies are a bit easy. The lair was still fun, though.)

Another Unbreakable fan! Such good performances, too.

[skywaterblue.livejournal.com]

Believe it or not, but the director, Brad Bird, and Pixar, are seditious within the industry for beliveing that American animation should also be watched and enjoyed by adults. Thus all the hinted sexual jokes in films like Toy Story, and the focus on the adult characters in The Iron Giant and The Incredibles. Hell, even not having musical interludes was considered fairly shocking in the mid-90s.

Unbreakable was vastly underrated because it came on the heels of The Sixth Sense, although it always bugged me that M. Night's later films have sucked so hard.

[illmantrim.livejournal.com]

See, now I growing up as a comic geek, saw it differently. I saw the difference in choices between heroic and villainous. To me it was more about the fact that we have to be true to who we are. The Incredible Family at first were not, then in the end were. Robby never was. He always wanted to be something he was not and thus to me that was the lesson. It wasnt to me so much about one side being super and the other not, but about being true to yourself. I understand how one could draw the comclusions you did but I think thr story really could have been gflipped and would have worked just as well. With the villain super and heroes not or even with both groups either one or the other. To me it was about the contrast of what chopice you make and what you choose to be. Robby chose to be a lie his entire life and he did so for selfish gain, where as the incredibles went underground in an attempt to do the right thing and in the end returned to full duty for the same reason. That's just my take on it...

[selenak.livejournal.com]

To quote londonkdshere:

I really don't want to think too much about the film's utter contempt for its villain as a person, given the tragic possibilities of a technological genius who could achieve wealth and fame beyond his wildest dreams by legal and moral means, but becomes a supervillain because even he can't value his intellectual abilities as much as other people's physical ones. (I challenge anywone to argue that current Anglo-American culture undervalues and demeans athletic elites.) And the assumption that his end goal, to make superheroes obsolete by technologically augmenting the human race in general, can be dismissed as simply evil and motivated by envy, is just jaw-dropping. If you're anywhere to the left of the Duke of Wellington and find yourself arguing that the mass production of jet boots is a bad idea because the masses don't deserve to know the joys of flight, you really should start considering the possibility that you've taken a wrong turn somewhere.

Now, if we had seen several non-metahumans being superheroes or helpes (other than Edna, I mean, who was fun), I'd probably go with your interpretation, but as it was strictly born superheroes versus Robby the mundane, I just can't. Oh, and also:

where as the incredibles went underground in an attempt to do the right thing and in the end returned to full duty for the same reason.

Err, no. They went underground because they were forced to, and if the return to full duty was motivated by a concern for humanity at large, we didn't see it. They were, as you say, being true to their natures by the end after repressing them, exercising their talents, but for example during the big showdown with the robot we didn't see them display any more concern for bystanders than Robby did earlier. If there had been some small scenes like the ones in the last Astonishing X-Men where we see Kitty and Emma being busy rescuing civilians while the beating up of the monster is going on, that would have made the point of the moral difference between them and Robby much more effectively and would have made it believable they turned to heroics again for the greater good.

[illmantrim.livejournal.com]

I disagree, but as they say, everyone has an opinion an a right to it.

[lakrids404.livejournal.com]

I disagree with that.

[searose.livejournal.com]

Unbreakable is one of my favorite movies for its genre. Elijah Price's need for a partnership in artifice - the need for there to be someone like David Dunn as his opposite - sounds unnecessary. Then again, any kind of ascendance without opposition is unremarkable as a feat, and darkness loses its very definition in the absence of all light. Elijah knew all the formulae, and he wanted one of the classic means for his own journey.

I wish the movie had gone on into trilogy form, but as a superhero/supervillain piece it was rather oblique on the surface (only) until the reasons behind everything got the reveal at the end. If Shyamalan had made a sequel or even the other two movies tentatively planned, I do wonder if he'd show the formula chosen by Elijah to work or to fail 'in the real world'.

[selenak.livejournal.com]

I wish the movie had gone on into trilogy form, but as a superhero/supervillain piece it was rather oblique on the surface (only) until the reasons behind everything got the reveal at the end.

It's one of these movies which are even more intriguing upon rewatching.

I do wonder if he'd show the formula chosen by Elijah to work or to fail 'in the real world'.

I tend to go with "fail" because I think David would do one thing which comics superheroes would never do - he'd apply to institutions outside the superheroic narrative (police, psychiatrists, whatever) for help. But then again, who knows? Elijah had already manipulated him into accepting the superhero role to begin with.

Plus of course as a meta reflection since Elijah chose the pattern of the hero and villain as former best friends, and casting himself as the villain, it would have to be a reflection on a RL Magneto rather than a RL Joker...

[searose.livejournal.com]

The RL Magneto route seems to be the most trying for the participants since there's always the specter of redemption cast over the various conflicts. And... Elijah would have know that going in. Huh.

David Dunn finished out that movie as an embryonic form of Hero, and I would predict while 'Mr. Glass' was institutionalized that Dunn would waver on accepting the path he was manipulated into taking (out of pragmatism and pride) but that some things once tasted would be too much for him to resist. It would be once Elijah was 'rehabilitated' or escaped that Dunn would really have to come to terms with, "What the heck am I doing? This is crazy." Because Elijah set the terms if David continues to play the game, though there's always the chance of the surprise twist. (*David* could do evil, for one.)

Anyway, wide-open possiblities on that one.

I haven't seen The Incredibles (because I can't lip-read cartoons *g*). Will see it on DVD, though. I'll try to remember to say something if I have strong opinions besides, "Cool, fun movie."

[kernezelda]

I've not seen the Incredibles or read Astonishing, but your musings on Watchmen and Unbreakable are well in sync with my own. Ozymandias' staging the world attack while Jon is abandoning the world are very striking concepts.
I was completely enthralled by the ruthless and careful planning from Adrian Veidt. He conceived of the idea, he carried it out in deep secrecy; he eliminated the threat of exposure and never once let anything slip. And when he is confronted by his peers, the traditional 'taunt the heroes and reveal evil plan' scene is subverted by the fact that he's already done it. That is one of the most memorable moments for me.

I think M. Night Shyalaman's films are somewhat misunderstood. Each one that I've seen I've enjoyed. They are not flashy and quick; they're slow contemplations of ideas.

[selenak.livejournal.com]

And when he is confronted by his peers, the traditional 'taunt the heroes and reveal evil plan' scene is subverted by the fact that he's already done it. That is one of the most memorable moments for me.

Same here. And only in a meta reflection on the genre such as Watchmen is could you find such a scene. Also, upon rereading you realize why the Adrian Veidt flashback to the Comedian during the Comedian's burial is to the argument where the Comedian said that traditional superheroics are ridiculous, because the world's ills go far too deep for any crime-solving, villains-catching activity to help them. That was when he got the idea. To make the traditional villain not just one of the old heroes but one who seriously intends, and executes, a plan not to dominate the world but to change it for better via horrible means as a brilliant, brilliant idea.

Of course, the very name "Ozymandias" indicates that he'll probably fail in the long term, either through exposure (Rorschach's diary) or because humanity will start with infighting again regardless. The only two characters throughout the story who never have a moment in which they doubt themselves or wonder whether they might be wrong are Rorschach and Adrian Veidt, and that, too, indicates long-term failure, as does the pirate comic within a comic.

[mamculuna.livejournal.com]

One comparison (with Incredibles that came to mind is Kurt Vonnegut's "Harrison Bergeron," which has bothered me in a similar way, but is much more heavy-handed and not nearly so much fun: http://www.stanford.edu/~guptaak/articles/harrison.html

[selenak.livejournal.com]

Ouch. Yes, heavy handed indeed. Vonnegut, you can do better.

[permetaform]

I really need to write out a long response to this, but I think that it will be a bit later...for now, I think the issue here, and why I could accept the Incredibles was that to me it wasn't about genetic viability and race. For me it was about *talent* and being forced to hide your talent and people creating talent through artificial means.

To give an example, it's like forcing Neil Gaiman into being a garbage man...and giving cliff notes on creativity and writing and all the classics to everyone so they could be published too.

Or another example, it's like defacing Angelina Jolie to make her less pretty, and giving everyone else plastic surgery so that they'll be pretty too.

The trouble is, I think, that Syndrome is being associated with Batman. He's NOT Batman, there's no training there, there's no personal growth there (abet Batman's is snail's pace slow). Syndrome is augmenting his own abilities by artificial means. He's a plagarist of natural talent, a fanboy gone wrong, a mirror dark. He's a fanboy who sells fanwork and, I feel, he's like those LotR girls who took fantasy too far...

feeling I was meant to distinguish between the natural elite and the envy petty masses.

And here's where I come to a sticking point. Who are these envying petty masses? The only one we really see is Syndrome. His girl didn't display envy, wistfulness yes. The boss or the principle? That was harping on ability, on forcing talent into molds that don't fit. The general populace you see in those newscasts? They're scared, that's again about the suppression of talent.

And in fact that little boy in the tricycle was there, applauding them on.

I dunno, I probably need to collect my thoughts on this more, but I can't help but feel that some of these posts are missing the forest for the trees.

[londonkds.livejournal.com]

So where do you think Syndrome was getting all that technology from?

If, as implied, he made it himself, he had massive intellectual and engineering talent. And the film seems to suggest that such talent is evil and doesn't count.

[permetaform]

Been scanning, your entries but I can't find your post on the Incredibles which was mentioned in the post...So I don't know where you're coming from and so pardon if I'm stepping on any toes.

But, first the movie allowed for several types of intelligence, and the film may indeed suggest that the talent is evil. However, what about the intelligence and engineering talent of the designer? Those fabics didn't come out of nowhere, and you never see the fasion designer with her auxillaries. Her realm seemed just as advanced technologically as that of Syndrome's, but she's applying her talent and her intellect and her engineering in a positive way. There is no way that one can argue that she's not smart and that she's not arrogant and that she doesn't fangirl the superheroes to some extent.

However, she does not try to BE them, artifically. Syndrome applies all his massive talents in order to be what he is *not*.

What if, for instance, if Syndrome had no talent for writing or for art and yet he fanboy'ed writing or art? It would be JUST as much of a trainwreck as in the movie itself, I can imagine him attempting to distill creativity, or maybe a paintbrush that would augment your talent by correcting your mistakes, or creating a database of all the best phrasings from all the worlds literature, and distributing it to the masses, so that they could create art too. But would that type of art have the soul and spirit, really?

[selenak.livejournal.com]

His original post is here (http://www.livejournal.com/users/londonkds/67638.html).

No...

[alara-r.livejournal.com]

...the film suggests that hating yourself, and thus killing other people in order to make your skills more valuable, is evil and doesn't count.

Let us not forget: Syndrome *KILLS SUPERS.* He's not a guy who nobly wants to gift humanity with super powers. He wants to be the only superhuman. Thus he *kills the supers* so that his technological skills are all that's left. This is a guy whose incredible talents allowed him to garner wealth, some amount of power, and the love or at least loyalty/lust of a beautiful woman... but *he* despises those skills in comparison to the talent he *doesn't* have, and resolves this conflict by *killing people.*

I'm a good writer. I am a suck-ass artist. This is like me deciding that what I really want to be is an artist, somehow using my writing skills to fake being a good artist, and killing actual good artists so no one can tell the difference. There is no implication that Syndrome is evil for building highly advanced technology; it's because he wants to be something he's not, and as a result, kills people out of envy, that makes him evil. And that's where his fanboyism comes in; he doesn't want to be himself. He wants to be someone he isn't.

I may have a different take on this than others, because while I am a geek myself, I have also suffered from fanboys stalking me (not because they were fans of me, but because they were romantically obsessed with me and thought that, because in movies and TV when women say they have no interest in the hero he always triumphs and wins their heart in the end, they just had to keep chasing me and sooner or later I'd give in.) Syndrome is not me. Syndrome is the guy who pursued me. That kind of attitude, the "reality will warp because I say so" behavior of *some* fanboys, is what the movie is declaring evil, not just being a geek.

Re: No...

[londonkds.livejournal.com]

I'm not trying to defend Syndrome as a person, and if you look at him purely as a person your portrait is pretty accurate. But apart from Mode, who lives only to serve, there aren't any more positive role models for non-metahuman characters in the film, and it fits in umpleasantly with the overt political posturing. (As opposed to, say BtVS6-7, where similar characters were portrayed without suggesting that they were representative of an entire cleass of people.)

People who think romatic comedy behaviour is a guide to real life, yeeeek!

This is true...

[alara-r.livejournal.com]

It would have been nice to have a Batman-type in there somewhere as a counterpoint to Syndrome. It didn't jump out at me when I was watching because I saw Syndrome as emblematic of the kind of fan geek I find really annoying, not the kind of fan geek *I* am, so it didn't bother me then... but yes, in retrospect, it does kind of leave a bad taste in the mouth. But I don't think it was a message the writers were *trying* to send. I think they were going for the "express your own natural talents and don't try to be what you're not" theme, in which case it makes sense that Syndrome is quite successful up until the point that he actually tries to be what he's not, ie, a superhero. I think, though, that leaving out Batman-type supers was possibly a mistake.