Debunking the Notion that The Incredibles is Right-Wing Propaganda

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. 

Probably the most punchable character Pixar has ever modeled.

Despite his small stature, Huph is a merciless businessman with a host of unfair insurance policies, but Mr. Parr does his best to help needy customers find loopholes.  Seeing his business model threatened, Mr. Huph calls Mr. Parr to his office, chewing him out for daring to have a conscience, and demanding he act more like a cog in a machine.  Meanwhile, Bop Parr notices a man outside the window getting mugged, and begs to intervene, but Mr. Huff demands he stays put, belittling the victim as the mugger runs off.  Bob snaps at that, and even though he's supposed to be hiding his powers, grabs Huff by the neck and throws him through several walls!  If this movie was supposed to be an allusion to ideology that holds selfishness to be a virtue, and Mr Incredible a metaphor for businessmen who most fully embody that virtue, then why would it show that he despises such selfish business policies and cares about the meek?

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.

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.

Throwback Thursday: Cars 2 Review

 [NOTE: This was originally published circa September 21, 2011]

Much as I remember being the case with this film's predecessor, cries of skepticism have followed the production of Cars 2, it's gotten its share of negative press since being released, and it's raking in a ton of cash despite the ire.  From a marketing standpoint, there isn't even a real reason for reviews of this film to exist, but I like writing reviews and I like being a maverick, so I'll do it anyway.

I'll admit it, I'm a Cars apologist.  Barstow, California is my hometown, so the first film's ode to Route 66 probably has a personal appeal to me, but even beyond that, I appreciate the film on an intellectual level.  As marketable as the franchise has become due to America's love affair with the automobile, the first movie itself actually offered some good commentary on the negative effects of said love affair.  Cars 2 continues the trend of being deeper than it might seem at first, even if the majority of its audience is too young to pick up on that.

In fact, let's start with the assumption that this is a kids' movie.  In a way, Cars 2 is surprisingly dark.  With all the obvious James Bond influence comes a slew of explosives and guns, as well as the somewhat uncomfortable revelation that yes; cars can die.  One death is someone we didn't even know, but the first scene relevant to the first movie reveals that Doc Hudson, Lightning McQueen's mentor, has passed away just like his voice actor, Paul Newman.  Since Fillmore, originally voiced by the late George Carlin, simply got a new voice actor, this seems an unnecessarily macabre place to take the plot, but the violent-for-a-kids'-movie action scenes are a blast, and tellingly what this movie has been marketed around.  More on them later.

The story of Cars 2 moves quickly, but it manages to have some depth, and it helps that the film feels self-aware.  If the first Cars was set in a booming, gung-ho America with little reason to complain, this film recognizes that three years later, things aren't as ignorantly-blissful.  Oil shortages are hurting an economy based on oil, and people (and cars) are scrambling to find an alternative, despite the risks.  Against this backdrop, Mater (Larry the Cable Guy) talks his best friend Lightning McQueen (Owen Wilson) into entering the World Grand Prix.  While bumbling around in Tokyo, however, Mater accidentally gets implicated in an international espionage caper related to the race, when he is mistaken for an American spy, and much of the film comes to center around his misadventures alongside two British spy-cars.

I get it; the accidental-spy scenario has been done before.  I get it; Mater is an obnoxious simpleton.  However, if anyone can make lemons into lemonade, it's Pixar, and fortunately they do.  The general annoyance at Mater is acknowledged in the form of him getting a lot of come-uppance from other characters and being a Clousseau-like anti-hero.  Nonetheless, the movie makes him a more well-rounded character, giving him unique areas of expertise that were previously unrevealed, yet make sense given his day job, and when the cards go down and he has to save the day despite everyone else's prejudice against him, he becomes easy to root for.

It's not like the plot will be what draws most people to this movie anyway, though; that job belongs to its excessive flair.  Detractors have dismissed this film as an extended, glorified toy commercial that should be beneath Pixar, and I can get that logic, but then again, who has done more than Pixar to prove that toys can be charismatic?  The first thing that practically all critics will have to grant is that Cars 2 looks great.  Long after CGI has become so widespread that its mere presence no longer impresses anybody, Pixar still manages to wield it expertly, having created enormous, detailed replicas of Tokyo, Paris, an Italian village, and London, with plenty of subtle references to automobiles, but also plenty of resemblance to their real-world counterparts.  Through these lush environments cavort the cars, sporting, and very often utilizing, an abundance of gizmos and firepower.  The film utilizes a lot of action clichés, but it's impressive to see just how they work when performed by talking cars, and towards the end there's an increasing amount of thinking outside the box.  Such thinking works perfectly to establish a fast-moving action climax, initially a staple of Pixar films, but becoming less of one from Finding Nemo onward, but that fine tradition is back in full force here, and I'm overjoyed. 

Again, many will be quick to scream "toy commercial" at all this, and again, I don't care.  I don't care because there's a REASON that some things make successful toys--because they're AWESOME!  I'm usually a fan of eloquence, but let's not beat around the bush about this point.  I don't care if I come across as a big, dumb ugly-American for saying this, especially to people enraged that Pixar made a film starring Larry the Cable Guy: Cars souped-up with machine guns, missiles, rocket boosters and other gizmos are crazy-awesome, especially the part about the guns.  I can't stress how sick I've been getting of children's media replacing realistic weapons with dorky-looking rainbow-colored lasers fired from blasters that look like plastic toys.  I loved that they restored real guns to Rango despite its target audience, and now I love that they did it here.

Besides, even dismissed as a toy commercial, things could be a lot worse.  Cars 2 is many orders of magnitude better than Transformers 2, and that seems pretty impressive.  How can you strap a bunch of tacky gadgets onto ordinary civilian automobiles, and use them to make a far better high-explosive action movie than Michael Bay was able to accomplish using robots built from the ground-up to do battle?  Beats me, but they sure did.

Maybe Pixar should know better.  Maybe making a big, dumb summer action flick is beneath them.  In doing so, however, they have raised that flick far above what it would have been otherwise.  I appreciate that Cars 2 manages to slip an admirable amount of character development into a premise that didn’t even demand it, and that’s now the icing on an already solid cake; a cake made of awesome, tricked-out cars.  I don’t care how juvenile this praise is—some things are just cool.

Throwback Thursday: Toy Story 3 Review

It has big shoes to fill, but at least it tries.
by tommy (movies profile) Jul 24, 2010

Can you believe that Toy Story is now well over a decade old as a franchise? Logically, that means most people that were kids coming for the cute animated toys the first time are now adults.

Don't think, however that this aging has made people outgrow the series, because beneath the cuddly exterior of Toy Story is a dark atmosphere, one which leaves few philosophical questions about the ugly implications of a world where toys are alive untouched. The first film's conflict was derived from a toy's fears of being rejected by another toy, that other toy's slow, painful realization that he wasn't really the romantic hero he was meant to represent, and the horrors of a sociopathic, would be "mad scientist" who breaks and hybridizes toys for fun. The second explored the fears of toys' masters leaving them when they grow up, unaware that their toys are sentient beings with feeling. As everyone who knew and loved it hoped it would, this recurring theme of exploring the dark side of whimsy has returned--but maybe not with the freshness it once had.

Toy Story 3 is almost certainly the grimmest of the series, perhaps in part because it can safely be so while retaining the support of its original fans, now more matured. They aren't only ones; the film's conflict arc opens with Andy, the series' cheery-eyed, imaginative boy and owner of Woody and Buzz, about to head off to College, the fate of our plastic protagonists hanging in the balance. Through a quick string of unfortunate events and misunderstandings, the Toys end up at marooned at Sunnyside Daycare. The conflict then arises between Woody, who is hopelessly optimistic that Andy will come through and rescue the lot of them from a life of misery, and the rest of the toys, who are willing to embrace this new Utopia where toys are played with forever.

Unfortunately, they turn out to be wrong too when, like many attempted utopias, Sunnyside turns out to be horribly corrupt. Under the reign of a tyrannical Teddy bear (Goofy alliteration is fun; isn't it?!) named Lotso, they find that the new society has a gross dislike of humanity and forces rookies to suffer a hellish experience with underaged children in order to gain merit in the new society of vengeful toys. (Parents take note there; this film's opinion of babies seems less than liberal a lot of the time, one of many reasons you might consider leaving your youngest at home.) After harrowing experiences push the toys LITERALLY near to their breaking points, Woody hatches a plan to return to Sunnyside and free his friends.

It is here that the film settles into its own element, for better or for worse. Perhaps the biggest flaw with Toy Story 3 is that it just isn't as fresh as you hope; take our villain, for example. In many other cases, Lotso would have made one of the most effective antagonists in recent memory. A lot of publicity surrounded the character in pre-release media, even a hoaxed 1980s commercial released on Youtube, with the general attempt of endearing him to the public before they were floored with the revelation of him as actually being a zealous, vengeful brute. Unfortunately, he doesn't pack the emotional punch he should because he's also more than a little similar to last movie's villain, the tellingly named Stinky Pete. There's little about his dark secrets that are unpredictable to series veterans, so you're left with a lose-lose character who could simultaneously traumatize children and leave adults rather underwhelmed.

As to other new characters to this film, most of them underwhelm for a different reason--they're packed too tight, to the point that none of them individually get a chance to shine, merely an occasional line in edgewise, and it's a shame because many of them are rather cute. There is one big, pleasantly surprising exception, though, and more on that soon.

With all the negative things I've said about the new additions to the cast, you'd be forgiven for concluding I didn't like the film, but not correct--because while this film doesn't make as many new friends as it should (Or maybe it just makes TOO MANY at once), it sure keeps the old, and fanservice may be the film's strongest element. The opening is a brilliant tribute to the imaginary adventures featured in the past two films, both hilarious and epic, long-time butt monkey Mr. Potatohead gets his moment in the limelight at the middle of the film (still played for laughs, but nonetheless impressive), the series' most legendary meme, "The Claw" is back in a big way, and most interesting of all is the direction Barbie (yes, THAT Barbie) was taken in.

United with her canon love interest, Ken, the two become a very integral part of the plot, and delightfully deconstruct viewers' negative preconceptions of them through a number of action scenes and some intelligent socio-political commentary. It isn't going to come as much shock to those who followed this film's publicity that Ken, lovingly voiced by Michael Keaton, arguably steals much of the show, but even they will likely find some of his scenes interacting with Barbie and the rest of the gang both surprisingly serious at some times and "how did they get this past the censors" funny at others.

At the end of the day, this is Toy Story all over, for both better and worse. Longtime fans may find some of it too familiar, but they also get loads of amusing lines or even outright scenes written just for them. Parents of young newcomers may well find this more adult-oriented approach terrifying their infants, but it really seems appropriate to those of us who have grown up with the series without growing out of it, and in daring to make a film that may horrify modern infants and by extension, their parents, Pixar might just gain more respect among purely adult circles. As the third installment of what is constantly hailed as among the greatest animated film series ever, it has some big shoes to fill, but at least it tries.