I believe it was the intent of the filmmaker to convey these Randian (and other conservative) themes.
Is he going to say that in print? Of course not. He’d be foolish to do so, since it might alienate a large segment of the market. I expect Bird is a better businessman than that.
Familiarity with Rand? Well, I believe Bird was on the Simpsons staff the year Maggie wound up in the Ayn Rand Daycare Center. Does that help you?
Cite?
In every article I’ve seen, Bird has refused to be pinned down on this subject. From USA Today:
This is the most pathetic pile-on I’ve ever seen. If y’all are going to pile on me, please do a better job of it! 
Here’s some outside reading for those unfamiliar with Ayn Rand: Synopsis of Atlas Shrugged. From that synopsis:
See the parallels or don’t. I can’t make you see 'em.
So does that mean the popular DC Kingdom Come graphic novel also ripped off Atlas Shrugged? In Kingdom Come most of the old tyme superheroes like Superman, Wonder Woman, Green Lantern and Batman either retired completely or cut themselves off from most of the world. The results were ultra-violent heroes who had more interest in killing their foes then saving people and things were getting bad.
Of course in The Incredibles there’s no clear decline shown like there was in Kingdom Come or Atlas Shrugged. Still, I do believe your comparisons are valid whether or not Byrd meant to include them in his movies. Hey folks, just because you see something the artist didn’t mean to include doesn’t make your point of view less valid. Personally, I think the Atlas Shrugged connetion is not the main theme of the movie.
Did the Randian connections make this movie more enjoyable or less enjoyable for you?
Marc
Quite possibly. I haven’t read it.
I have heard that the world of comic books is rife with objectivists/libertarians these days, but I’m not close enough to the industry to know if that’s true.
Forgot to answer this. I diagree strongly with Randian philosophy and libertarian politics. On the other hand, I appreciate a film that has layers of meaning. So it’s a mixed bag. On the whole, I probably enjoyed it more, because it allowed me to have this pleasant debate with my friends at the SDMB.
The thing is that you have brought up things that may point to a Rand-theme in the movie.
Other people are pointing out different, and they feel, more plausible explanations for those things.
I could easily say how Mr. Incredible represented the Communist revolution.
After all his suit was blue and he worked alone. (each person is out for themselves)
Later his whole family works together. From each according to his abilities and they all wear red. Clearly united they stand against the machines of industry. Syndroms henchmen are all slaves to machinery as Syndrom doesn’t have power, he just controls the means of production.
So Mr. Incredible is a commie.
“We certainly looked at Edith Head, but there are actually a lot of female fashion designers that have giant glasses,” Bird said. “Also, Patricia Highsmith was an influence. She wrote The Talented Mr. Ripley. When you’re designing a character, you’re just saying, ‘Who is that?’ We have drawings where she’s taller and fatter and older and younger and thin. We tried a lot of stuff, and we ended up with something that reminds you of Edith Head and Linda Hunt.”
Jesus Christ, man. A dictionary definition? Do a little real research into the subject next time before you go shooting your mouth off. Of course the dictionary doesn’t make a meaningful distinction between allegory and metaphor. Dictionaries represent popular usage, and most people don’t understand the difference. We’re talking about a technical term used in a specialized field towards which most people do not devote any serious amount of study. If you want to understand allegory (and especially if you’re going to snark at other people for not understanding allegory) try and find a real reference source that spends more four lines explaining the fucking term.
From here:
“An allegory is distinguished from a metaphor by being longer sustained and more fully carried out in its details, and from an analogy by the fact that the one appeals to the imagination and the other to the reason.”
From here:
“The allegory is closely related to the parable, fable, and metaphor, differing from them largely in intricacy and length.”
From here:
“In an allegorical narrative, each character (or, sometimes, object) has both a literal meaning and a consistent metaphorical meaning, and the story proceeds on two levels at once.”
From here:
“An allegory is a work of fiction in which the symbols, characters, and events come to represent, in a somewhat point-by-point fashion, a different metaphysical, political, or social situation.”
And that’s just what I could find on-line at work.
Right, because no one has ever made it anywhere in America by courting conservative sentiments. :rolleyes:
Dude, the libertarian who complained about the lamb short was joking. I think.
The question should be does it help you. I am not the one trying to argue that Bird is a closet Randian, remember?
I’ve seen at least one suggestion that the movie’s portrayal of all supers as good guys (the three villains we saw were normals using tech – very explicitly so in the case of Syndrome) reflected Nietzsche’s idea of the “superman” (he saw the “superman” as morally superior, not merely stronger and smarter).
The more straightforward explanation is that the backstory just doesn’t work if there are inherently powered supervillains (as opposed to tech-using ones who can be locked up like any other crook once their toys are disabled and taken away) – in that situation, the government obviously wouldn’t have the option of banning superheroes.
Actually, I find it odd in the extreme that there are (or were) lots of supers but not one of them went evil. Were there any references to supervillians in Mr. Incredible’s/Frozone’s reminiscing? Heck, I can see Dash going evil, and the baby is, heh, a wildcard. I hope the sequel throws in a supervillian or two. It ain’t a megabattle without a whole bunch of buildings knocked over, and the big robot thing has been done.
Just blue-skying, here, but everyone who had superpowers in the movie was about the same age, Dash, Violet, and the baby excepted. There’s no mention of any new supers arising during the ban, and no mention of elderly supers who might have retired of their own freewill before the government ban. In fact, the ban itself suggests the whole super phenomenon is rather recent. Maybe there was one incident that created a bunch of unprecedented superbeings (A meteor shower, or cosmic rays, or flouride in the water… whatever), with no new ones coming along until the old ones started having kids. Perhaps, of that one batch of superheroes, all the evil ones had been killed off before the movie started, leaving only science villains and non-powered lunatics to act as foils for the remaining supers.
Perhaps it’s just character economy. You really only need two villains: One for the early sequence, and one for the body of the movie. You need a bunch of heroes to act as victims for the bots Syndrome was building. There may have been supervillains that just didn’t appear in this movie.
What can I say? I’m a popular guy. Can’t you tell from the thread responses?
No, you are talking about technical meaning. I am using the term as it is popularly understood.
At any rate, I think the allegory was sustained throughout the movie.
My guess would be that Bird originally conceived this movie as a purely Randian allegory, where society’s overachievers were being held back, but then ultimately prevail (the central theme of Rand’s works).
After 9/11 (notably many months before filming began), he saw the opportunity to modify the film somewhat to include the terrorism themes. Note that this would have required only slight modification: make the name of the villain Syndrome (terrorism being a syndrome of sorts, no?), add the line about using full powers and about Syndrome wanting to kill people, and voilá, you have added another layer of meaning to the film.
Now you can view The Incredibles (or perhaps all supers) not just as society’s over-achievers, but alternatively as allegorical Americans. (Not Violet alone, by the way.) Shunned by the rest of the world because of the damage they (which is to say we Americans) sometimes do, even though their (and our) intentions are not evil.
But then a real threat comes into the world (Syndrome) and the supers must spring into action. The Incredibles must learn to use their full powers against Syndrome without fear. They must be willing to kill to defeat him, because he intends to kill them.
(Note: the image of Mr. Incredible with the globe-shaped robot on his shoulders beautifully serves both allegorical meanings.)
Your homework assignment: Please explain the super-villain name Syndrome.
None that would distinguish between inherently-powered villains and normals with gadgets.
And you are using it incorrectly. The term has a specific meaning, especially in the context of a discussion of this nature. That you are misusing it in a common way does not make that misuse any less incorrect.
And I’m only making an issue of it because you got pissy with Marley23 for using the term as it is meant to be used.
Then what does Violet’s putative boyfriend represent?
Again, if you’re going to make claims about the film maker’s actual intentions, you’re going to need some solid evidence to back up your claims. Bird has publically stated on numerous occasions that the allegory he was working with in the movie was the family unit, and has never made any mention of Ayn Rand or objectivism. I don’t have any problems with your interpretation per se, although I don’t agree with it, but I do object to your insistance that your interpretation tells us more about Brad Bird than it tells us about you.
Terrorism is a “syndrome”? That’s a hell of a stretch, there. Further, I don’t see anything in the movie that directly relates to the concept of terrorism that isn’t contained in the normal supervillain trope.
There’s nothing wrong with this interpretation, so long as you recognize that it is merely an interpretation, and that there are equally compelling interpretations that run entirely counter to what you’re suggesting.
I don’t really have one. I don’t think one is necessary to understanding the movie. If anything, I suppose it is a comment on his mental health.
Marley23 didn’t use the term at all. He was essentially taking the position that a cigar is just a cigar. (Or “A is A” if you like. 
)
I merely pointed out to Marley23 that there is such a thing as allegory.
Sometimes A is more than A.
(And Miller, quibbling over whether it’s technically an allegory or a metaphor is a silly exercise in semantics that misses the point.)