Keep your politics out of my cartoons, dammit!

[rjung]

Okay, guys, I know it’s an election year and everything, but not everything has to have a political slant to it.

From John Broder at the New York Times (subscription required):

Truth, Justice, and the Middle American Way

Already, the omnipresent advertising art for “The Incredibles,” the next animated film from the Walt Disney Company and Pixar Animation Studios, promises something different. Bulging in all the wrong places, its red-sheathed superhero struts his stuff over wry lines like “No gut, no glory” and “Twice the hero he used to be.”

But artful self-parody, long a staple of television comedies like “The Simpsons” and “King of the Hill,” may not be the only twist Disney and Pixar are preparing to deliver for the big screen.

The buzz out of early screenings is that “The Incredibles,” set to be released Nov. 5, carries a considerably more middle-American sensibility than the usual fare from Hollywood, where liberal shibboleths often become the stuff of mainstream movies.

:rolleyes:

In an interview here last week, Mr. Bird, best known for his cold war-period animated feature “The Iron Giant,” released by Warner Brothers in 1999, said his aim with “The Incredibles” was to provoke thought, not to communicate specific values, much less a political agenda.

“When you make a film, people interpret it a lot of different ways,” he said. “My goal is to create something that works on more than one level. If they want to dig deeper, there’s stuff there that can be had.”

In some respects, that “stuff” is likely to resonate more in conservative-leaning “red” states than in liberal-leaning “blue” ones. An intact nuclear family, the Incredibles are mired in a boring suburban life, until they dare again to be great in the face of a society suspicious of the outsized and protective of underachievers.

Evil trial lawyers are the least of their problems, and Mr. Bird demurs when asked if the unflattering portrayal of them is a conscious tweaking of a lobby that provides large sums to the Democratic Party. “I just always wondered when a superhero broke through a wall, who was going to pay for that wall?” he said with a smile. “In the small-minded world we live in, that deed is not going to go unpunished.”

Never mind that the director told you just two paragraphs ago that the movie doesn’t have any political agenda. Never mind that every person associated with the movie who gets interviewed says it doesn’t have a political message of any sort. No, Mr. Broder still feels compelled to declare “The Incredibles” a “red-state movie” just because it features – gasp and shock – a non-dysfunctional nuclear family! Who’d have thunk it???

Look, Bro-boy, I’m counting down the days before this beautiful fusion of Pixar-y goodness and Brad Bird’s succulent writing hits my local theaters. I want to read fun, happy articles about this impending blockbuster, so I can soak in the thrill of anticipation. But I don’t need you imposing your ham-fisted right-wing Bush-loving ideology into a non-controversial fulff piece, capesh?!

Sheesh. So much for the “liberal” media…

[Bill_H]

You said it. It’ll be nice to see Boondocks be funny again. Doonesbury has never been funny of course, but you’d think they could at least move it to the electorial section.

[AncientHumanoid]

Are you trying to say capice?

Well, don’t do it. It hurts my ears when you say it.

[rjung]

I think Boondocks is funny, but I agree that I miss the pre-9/11 days of just poking fun at race issues and suburbia.

This article strikes me as out-of-place as Cathy going shopping for shoes and comparing her experiences with the Iraq war.

[betenoir]

@NoClueBoy

Are you trying to say capice?

Well, don’t do it. It hurts my ears when you say it.

Not as much as capice hurts my eyes…it should be capisce. Or possible capisci. But not capice.

At least capesh looks like it sounds right.

Anyway…considering the anti-liberal aspect of The Incrediblies seems to be pretty much Broder’s invention and not something Bird actually agrees with…yeah, pretty obnoxious.

[Kaspar_Hauser]

The Iron Giant had quite a liberal PoV. Single mom, the adult role model’s a beatnik artist, and the whole point is that the robot wants to deny his military purpose and help people, not hurt them.

[Punoqllads]

@betenoir

Not as much as capice hurts my eyes…it should be capisce. Or possible capisci. But not capice.

Gaudere’s Law strikes again!

Anyway…considering the anti-liberal aspect of The Incrediblies seems to be pretty much Broder’s invention and not something Bird actually agrees with…yeah, pretty obnoxious.

That’s the beauty of Deconstructionism…who cares what the artist meant to say? You think you see something in there, and that makes it so!

[Tentacle_Monster]

@Bill H.

You said it. It’ll be nice to see Boondocks be funny again. Doonesbury has never been funny of course, but you’d think they could at least move it to the electorial section.

I’d argue the point about Doonesbury being funny, but it’s too early in the morning for me. But I will point out that a few newspapers do run Doonesbury in the editorial section (which is what I assume you meant by “electorial”). IIRC, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch is one of them…