Conservative agenda in The Incredibles?

Cafe Society
161

Well, when you consider that lots of people would recognize the name “Atlas” who have never heard of Ayn Rand, and when you consider how many businesses have had the name “Atlas” in them, and how many of those have had logos with an Atlas holding a globe, then it seems very likely that they were expecting viewers to see and recognize a very common image? Which is more likely, that they are taking an image from popular advertising or taking one from a book that the majority of their audience has never heard of?

And which is more likely, that they based themes on Ayn Rand, or that they based them on comic books (which this is a filmed version of) and extant American themes such as can be seen in cowboy movies and Mark Twain? These things predate Rand in popular American media.

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You’re saying that a coherent whole is made from these individual points. But you haven’t even convinced anybody that the individual points mean what you say they mean, so it’s only a coherent whole to you. I think this is begging the question.

163

You know, I’ve never read a single sentence of Rand. When I saw the movie though, it reminded me of Harrison Bergeron and political correctness.

Plus a healthy disgust with our litigious society.

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That’s right, I meant to say something about that. The bits about Dash having to slow down and not go out for sports called that story to mind for me.

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I don’t think that anything I’ve posted in this thread has been out of step with the tone you have been employing through out. You want a civil debate? Here are a few tips. Answer direct questions. If you’re going to make objective claims, back them up with objective facts. Reply to entire posts, not just the one or two lines that most lend themselves to smarmy quips. If you don’t like snarky responses, don’t use them yourself. Why should I waste my time responding seriously and respectufully to your posts, when you don’t do the same with mine?

To paraphrase the Beatles, the debate you get is equal to the debate you give. You don’t like the responses you’re getting? Maybe it’s time to reconsider how you have been framing your argument from the get-go.

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Incidentally, I was perusing the last few weeks of Roger Ebert’s “Movie Answer Man” column when I came across this.

I think it speaks for itself.

167

I’m not sure this helps you, though.

Authority suppressing the individual, who eventually triumphs, is a Randian theme. And Maggie does indeed triumph over the head of the school. But this can’t be seen as pro-conservative allegory. The headmistress claims she wants to promote self-reliance, “to encourage the bottle within”, but she is actually an Orwellian fascist, promoting individuality while actively enforcing conformity. What are the writers’ intentions in making the head of a school named after Ayn Rand a suppressor of the individual? Are they making an English Major in-joke? Are they making subtle fun of a perceived distinction between conservative values and conservative practice? Are they making even subtler fun of the fact that that perceived distinction is a liberal stereotype?
So even if we accept “A Streetcar Named Marge” as proof Bird is familiar with Rand’s works (personally, I feel it’s a tenuous connection at best), it still doesn’t prove that Bird agrees with her ideas or is promoting a conservative agenda. In The Incredibles, Bird could be celebrating a conservative agenda; or, as in The Simpsons, he could just as easily be having fun with it. For example, Rand wore capes and every cape-wearing character in the films dies a gruesome death. Accepting for the sake of argument that Edna Mode was based on Rand in some way, who was the in-joke for? Was it for Randian Objectivists who would see the connection between Rand, Edna, and capes, or for the well-educated (who are usually left-leaning) audience, who would enjoy the death-by-cape as poetic justice by proxy? You could argue it either way, I think.

A very good question, that.

Most of those who disagree with you would probably accept a quote from Bird supporting your position. To paraphrase Lamia, if you’re claiming these Randian themes are part of Bird’s intent then you need to provide some outside evidence. (And yes, the burden of proof is on you.)

As for the examples you cite from the movie itself, how much of the script is actually Bird’s? Yes, he got sole writing credit, but scripts for animated films are not written like scripts for live-action movies; the storyboard artists have considerable input in the plot, characterization, look, and pacing of an animated film.

You cite many visual examples as proof of allegory: Edna Mode’s cigarette lighter, the fountain in her garden, Mr. Incredible holding up the Sphere ala Atlas. If Bird intended for **The Incredibles ** to be allegory, these elements would have to be there from the start – specifically mentioned even in the earliest treatments. But are these elements the work of Bird or the Story Artist? (Pixar frequently includes drafts of the treatment on the DVD, so we might get an answer then.)

Speaking of Pixar, is it possible that **The Incredibles’ ** message of “individuals should be allowed to excel” is there not because Bird or Pixar have a pro-conservative agenda, but because it speaks to them personally, i.e. Pixar’s struggles with Disney? (Or maybe even Steven Jobs’ vs. Microsoft?). The everyman/underdog fighting and winning against great odds is a quintessentially *American * motif, used by artists of all political stripes.

I think it’s also fair to ask that question of you. What evidence would you accept that you are wrong?

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By making this request, do you mean to imply (please correct me if I’m wrong) that the filmmakers named the character “Syndrome” to hint to the audience that the film includes clues that reveal a hidden meaning? – i.e. “We’re secretly Objectivists. Rah Rah Rand!”? If so, that strikes me as being on a par with those who use acrostics to prove Marlowe wrote Shakespeare’s plays. I think there’s a more sophisticated explanation.

Like emarkp, I think the movie is more about the dangers of political correctness. (BTW – I acknowledge that I may not be right, even though more than one person reached the same conclusion independently.) If any character speaks for Bird, it would be the protagonist, Mr. Incredible. What upsets Mr. Incredible is that “they keep finding new ways to celebrate mediocrity.” He is outraged when he learns Syndrome’s plan: “You killed real heroes so you could pretend to be one!” The import of these lines, as well as the twice used “When everyone is special, no one is”, is that no one should be content with *false * achievements.

And that brings us back to the name, “Syndrome.” The tragedy of Buddy Pine is that he was capable of being a true superhero. His fatal flaw was that he couldn’t tell the difference between phony achievements and real accomplishment. As “Syndrome”, he literally characterizes a “particular abnormality” that is symptomatic of today’s PC-influenced culture: Self-esteem is just the same as self respect.

One can be against political correctness without being conservative or objectivist.

169

Well, here’s an interesting little quote from Brad Bird, for those who still insist that there’s nothing more to the movie than meets the eye (The Gaspode, I’m looking at you):

He who hath eyes, let him see.

He who hath ears, let him hear.

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Which argument, I hasten to point out, has been advanced by no one in this thread.

171

So my question to you spoke or anybody else is this.
When did it become a liberal idea to limit people?

If you think this is a conservative/Rand inspired theme you must think that liberals want to hold back the best the brightest so as not to hurt the feelings of those that are not as special.

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It is not, of course. It is the caricature of liberal ideas often offered up by objectivists. It is the caricature of liberal ideas offered by Rand in The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged.

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A better term might be straw man. The idea that liberal ideas put limits on individual achievement is the standard straw man employed by Rand and the objectivists.

Which is one of the things that makes me think Bird’s point of view is informed by objectivism.

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I’ve read this thread and I don’t remember anyone making this argument. Can you point it out to me?

175

Which is bullstuff, pure and simple – historically, it’s conservativism that advocates holding people back:

“What makes you think negros can play basketball?”
“It’s a scientific fact that women don’t have the intellectual capacity needed to vote.”
“Who needs integration? Let their kids go to their schools, and our kids will go to ours.”
“No, Sally, girls can’t be astronauts or doctors.”
“How can a gay couple adopt kids? Everyone knows children are better off in homes with a mother and a father.”

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So, say I watch a movie that disparages pedophiles.

I come out of the movie and I say, “Obviously the writer is a fundamentalist Christian.”

Since the movie never mentions religion at all, you ask why I came to that conclusion.

I say, “Because they are attacking the Catholic Church.”

You are confused, and I explain that fundamentalists “employ a standard straw man in which the RCC is pro-pedophilia.”

Would you understand why I came to the conclusion that the writer was an anti-Catholic fundamentalist Christian? Somehow, I doubt you would. You’d want more evidence. And that’s where I am with your OP. There are simpler explanations for everything you’ve mentioned. Easy explanations. Explanations that make the movie make sense for the majority of its audience. Explanations that don’t require leaps of logic or knowlege of persons or philosophies that are fairly obscure for the majority of the US population. I would like those explantions debunked before I search for something more complex. That’s all.

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As I said in my early post, is Bird promoting the caricature, or is he caricaturing the caricature?

Again, is this pro-objectivism or anti-PC?

Kudos to you, **spoke- **, for bringing up an interesting topic. And I’d like to know what you think of my take on Syndrome’s name.

178

Well, let’s see…

And of course, rjung started his own thread to argue that the movie had no political message of any sort. And then over in this thread rjung had this to say:

Back in this thread:

jsgoddess, in response to your last post I again point to the Atlas imagery in the film as a pointed reference to Atlas Shrugged. The Randian themes are combined with a Randian visual reference.

179

rjung, I agree with you that Rand’s ideas are so much bunk. I agree with you that her straw man is ridiculous. But I think Brad Bird disagrees with us.

Just1Lurk, I think that last quote from Bird suggests that he is endorsing these ideas, not lampooning them.

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And today’s magic word, spoke- is “political.” Nobody is buying your hare-brained political interpretation. That’s not at all the same as saying there are no deeper meanings to the film at all.