Not too long ago, I wrote a blog post explaining that although I also have a political blog, I felt I could put it here on Entertainment Examiner because it could address the intersection of politics and culture without taking a specific stand on any contentious issues. I have decided that I can do the same with this post. The movie The Incredibles has inspired some political discussion as to whether it sends a message that is, at best, controversial. I am going to weigh in on that in this blog, but I'm not going to say whether I agree or disagree with that supposed message; simply whether I agree or disagree that it's even in this movie: Spoiler: I largely disagree.
Back when I first saw this movie, I didn't perceive any political undertones whatsoever. I wasn't the most insightful person at the time, but I still noticed them in other films, such as Osmosis Jones and X-Men. With The Incredibles, it just felt like the whimsical story of a world where some humans have superpowers (such people will from here on be called "metahumans"; a common and more basically accurate term than "superheroes" since the latter also implies a moral position), have been banned from using them for vigilantism after one too many scandals, and must covertly come out of retirement to stop a mad scientist. It was only upon reading some allegations online that I started to think about this movie having an unapologetically conservative message. The super-powered individuals this film focuses on, said such allegations, were really metaphors for talented capitalists whose abilities enabled them to climb higher in society than anyone else, while the laws against them and the mad scientist who hated them were analogous to government regulations based on the resentment and suspicion of less talented people. I forget where online I first encountered such an interpretation, but at some point a floodgate had burst and this film's alleged anti-egalitarian moral was being touted far and wide; both critically by left-leaning sites like Cracked and favorably by right-leaning sites like National Review.
Though one might conclude that when people on opposite political sides agree on something, it's probably true, I remained skeptical that this movie was, in essence, an homage to the ideals of Ayn Rand and similar champions of morally unrestrained capitalist ubermenschen. Then last week, I finally got the chance to watch the movie again, and came away from it more convinced than ever that the common political analysis of it is indeed quite cherry-picked. With The Incredibles now fresh in my memory, I am prepared to write a longer analysis that calls into question the common political claim about it, but spoiler alert, because I will be pointing at many key plot points chronologically--therefore I recommend you see the movie yourself first.
Assuming you have done so, you will know that this movie's conflict is primarily between the super-powered Mr. Incredible (real name Bob Parr), and the unpowered but resourceful Syndrome (real name Buddy Pine). It starts fifteen-years before the rest of movie, back when Buddy is still a child and actually a fan of Mr. Incredible--and almost immediately, the theory of Mr. Incredible being analogous to the skilled capitalist who dominates others starts falling apart. Initially, Bob is doing his thing, ready to save the world, with Buddy insisting he join in; styling himself as "Incrediboy". Bob is hesitant, shunning Buddy out of fears that he will not fare well due to lack of powers, but also youthful naivete. Undeterred, Buddy dawns a pair of flight-enabling skates and rushes back to his hero's side, not noticing that a villain has strapped him with a bomb, forcing Mr Incredible to let the villain escape while saving his over-eager fan; after which he rebukes Buddy the most sternly yet, and this leads to Buddy seeking revenge in the future.
Is there a message about capitalism yet? It's true; Bob having superpowers can be likened to normal people having skills--but Buddy actually is a normal person with skills. As an inventor of machines that enable people to do things they ordinarily can't, he may well have more ability to profit from his skills than do metahumans who can't sell their powers--we'll come back to that later. Moreover, capitalism is characterized, even by its proponents, as entailing people using their skills for personal gain; on the theory that it will ultimately help everyone. Whether this theory is true or not, Mr Incredible cannot be construed as seeking personal gain as his overriding concern in these backstory scenes is to help other people. It's quite obviously the reason he rejects Buddy's assistance; he fears Buddy will die, or cause the death of others, and both of these things very nearly happen. Buddy, meanwhile, doesn't show any concern for such hazards; seemingly valuing nothing more than the adrenaline rush of being powerful--again, more on this later. These scenes also show Mr Incredible saving a man from committing suicide by jumping off a building, segueing into a montage of people beginning to resent the help of superheroes, laws being passed against them, and a flash-forward to fifteen-years later.
The next segment of the movie shows the metahumans, including Bob, his wife Helen, and their three children, dealing the best they can in the new superhero-free world. Metahumans are forced to hide their powers, to the chagrin of the aptly named Dash Parr; Bob and Helen's super-fast son. Helen insists he not compete in sports for fear of blowing his cover, while Bob disagrees. Here is where we get introduced to a particular line of dialogue commonly cited as proof of this film's Randian agenda. Dash points out that his father says he's special, Helen says everyone is special, and Dash retorts "Which is another way of saying no one is". It's an interesting point to consider, for certain, but when considering what else is going on in this movie, its most obvious implications are far more canonical than allegorical. Everyone involved has a valid point; simply in an argument they can't really win due to less-than-ideal circumstances. Helen's "everyone is special" advice is really just a post-hoc rationalization of policies that help to hide what her son is; she isn't wrong to want to protect her children in a culture that hates people like them, while meanwhile Bob and Dash aren't wrong to hate having to hide. True; Dash has an unfair advantage over other athletes, but it isn't his fault he was born with that advantage, nor that he was born in a world that gave him no useful legal ways to utilize his gift.
The aforementioned less-than-ideal circumstances that lead to such family squabbles (not to mention other troubles), may also be cited as a parable to Randian objectivism; after all, they result from a legal ban on these people using their powers to do extraordinary things. The details revealed, however, show a more nuanced view of the government than such ideology portends. The government didn't spontaneously crack down on metahumans; rather it was in response to overwhelming public backlash and majority rule. Moreover, the said response was actually conciliatory towards metahumans; they got banned from being superheroes but the government assisted them in settling into everyday life and hiding them from those who hated them. (To a point; more on that later.) Again, it wasn't ideal, but it was a sincere and mostly successful attempt at keeping the peace. The government's representative in the film, Agent Rick Dicker, is always very sympathetic towards Bob and his family, even when shocking events trouble his job of keeping them hidden.
So this movie doesn't really seem to vilify the government; contrary to what would be expected from its supposed Randian philosophy. However, what about the sorts of people such philosophy actually venerates? How does the movie regard entrepreneurs following their selfish interests and rising above others because, as such philosophy holds, they're just better and thus deserve it? A series of scenes involving Bob Parr's job for the fictional company, Insuricare, provides some idea. The hulking former Mr. Incredible is reduced to being a sedentary bureaucrat serving the diminutive Gilbert Huph.
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| Probably the most punchable character Pixar has ever modeled. |
Needless to say, Bob loses his job, but is luckily recruited by Mirage, an agent from a shadowy organization promising to make use of his superpowers. Facing poverty and alienation from his family, he accepts the offer and boards a plane to a mysterious island. Various return trips to do various tasks prove lucrative, and the reborn Mr. Incredible gets back in the groove, mending his old costume and getting back into shape. Things are looking up for him, up until his new boss shows up. It's his disenchanted former fan, Buddy Pine; now a wealthy arms dealer calling himself Syndrome, and he's on a quest for revenge, murdering metahumans, researching their powers, and planning a massive endgame. Fortunately, Helen has gotten suspicious of what's going on with her husband, so she and the children suit up to go save him.
Their many battles against Syndrome and his minions don't require detailing in this post, and textual recap can't do them justice, but it is necessary to mention Syndrome's gloating speech to the Parr Family, as this is the last (and probably biggest) key point cited by those who allege this film to have a right-wing, anti-egalitarian bias. Syndrome boasts of giving other people powers so they can be super too, and in an echo of Dash's line earlier in the film, adds that when everybody is super, nobody will be. To some (the sort who dislike this movie), his cause actually seems just. However, the quote has been taken out of context to quite an extreme degree, and a better look at more of his speech shows his true character and motives.
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| The face of a psychopath. |
Syndrome has spent the last fifteen years selling weapons to fund his conspiracy, murdering people who did nothing wrong to him, and attempting to murder children. During a showdown with Mr. Incredible threatening Mirage's life to blackmail Syndrome, Syndrome declares Mr. Incredible is bluffing and couldn't bring himself to kill her; when Syndrome proves correct, he calls Mr. Incredible weak, prompting Mirage to retort that valuing life isn't weakness (and ultimately, to switch sides). His full plan, after eliminating the current metahumans, is to send a robot to attack a city, show up armed with advanced weapons to stop it and be hailed as a new superhero, and only later, upon getting too old to do it anymore, will he sell his inventions to people who can pay.
The connection of the two statements makes it clear that Syndrome has no more sincere commitment to equalizing society than he does to being a hero. Far from a concerned socialist, he is in fact a brutally selfish capitalist whose actions bring immense suffering. Those who deem Syndrome's goal a parable for welfare, and thus read the scene as an attempt to discredit welfare, would do well to remember that welfare normally consists of handouts of things that are unambiguously beneficial, such as housing, food, and healthcare. Syndrome intends to sell what are, in essence, more weapons. Certainly, more people would gain the equivalent of superpowers than had them before, but the effects wouldn't be egalitarian, as the richer people would be able to buy a dangerous edge against the poorer people--the effects of which could be understandably disastrous. Syndrome, though, either doesn't understand or doesn't care. As was the case fifteen years ago, Syndrome's motives entail no real aversion to the mere existence of superpowers; in fact he loves the rush of being powerful but has no regard for the dangers it brings. So no; he should not be an admirable figure to anyone who values egalitarianism and worries about the privileged harming others, and is instead far more akin to the sorts of people that far too many accuse this film of lionizing. Fortunately, The Incredibles defeat Syndrome, though it takes a while, and the movie ends with their type still illegal, but newly appealing to many onlookers. (Note, at the time of writing this, a sequel has come out and I have seen it, but I won't mention it yet.)
So if this movie isn't actually glorifying--and in fact, is villifying--the sorts of people who use their power to step over others, then what is its real message; assuming it has any? I believe it's more about learning how to be a decent person in an inherently unfair world. A constant theme in this movie is that power is multifaceted and inevitable; it may be a man who is genetically stronger than anyone else, it may be an unjust law, it may be a greedy businessman, it may be a mad scientist, or many other things, many of them not featured in this movie. The good news, though, is that contrary to popular belief, power doesn't have to corrupt. It can corrupt; the movie never claims otherwise, and there is thus ample reason for it to be externally checked, but the same suspicion of power can also lead to the powerful checking themselves, and this is important because as the film also establishes through the figure of Gilbert Huff, even people who seem meek and pathetic may well find themselves in positions of power over others.
On that last note, I will concede that I see a few problems with this film. First, every character who abuses power in this film is a normal human, utilizing economic and scientific means to oppress others; normal and metahuman alike. Meanwhile, no metahumans in the film use their powers to oppress normal people, which might send the unpleasant message that the more mighty ought also to be presumed more moral. Then again, the metahumans do cause collateral damage, so the film doesn't pretend the law against them is totally unwarranted, and for as sympathetic as its metahuman protagonists are, it doesn't ultimately arrive at the conclusion that this law causes more problems than it solves. When all of the villains are normal people, there's no real reason to believe that other normal people aren't able to stop them, so the film ends with the law still in place and the Parrs still in hiding.
Maybe that was intentional; people aren't supposed to learn an unambiguously correct lesson in a world full of injustice. Even so, the film's sequel, which involves the family working to revoke the law, doesn't really correct that course; I'm not going to give it away, but the villains are still all normal people. This franchise's world could really benefit from the existence of at least one villainous metahuman, as this would allow it more definitely to argue that laws against all metahumans aren't a good idea. Villainous ones probably wouldn't follow such laws anyway; instead it might just make them more mendacious towards society, and if they prove too powerful for normal people to stop, it would benefit them to get on better terms with the more benign metahumans. As of the second movie, this franchise still has that glaring hole in its ethics.
Still, that leaves me wanting more rather than wanting less. A flawed epic isn't the same as an irreparable one, Director Brad Bird denies that he intended to deliver any right-wing message with these movies, and with so much more commendable than deplorable about them, I'm willing to give him the benefit of the doubt. Hopefully, a third film can take the series further in that logical direction, and I invite them to try.
