December 07, 2004

• And just for record, the second guys is for the monkeyfilter elite, the first guys is for the clueless knuckledraggers in the article. Potential ambiguity - not good.
• It is absolutely okay to misspell the word "caricatures." However, it is not so good to misspell it when the intention is to mock someone else's intelligence or thought process.
• I've read a few opinion pieces about this already, most better written than this one (the link, not polychrome's rant). Maybe there's something to it. Maybe Brad Bird really did have an anti-egalitarian, anti-politically correct axe to grind with his movie. I know that the "everybody is special, which means nobody is" theme is brought up often in the film, so there's more to the story than just a fun kids' cartoon.
• Big Hair.
• I wasn't mocking their intelligence, though I can see how that impression might come through. Actually, I wasn't aiming for mocking at all, come to think of it. Though the opening sentences could have been thought out better, looking at it again. What I was....frustrated with was the effort that has gone into looking for signs that could be interpreted as being socially significant. It's a distraction from far more insidious material. Although *grin*, if you want caricature, let's have a you're calling people stupid and you can't spell for shit thread. I think that preious sentence could do with some scare quotes too. Seriously, thanks for the heads up on the spelling. That's not a typo, I've been doing that for years. Need to bear it in mind. Maybe just avoid the word.
• *sigh* and that one _is_ a typo; previous, not preious.
• Reminds me of when critics of Harry Potter said it encouraged rule-breaking and disrespect of authority figures. Not to mention the nutters who claimed it was a gateway to satan. And I fail to see what this post has to do with Moby Gobspawn's controversial new movie, "The Uppityness of the Tights," which follows the story of a stigmatatacized cgi orgasmic purple hippotron.
• great link!!!
• Analyze it to death, you say? Okay! I've been mulling over the oft repeated "everybody is special, which means nobody is" theme, too, and trying to make heads or tails of it. The obvious interpretation is to see it, as this article does, as an anti-social-welfare message, and indeed there's no lack of similar phrases to be found in anti-commie propaganda, but the movie seems to be more anti-materialist than anything else. After all, our big baddie Syndrome is "faking" his powers through technological accoutrements, creates the threats he will ostensibly save humanity from, and ultimately dreams of mass producing the various gizmos and selling them to everyone. His only aim is to increase his own power, whereas the supers strive to help society, anonymously and without any clear personal gain. Frankly, I think this message smacks of a watered down "from each according to his ability, to each according to his need" theme. Er... I mean, hey, it's just a movie! Get over it!
• I've just realised that probably a contributing factor to going off on this article was reading this

  The number of indecency complaints had soared dramatically to more than 240,000 in the previous year, Powell said. The figure was up from roughly 14,000 in 2002, and from fewer than 350 in each of the two previous years. There was, Powell said, “a dramatic rise in public concern and outrage about what is being broadcast into their homes.” What Powell did not reveal—apparently because he was unaware—was the source of the complaints. According to a new FCC estimate obtained by Mediaweek, nearly all indecency complaints in 2003—99.8 percent—were filed by the Parents Television Council, an activist group.

  Debate and discussion is important, and that gets difficult to do when the lines of communication are jammed or misdirected.
• So, did you actually see The Incredibles? If so, please analyse the opposing view to death.
• You're right. And people should stop saying that Amos and Andy represented dominant views of African-Americans. After all, they were just caricatures. C'mon, folks, minstrel shows are entertainment! Ho-de-ho, ho-de-ho.
• "Everybody is special," always feels incomplete to me without something like "in their own way" added on to it.
• In fact, that phrase followed by "so nobody is" feels like an intentional misinterprtation or narrow interpretation of the above.
• Why don't we try: "Everybody is special, because everybody is different"...
• There is a definite fear of the "everyone is special, so no one is" idea in Western culture. For example, see Vonnegut's short story "Harrison Bergeron." Another possibility behind special-ness is the "Everyone is special in their own way" strain of thought. It seems to fall into the old tension between conformity and individuality. Also, I have to defend the right to analyze popular culture in a detailed way. Nothing surrounds us as much as popular (mass, whatever) culture. If we see it as simply "entertainment," we miss a great deal of meaning. Why are certain ideas allowed in entertainment and other ideas are not? Why are certain stories repeated endlessly and widely enjoyed? What does this say about what we value (or despise) as a culture?
• Yay analysis! I saw The Incredibles twice. I always watch these kinds of movies for the antagonists; the heroes, and their heroic angst, rarely interest me. The first time I saw it, I was annoyed at the Syndrome character for his absurd and incoherent motivations--disillusionment and jealousy. The only valid reason to be a supervillain, I would argue, is a desire to (violently) purge the world of the inherently evil status quo. Syndrome had very little of that; his megalomania eclipsed it entirely. The second time I saw the movie, I was able to appreciate Syndrome's inner conflict slightly better. The movie really does a poor job of building his character, but I am now convinced that Syndrome represents our point of view. Practically all of us are not 'super'; we know this from watching the olympics on TV or following the lives of the Hollywood royalty. A young Syndrome didn't really understand that he wasn't 'super'. It took a most embarassing incident for him to finally realise that he'll never be taken seriously as a 'hero' because he isn't 'super'. Most of us can relate. Where Syndrome differs from us is where fantasy differs from reality. Syndrome realises that if he can't be intrinsically 'super', he can at least manufacture 'super'. Soon he surpasses most garden variety 'supers' using the power of his creations. What would any of us mediocre people do in his shoes? Wouldn't we too want to let everyone use our creations and become 'super'? What could be more heroic than making everyone as good as the best? That is what Syndrome sets out to do, but he fails in the end because he is at best a mediocre Prometheus. A real 'hero' would give anonymously and expect no return, but Syndrome wants fame and recognition. He has spent so much time learning to be 'super', he has forgotten--or maybe he never knew--the sacrifice inherent in heroism. As a superhero movie, The Incredibles was not very satisfying. We learn from Syndrome that one can be a 'super' without being a 'hero'. Perhaps we were expected to ponder whether one can be a 'hero' without being a 'super'? But, without superpowers, we are subject to the only clear evils in this movie world: bureaucracy, political populism, and corporate excess. Against them, even the 'supers' don't stand a chance! The proper role of non-'supers' in this movie world seems to be to marvel at the titanic clashes, and clap when appropriate. Leave heroism to the professionals. What a dystopia!
• You people thought way too hard on this one. Is it even possible to go to a movie just for sheer enjoyment anymore? Do I have to find the hidden meaning in everything?
• I saw the message instantly, and I agree with it. There's no reason at all why somebody who can do something well shouldn't do it, nor why they shouldn't be recognized for it. Hooray for being special. The problem being shown in the film was not whether or not you are special, it's how you use your, um, specialness. If you try to repress it, the film says, you will be unhappy. However, with the Antagonist of the film, he decided that it was more important for people to be special than it was to be who you were. He didn't want to be himself, he wanted to be someone else, so that's where his problems came in. If he had stuck with being himself, and developing his own brand of specialness, then there would have been no problems. That's the central core of the movie, and it's easily overlooked because the other message, while similar, was secondary but repeated. If it's repeated instead of implied, then it will be much easier for people to notice.
• Is it even possible to go to a movie just for sheer enjoyment anymore? Do I have to find the hidden meaning in everything? But finding hidden meanings is sheer enjoyment! I don't get your point. Next you'll be telling us that you do not like solving Cryptic Crosswords.
• meridithea and fuyagare came close, but they didn't even refer to any old-timey philosophers. I'll give them a C+. On the other hand, I think that detailed exposition. is the only way, to earn an A+ here. Please find excruciatingly boring blathering on super heroes written after Nietsche kicked it. Or, there are other major programs out there where you might feel more comfortable.
• drivingmenuts: I don't think anyone here thought enough. This shit is world-boggling! If we can't tie together the philosophical meanderings of the 19th and 20th century thinkers on this issue, how will we survive our current dysphoria. Can super heroes prosper in the world of today? If they can't what is our backup? I don't think the puerile thinkers of today have any answer.
• Is it even possible to go to a movie just for sheer enjoyment anymore? Do I have to find the hidden meaning in everything? No. There's a puppy thread on the front page. Go play there.
• Um par ody mouse.
• path: what if I threw in Foucault? Or, um, Lacan? Need good grade Hee.
• I don't see much point in NOT examinging the things around us. I've not seen the Incredibles, but I mean, "Question everything" isn't just a slogan, it is a phrase to live by. If I'm just going to mindlessly absorb whatever Megacorp™ is selling, then I might as well go knock up someone, buy an suv, slap a ribbon sticker on it and drive to McDonalds every day. Baaaa, Baaaa, Baaaa Nothing is innocent. Nothing is "just a..." There is an ideology behind everything and even if you agree with the ideology, you better notice it or you might as well start wearing your trucker hat sideways and caring about what celebrities think.
• The anti-intellectual fervour in this channel is positively stifling.
• There are deeper meanings in fun films, like any art. I actually though that Shrek and Shrek II had good messages - that what you look like (or smell like) isn't the determiner of how good you are. But then they went and ruined it with the short jokes in the first one. (Those really annoyed me.)
• But then they went and ruined it with the short jokes in the first one. (Those really annoyed me.) Yeah, the short jokes totally destroyed the message. "It doesn't matter what you look like on the outside, unless you're short." WTF? Back to the Incredibles, another message inside was that you had to be born special. Real world translations would be you had to be born pretty, rich, smart, etc... Anybody who isn't born special, but still strives to be one of the elite (by hard work, exercise, sutdy, makeup, etc...) is part of the Jealousy "Syndrome" that is destroying society. You were born into your role, quit trying to buck the system and accept the fact that you aren't meant to be anything besides background noise. The kid's race at the end was the equivalent of Alyssa Milano walking entering a wet T-shirt contest at some seedy truck stop where each other contest weighs more than 7 Alyssa Milanos. Of course she's going to win, but what's the fucking point? Is she really going to be proud of herself? She should be competing at a much different level, and so should that speedy little boy. Why's he competing against the "lesser specials"? And on the subject of analyzing movies: Yes, sometimes a cigar is just a cigar, but sometimes a cigar is a penis. If The Incredibles had been a cigar, it'd have been a giant pink cigar with a purple mushroom on one end and the open fly of Ayn Rand's trousers at the other end.
• er, each other contestant, that is.
• I would just like to state my firm belief that film journalists should only write about how pretty the colours are. Anything more is an affront to the reader, and a destructive influence on the creation and enjoyment of pretty colours. To restate: please, please, stop telling us things. Thinking only makes it worse.
• meredithea, jccalhoun, those are fair points. I'm not attacking analysis per se, and definitely not suggesting that some things should be off limits. I see this as a form of culture jamming; old style culture jamming was intended to get people to think about the message behind the message, right? THIS stuff, it seems to me, is intended as a distraction; it trivialises the tools used to get at subtext and can interfere in the exploration of more toxic material.
• You can enjoy things on several levels, y'know. I enjoy analyzing anything for fun, even if I know full well that there's no hidden meaning - in those cases it's like looking for pictures in cloud formations. It's enjoyable to me for its own sake. Having said that, after fuyugare's and Mr. Knickerbocker's posts I absolutely must see this movie. (I still haven't; no, I don't mind being spoiled.) It's always seemed to me that few movies bother to even acknowledge people who aren't super-special - it bores the viewers, I guess. Who wants to hear about normal people? Which makes me wonder whether the viewers see themselves as special people, or if they are unwittingly slagging themselves: "People like me are not worth hearing about." Anywho, it's a theme near and dear to my heart and I will have to see this now. Even if that wasn't the intent of the movie, it intrigues me to connect dots for my own entertainment.
• Elastigirl was hot.
• As for saving the holy implements of talking about things for more toxic material - I don't understand this. Is there a shortage of words in the world, that we should save them up for only certain topics?
• The Incredibles is positively Nietzschean. Like, duh!
• I enjoyed The Incredibles, but the more I think about it, the more it pisses me off. The one moment that really jarred me was when Mr. Incredible was so rude to the pathetically nerdy young kid who will later grow up to be Syndrome. It seemed very out of charcter for a hero, and I assumed there would be a lesson later for Mr Incredible about not being needlessly rude to people who aren't as super as he is. Maybe the kid would even get to be his side-kick later or something. But no, the kid turns into the bad-guy out of jealousy and anger, and we're supposed to be happy when the Incredibles later dispatch him. We all see the world through the lens of our experiences, and I can't help seeing that scene through the daily rudeness people needlessly inflict on my wonderful, but very nerdy, autistic son. Like Syndrome, he'll never have what it takes to be a superhero's sidekick. In fact, he even has a "syndrome". (Why'd they pick that name anyway? I'm betting it's a joke about how everybody wants to blame their average-ness on having some kind of "syndrome" or other these days instead of just admitting they're stupid, or lazy, or nerdy, or whatever. Ha-ha, very funny.) Much-disparaged phrases like "everybody's special" were designed to make life more tolerable for kids like my son, and what the heck is wrong with that? People who already have lots of advantages, like the Incredible family, really don't need my sympathy at the expense of people who are less cool, less powerful, and less lucky, like Syndrome (and my son). So honestly, the Incredibles, though they are basically nice super-people, can go screw. I'm with fuyugare. Though Syndrome is very poorly developed, he represents ordinary people, and as such, represents us.
• Absolutely there is Wurwilf, and that was part of my original point. Space for words to be published, time for writing them, time for reading them and credible authors who can get them published are scarce resources. This isn't appearing on some blog somewhere - the article cites from the Observer, the Telegraph, the Nation, the Spectator and the Daily Mail. Heck, I'm probably trying to hard with this topic. Maybe the opportunity cost of this material really is so tiny that it doesn't actually matter. *shrug*
• polychrome -- I can see your point. There is a political end to analysing popular culture, and you want to try your best not to water this point down by "crying wolf" too often. Then you get into the debate of what's important (or what's bad enough)to warrant attention. It could be argued that anything out of Disney (aka "the evil empire" by some) needs to be analysed, simply because of the messages they've sent in the past, and the blunt instrument way they try to get that message across. Also, Disney's sheer size and power play into this. However, you can say this about lots of entertainment corporations (though few have evinced such a long-standing and coherent message as Disney. They're almost able to control their material in a studio-era Hollywood way.). In the end, I think the debate about what's important to analyse gets in the way, too. I guess what I'm trying to say is that, yeah, analysing popular culture is an important thing to do, but yeah, it's hard to get it right. (I'm saying this before I have breakfast, so if it's confusing, blame it on my blood sugar!)
• I'd also like to say that I didn't enjoy this movie when I saw it. I can't root for assholes, and Mr. Incredible was an asshole. I didn't care about his middle-aged angst. I didn't like his wife's washed-out psuedo-feminism, I didn't like his arrogant kid or his whiny goth one. The characters were one dimensional, and I was continually annoyed by reviewers who saw parrallels to The Watchmen (which I think was more geekery wish fulfillment than anything else). And I was particularly disappointed with the central conciet: that of superheroes forced to live in a normal world. I've seen this dealt with from Spiderman to Legends, and this was the most poorly rendered. I find midlife crises repugnant, and that's what this was about. Hey, y'know what? With great power comes great responsibility. How's that for a mantra? That combined with the Randyian backwash and anti-terrorism rhetoric tossed in, well, I'm afraid that the popularity of this movie reflects more of an ideological zeitgeist than I'd like to admit. I should let powerful men do what they want because they're powerful, with no obligation to protecting society? Fuck that. And people who don't think about their entertainment are morons, frankly. They're willing stooges, sponges for whatever bullshit gets tossed their way. Yes, things sometimes (especially in academia) get more analysis than they deserve. But this piece is not a treatise. It's a pretty good breakdown of MAJOR THEMES. And hey, if you agreed with the movie, why not let people who are obviously smarter than you are critique it with their full theoretical arsenal? Unless you want to hold the brightest back, you idiots against critique should just shut up. (Please, respond and miss the irony).
• I don't think Syndrome represented ordinary people. I think one of the ironies of the story is that Syndrome was a 'super', but didn't realize it. He created incredible technologies, far beyond the capabilities of 'ordinary' people, and was thus more powerful than any of the 'supers' he faced. He defeated Mr. Incredible. It was only through the teamwork of the rest of the Incredible family (and Frozone) that he met his match. It was never mentioned in the movie, but I have to think that Mr. Incredible was humbled by the whole experience of being beaten by the nerdy kid.
• But js, that's exactly what I'm doing. Why are so many major media outlets focussing on this movie, as opposed to something else. Is this really the best contemporary example of these points of view being pumped out into society. I'm arguing (amongst other things) no, and that therefore the publication of this particular analysis itself pushes an agenda.

• And people who don't think about their entertainment are morons, frankly. They're willing stooges, sponges for whatever bullshit gets tossed their way.

  Newspapers and the like are, themselves, a form of entertainment. Or at least I think they are; I enjoy trying to stay informed. Therefore, I accuse you of not thinking this through enough. *grin*
• polychrome, you can complain that the media talks about movies and the like too much and I'll agree with you. The vast majority of 'pop culture' is garbage of the most ebullient kind; its growing influence on real news is most worrisome. However, MoFi isn't a 'major media outlet'. Can you not forgive us a little indulgence now and then?
• things sometimes (especially in academia) get more analysis than they deserve "You morans think too much!" is not a criticism of anything: its an admission of a dislike or fear of thinking. It's akin to saying that there are too many books, or too much music in the world; it implies that my thoughts - my private intellectual existence - should be governed by the taste of any Joe Fuckwit. Contrarywise, to suggest that, in one's own opinion, this or that or even most products of human thought are unsatisfying, boring or worthless - that's a different proposition. Stick to that one, and grant yourself and us all the privilege to think about whatever the fuck we like.
• said with respect and IMHO, natch.
• oh, maybe I misunderstood fuyugare - I thought we were still talking about Major Media Outlets, and not monkeyfilter. Need lunch, back later.
• Spoilers: There's not just one "normal" person in the film, and it's a mistake to pin all of normalcy on Syndrome. Mirage, near as I can tell, didn't have any powers. She started out by being on the wrong side, but eventually realized that Syndrome was a nutjob. The costume designer, no special powers, and is the closest equivalent to Syndrome, because she obviously was good at working with advanced tech, even if it's only fabric related. Did she have problems, other than being an amusing character? No. The problem with the kid is that he reached too far too fast, and almost got himself killed. He didn't take the nice hints, and Mr. Incredible didn't really have time to be polite, because a) he was trying to catch a dangerous criminal and, b) he was kinda busy that evening. The problem with Syndrome is not that he wanted to make everyone "special", that was just his personal obsessive/compulsive complex. The problem with Syndrome is that he killed people. And, even more so, he killed people to develop a PR stunt. If he really wanted to make everyone better, he could have invented things to allow paralyzed people to talk, or make computers better, or develop non-lethal weapons for police, or shields to help fire fighters, or something like that. Did he do that? No, because he saw a false division between people with special powers and people who don't have them. As for the fast kid, yeah, it's not that much of an accomplishment for him to beat the other kids. However, that's not the point. He wanted to try, he wanted to do something that let him do things with the other kids, and do things that he's interested. It's not like he's going to go on to be an olympic runner. More likely, he'll get bored of it shortly, but that doesn't mean he shouldn't have the opportunity to do it for a while, just because he's obviously better. Lance Armstrong is obviously so much of a better cyclist than everyone else, one might say, that perhaps he shouldn't compete? I know that a lot of cyclists are hoping he'll retire soon so they will have their chance to win the Tour de France. What if savants weren't allowed to compete in their strengths just because they were obviously better at that one area? Would that be acceptable?
• Nobody's talked about Violet, who IS super and yet lacks the confidence in her abilities at the beginning of the movie. Actually I liked her character a lot, and felt that her lack of self-confidence and later gaining of confidence was, while cliched, one of the stronger character arcs. And the "normals" in the movie are hardly the strength-sucking herd of your typical Ayn Rand novel--the ones mentioned above, the "pretty boy" Violet has a crush on, Parr's mean little boss, the presumably non-super wife of Frozone. I liked the fact that the supers were in fact ordinary people who just happened to have powers, but also had the same problems everybody else had. For them to be representative of the kind of Fascistic/Randian Ubermans that have been posited, I wouldn't think they'd have been troubled by things like holding down a job, getting dinner on the table, wondering if their spouses were cheating on them. The oft-quoted "if everyone's special, no one is" line does sound a little mean spirited, but I think there's something to be said for the over-PC idea that you can't single someone out for being smarter/stronger/more talented just because others who are less so may feel left out. Not everybody is just as smart as everyone else. Not everyone is as strong/fast/slow/mean as everyone else.People are different, super powers or no. I think more important is the idea that people like Frozone and the Incredible family have these abilities and decide to use them to help make things better, rather than going the route of Syndrome, who also has abilities but uses them only for self-gratification and aggrandizement. I don't think it necessarily follows that the film's point is "Normal people should just let supers handle things and be happy little sheep." I prefer to think of it more as "The way you use your abilities, super or not, is what matters." Mr. Incredible may be an asshole, but he's trying to do good. That's important.
• Also, I don't think it's ever necessarily stated that one has to be born super. In fact, we never know HOW the supers got their abilities. As a comic book geek I imagine that some might be born, others might be made. YOu know, by super-charged freon accidents or interdimensional rifting or what have you. It only makes sense. ;)
• Sorry fuyugare - it's just that a review of a cartoon film which refers to Nietsche, Hobbes, and Rand in its analysis was one the funniest things I'd ever read. If it wasn't parody, it should have been.
• Why are so many major media outlets focussing on this movie, as opposed to something else. Because it sells. If you want to analyze that, that's another matter entirely. As for "watering down discourse," I don't tend to think along those lines, so I don't understand the mindset to whom this would apply. I see a situation as it is, without thinking, "Well, six months ago someone wrote about something similar, so I refuse to read this." I don't understand that. If someone thinks "Oh, another psychobabble whatsis about something tacky" and generalizes it onto all serious topics merely because the language/structure is similar, then that person is an idiot. And I really don't care what idiots think, apart from myself, of course. :)
• Why are so many major media outlets focussing on this movie, as opposed to something else. You do realise that most of the linked articles are reviews of the film? They are still allowed to write those, yes, or do you disapprove of that as well? As for the opinion columns - attaching a social, political or philosophical discussion to a topical or pop culture hook is pretty basic pundit technique, and has been since... oooh, let's say, Plato. It can be done well, it can be done badly. Just like everything else. The kind of argument, that creating thing of type X is destroying attempts to create (entirely different) things of type Y, is the first instinct of the short-sighted and the last refuge of the curmudgeon. Pop culture analysis is killing serious thinking! Reality TV is killing the documentary! Blogs are killing journalism! Video killed the radio star! Bollocks. Culture isn't a zero-sum game like that, and a moratorium on journalists writing about possible meanings of popular films wouldn't suddenly lead to an explosion of [insert whatever you'd rather see here].
• Amen. And now for a phenomenological analysis of flashboy's commenting technique, with particular emphasis on the previous comment qua comment as a radical reinterpretation of some themes in Heraclitus regarding the hermeneutics of vowels. As Hegel wrote of Flashboy: "With him we enter into autonomous philosophy proper ... here we can state we are at home and can as a navigator after a long journey in a stormy sea cry out 'Land'". What Hegel really means here is ...
• The Incredibles = bad film. Not enough T&A.
• Sorry fuyugare - it's just that a review of a cartoon film which refers to Nietsche, Hobbes, and Rand in its analysis was one the funniest things I'd ever read. If it wasn't parody, it should have been. Ah. I see. You believe that a 'cartoon film' has no choice but to be a shallow tripe. It's kidstuff after all!
• flashboy - yup, I did. yes, no and what different thing of type Y? By the way, I didn't say, or imply _anywhere_ that pop culture analysis is killing serious thought. Some serious thought has gone into the pop culture analysis of this film. And that's what caught my attention.
• Polychrome- No, that this newspaper is entertainment does not mean that I didn't think that through. What is it which you were doing? Thinking about your entertainment? No, you were dismissing mass-media analysis of entertainment. You started with a fallacious argument, that the perfect is the enemy of the good (because we're analyzing The Incredibles, we're not monitoring commercials etc.) and implied that it was condescending to analyze culture and publish that analysis. You can't have meant the content of the article, otherwise you would have used points from within the article to support your assertion. It's a crap movie, and the more people hear that hey, it's a crap movie and these are the (often ugly) ideological underpinnings, the less people will see the movie. Less money for the movie makers, and less reinforcment of ugly ideological underpinnings. I think it's great to see real critical analysis, even of naff subjects, in the mainstream press. Check out Roland Barthes on masked wrestling for more.
• I should let powerful men do what they want because they're powerful, with no obligation to protecting society? Fuck that You couldn't have missed the point more. That's not even close to any message the film may have put forward. The 'powerful men' were constrained by an overly litigious society, motivated by envy of their special powers. They were protecting society. Of course, when I saw the film, I didn't have an enormous stick up my ass.
• Why are so many major media outlets focussing on this movie, as opposed to something else. Like who? Tom Brokaw? No, it's film critics talking about this movie. I don't think the media has the correct focus right now either, but I don't expect film reviewers to quit talking about films. That's their job. Lance Armstrong is obviously so much of a better cyclist than everyone else, one might say, that perhaps he shouldn't compete? He should (and does) compete at a professional level. That's on his same level. If he came up to me and challenged me to a bike race, that'd be pathetic. Of course he's going to beat me. Is it really going to make him feel good? I doubt it. It's not that impressive for Lance to beat me in a bike race. It's not that impressive for Mike Tyson to beat up a 98-pound weakling. And it's definitely not that impressive for a superpowered kid to beat the "nonspecials" in a race. On preview: You couldn't have missed the point more. That's not even close to any message the film may have put forward. The 'powerful men' were constrained by an overly litigious society, motivated by envy of their special powers. They were protecting society. The message was those that are born more powerful know what's best for society, so don't question them or interfere with them in any way. And if you desire to improve yourself up to their level, you have a Syndrome that needs to be destroyed.
• Where in the movie did the supers claim to know what's best for society? Where did they object to being questioned? They simply wanted to be allowed to use their powers. (And every one of them used those powers for good.) The Syndrome character (as a child) wanted to be a superhero but didn't have the ability. Are you saying that Mr. Incredible should have welcomed him as a sidekick, just to spare his feelings? This may come as a shock to you, but not everyone is equal. I know it's not PC to say so, but it's true. Equal opportunity for all is a wonderful goal, but equal results for all is impossible and misguided.
• Rocket88- Y'know, someday you're going to learn how to do a cogent reading of a text. Liberal society constrains superheros. The movie portrays this as bad. By portraying it as bad, they are saying that this should not be the way that it is. When a superhero knocks a wall over on me, I don't care whether he was doing it to stop a mugging. The movie disagrees. The reasoning with the superheroes is the same reason that society does not endorse vigilantes in real life, no matter how just they percieve themselves to be. It's the value judgement that's attached to the portrayal of society in The Incredibles that allows for analysis of its normative statements, and I disagree with those normative statements.
• But nobody in the movie had a wall knocked over on them...the lawsuits that sparked the demise of superheroics were frivolous. An analogy would be suing the fire department for flooding your prize flower beds while putting out an inferno in the house next door. And I notice you're being an especially big prick today. Let's hope it doesn't last.
• Liberal society constrains superheros. No. Liberal society would constrain not the superheroes, but their actions. The movie was sympathetic because of the extreme identity-destroying sanction placed on the supers by an overcompensating society. The heart of the movie was hence the semi-saccharine moment when the mother hands her offspring their own masks, with the injunction, "Protect your identity."
• Where in the movie did the supers claim to know what's best for society? Where did they object to being questioned? They simply wanted to be allowed to use their powers. (And every one of them used those powers for good.) Your last sentence answers the first one. They did not just simply want to use their powers, they wanted to use their powers to shape the world around them how they saw fit. It's the same as Bush's "I'm just trying to save the world! Quit interfering! I know best!" attitude. Just because Mr. Incredible is stronger than me doesn't give him divine knowledge of right and wrong. And he was a bad judge of right and wrong. His shithead attitude created Syndrome, yet when someone else has a shithead attitude (his boss), he puts him in a full body cast, and was damn lucky he didn't kill him. Real world translations of Mr. Incredible would those born rich and powerful, with the belief they have the birthright of determining what's best for society, when they are really just determining what's best for tehmselves. It's like D Trump crying that he isn't allowed to bulldoze your house, when it's obviously better for the world if he does, and any claims otherwise are "frivolous". The Syndrome character (as a child) wanted to be a superhero but didn't have the ability. He did have the ability to be a superhero. He had the ability to be a gadget-based techno-superhero like Batman or Ironman. But notice they had no superheros like this in their universe. The only way you could be one of the priviledged elite was to be born that way. Anybody else who tried to join their ranks was just an annoying little piss ant. Syndrome was special. He had talent and ability. But those who thought they were more special because of their birth held him back with their "We're the only ones who are special" attitude. After all that, I do agree with part of the message, not taken to the extreme they take it. Smart people have often been forced to pretend stupidity. Even more so with smart women. Pretty women are expected to hide their bodies, or they get called "slut". People good at X often have to hide it from others so they don't intimidate. It's shitty these people are forced to hide, and they should be allowed to shine. But the "specials" from the movie didn't just want the chance use their powers. They wanted to use their powers to shape the world. They wanted supreme authority.

• And I notice you're being an especially big prick today.

  Look who's talking.

  I know it's not PC to say so, but it's true.

  Ooh, the standard of debate just dropped to Rush quality fuckwittery.
• Oh, polychrome, I really don't know what kind of 'different thing Y' you'd like to see in place of film reviews, because I still don't really know why you posted this thread or what you're talking about. Going through your comments, the best guess I can make is that you'd like to see them replaced with exposés of how insidious advertising is. But yes, the one thing you have been fairly clear on is that you think that writing about The Incredibles has a negative effect on good, serious [whatever it is you'd rather they wrote about]. I think my paraphrasing of that as "pop culture analysis is killing serious thought" is a fairly reasonable one. "why-are-clever-people-wasting-brain-cycles-on-this" "It's a distraction from far more insidious material." "Debate and discussion is important, and that gets difficult to do when the lines of communication are jammed or misdirected." "THIS stuff, it seems to me, is intended as a distraction; it trivialises the tools used to get at subtext and can interfere in the exploration of more toxic material." "Space for words to be published, time for writing them, time for reading them and credible authors who can get them published are scarce resources." Seriously, though, if I've mischaracterised whatever it is you're talking about, please do correct me. Oh, and what on Earth has this got to do with the Sokal affair?
• Mr. Knickerbocker: You consider catching thieves and turning them over to police to be shaping the world as they see fit? You consider it on par with Bush invading countries or Trump bulldozing houses? You're creating straw men left and right here...it's hard to keep up. As for Syndrome...he didn't have the ability to be Incredibles's sidekick as a child. He developed that ability later but used it for evil (evil in my opinion...I obviously don't have the right to claim divine knowledge of right and wrong). The child Syndrome would have endangered himself and others if he had been allowed to play superhero. Mr. Incredible telling him to go home was the right thing to do. The only instances of supers using their powers in the film were to stop and catch criminals...usually theives caught in the act. I don't see how you make the leap to them wanting supreme authority to shape the world. That simply wasn't in the movie.
• Ooh, the standard of debate just dropped to Rush quality fuckwittery. A self-actualizing statement if I ever saw one. So, rogerd, do you have a problem with my statement (that you took out of context)? Do you disagree that not everyone is equal? Do you want to join this debate that you find so lacking, or are you content to heckle from the sidelines?
• Ah, folks, could I propose, in the most fawning way possible, that there's an awful lot of emotion being spent here on discussing the angst, rights and duties of superheroes? Who don't exist outside of comics, amime, or live action movies that portray comic figures? Can someone explain to me why this is such an issue? Must have struck an emotional chord or two in a lot of people, but I truly don't understand it. And, I really hope I'm not letting myself into a flame war here, since my questions are sincere.
• The only other thing I can think of is that you're all spoofing the issues, which does't fit the MonkeyFilter specifications that I know.
• It doesn't?
• Well, maybe it does.
• path: It's only tangentially about superheroes, and animated ones at that. The issue raised by the link is one of egalitarianism versus objectivism, and the film's supposed objectivist message. If you can ignore the fact that it's about a cartoon, it's an interesting debate, and hasn't really gotten nasty yet (hopefully it doesn't).
• What rocket88 said to path, better than I could've. Anyways, back to business: You consider catching thieves and turning them over to police to be shaping the world as they see fit? Well, that's the problem. Realworld "Specials" want us background people to believe that every one of their actions is made to beneficial towards us. So they feed us propoganda like this film, and its worked They aren't holy, they're not blessed, but they have you convinced otherwise. This movie tries to present "Specials" as only motivated by their caring nature, while realworld "Specials" are motivated by greed and sadistic hedonism (or hedonistic sadism). They haven't been one of us, they don't understand what it's like to be one of us, nor do they care to. We're beneath them. They could've replaced Mr Incredible with Magneto, and it wouldn't have altered the plot any. You consider it on par with Bush invading countries or Trump bulldozing houses? I do think Bush feels the exact same victimization felt by Mr incredible: "I want to police the world! Anyone who opposes me is frivolous and naive! I know better than them!" Both are naive to the damage they've caused; they thinks it's necessary. They both tell themselves that they're heroes, and that they're looking out for the best interests of the "lessers", but in reality, their actions are just an exercise in dick-swinging.
• To build on Mr. K's point slightly, what happened to the world during the years that the supers went underground? It didn't exactly destroy itself, did it? After all, the thing that brought Mr. I out of retirement wasn't some imminent catastrophe, but his own fidgetiness. It seems superheroism isn't a necessary feature of this world. The supers were sent underground in the first place because their actions were bankrupting the state and people were starting to object to their help. Perhaps the superheroes were so good at exterminating the supervillians that there weren't any impossible challenges left for the mundanes. Perhaps the mundanes were simply better than the superheroes at tackling day to day problems like fires, mugging, and suicide. These superheroes are glad when a new generation of supervillians--Syndrome, The Underminer, etc.--starts appearing; the entire Incredible family breaks out in grins when The Underminer shows up. They would much rather fight them than save people trapped in fires or runaway trains. I don't think Mr. Incredible has quite the complex of Magneto. He doesn't resent being oppressed by people he considers inferior to him. Mr. Incredible just wants to take down the baddies. He doesn't do it for the glory--note how readily he agrees to the top secret mission that Mirage gives him. He does it to help keep things running smoothly, and he can't turn down a good challenge It never occurs to him to look down upon the mundanes because, frankly, he doesn't see the point. The world of the Incredibles is not nearly as gloomy as that of the X-Men.
• there's an awful lot of emotion being spent here on discussing the angst, rights and duties of superheroes ... Can someone explain to me why this is such an issue? I call on the shades of the authors of commentaries on Gilgamesh, the Iliad, the Mahabharata, the Ramayana, the Aeneid, the Divine Comedy, Paradise Lost, the Thousand and One Nights and all the rest - come O you geeks of antiquity and give path the wedgie he so richly merits.
• "She," quid: "the wedgie she so richly merits". :-)
• Sheesh. Mr Knickerbocker

  Like who? Tom Brokaw? No, it's film critics talking about this movie. I don't think the media has the correct focus right now either, but I don't expect film reviewers to quit talking about films. That's their job.

  From the article we have Peter Hitchens, Oliver Burkeman, Andrew Sullivan, amongst others. js

  What is it which you were doing? Thinking about your entertainment? No, you were dismissing mass-media analysis of entertainment. You started with a fallacious argument, that the perfect is the enemy of the good (because we're analyzing The Incredibles, we're not monitoring commercials etc.) and implied that it was condescending to analyze culture and publish that analysis. You can't have meant the content of the article, otherwise you would have used points from within the article to support your assertion.

  As I've tried to say, several times in this thread, I wasn't dismissing cultural analysis. See here and here for instance. And clearly we aren't seeing what I'm trying to say the same way. You seem to think that, exaggerating for effect incidentally, I'm dismissing all pop cultural analysis out of hand. And as I said upthread, there is an opportunity cost to publishing - it may be that it is so infinitesimally tiny that I'm wrong, and it doesn't really matter. I could accept that. But so far, no one's argued that point (aside from meredithea, with the crying wolf comment). and flashboy

  But yes, the one thing you have been fairly clear on is that you think that writing about The Incredibles has a negative effect on good, serious [whatever it is you'd rather they wrote about]. I think my paraphrasing of that as "pop culture analysis is killing serious thought" is a fairly reasonable one.

  Hardly - you've taken the specific and extrapolated to the ridiculous. The level of analysis being applied to this particular movie caught my attention. I think it's odd. These aren't people who customarily review movies; a bandwagon has gone by, and several writers have jumped on board and I find that curious and, as I mentioned way back at the start, a little frustrating. For reasons that apparently no one else finds reasonable. Again, I can accept that.
• According to the "shaping the world as they see fit" accusations of fascism or whatever-ism, every comic book ever produced by any publisher is bad and evil. For that matter, so are police, the military, and anyone else in a position where they have more "power" than others and use that power to affect the world. If you point is to condemn Western culture wholecloth, though, I guess that's okay. I prefer to think of it as illustrating the drive to use one's power/ability to further, as Frozone says, the Greater Good. Even when Mr. Incredible is not using his super powers (when he's examining claims for the insurance company), he's using his position of power to help people, even at personal risk (getting fired). This has as its foil another person in a position of power (the little boss man) who uses that power for evil. It's about choosing to do good. What some seem to be doing in this discussion is condemning the very concept of heroism.
• This is tiresome, I know, but: Oliver Burkeman regularly writes features about pop culture, and the piece linked there was in the Guardian's arts review section. Andrew Sullivan wasn't commenting on the film, he was commenting on the people commenting on it. The Guardian feature you linked to was commenting on the commenting (and you can do this for almost anything). The only people writing analytically about The Incredibles outside of the film and reviews sections of their respective papers were Peter Hitchens and Charles Moore, both of whom wrote approvingly of its percieved message. It's one of the biggest movies of the year. The levels of analysis this movie has recieved would appear to be significantly less than, say, Bridget Jones' Diary, Alexander, Donnie Darko, or - my God - The Matrix. But, hey ho.
• Is this the "objective vs. subjective" discussion? is this a cheese shop?
• the wedgie he so ... Shit. Sorry path. Please accept humble apologies and much love. *performs self-wedgie*
• Quid - I hope it was as good for you as the other wedgie was for me.
• Wedgies for everyone! /yoink
• I wedgied myself so hard I actually disappeared UP MY OWN ASS. Like anyone would notice :(
• I know I speak for approximately one person here when I say that we are all very interested in the contents of your ass. Especially if you have any Legos.
• You have just ruined both Legos, and quid's ass for me. An impressive feat of co-sullying for two relatively simple sentences. Well done.
• TeneciousPettle- Read Legends. It's an Alex Ross joint. True heroism isn't about gratifying the ego of a middle-aged man. And disregarding the wishes of others to "save them" isn't heroism in the real world.
• Whose wishes were disregarded? The suicide jumper? Are you against the concept of preventing and stopping suicide attempts? And I really don't think Mr. I's motivation was ego gratification. If he wanted to do that he would have gone to the gym and bench pressed 1000 pounds, or smashed into the bank vault just to prove he could. The character was genuinely motivated by doing good, and his definition of good (as shown in the movie) was...well...good.
• Well the title of this thread is certainly apt. APT!!
• Mr. I's motivation, like everyone's motivation, is complicated. Part of it is ego gratification--but if that were ALL of it, he'd be just like Syndrome. Part of it is adrenaline junky-ism, maybe. But part of it--perhaps the biggest part--is the desire to HELP. He's got this power, and he feels that gives him the responsibility to use it to help people. When he's getting dressed down by his boss and sees the mugger in the alley getting away, it infuriates him not because he didn't get any glory out of the situation, but because he COULD have stopped it, and DIDN'T. It's important to note that Mr. I also feels that helping people is the right thing to do, not only with his superpowers (as in saving the jumper) but also in helping the little old lady get her insurance claim paid, despite company directives to screw her out of it. And I admit to not having read Alex Ross, but I do not conced that because his (and your) definition of heroism is different or more restrictive, that necessarily means you're right and I'm wrong. Unless Alex Ross invented heroism, and has a controlling interest in its meaning.
• And btw, for all Mr. I knew when he saved the jumper, the guy had been thrown from the building or accidentally fell. He didn't have time to interview him before plucking him from the air. Should he not have acted?
• Roland Barthes on masked wrestling for more. Barthes never wrote about masked wrestling.