Sometimes, I feel like a zombie when it comes to pop culture. Each new album, show, or movie feels at best mediocre. My internal critic reigns supreme, and I can find fault with anything. If there is style it’s missing substance, if there is craft there’s a lack of heart. I don’t like feeling this way, a cynical, a soulless member of the literati who enjoy talking down art more than celebrating it.
Thankfully something always comes around that knocks me off my high horse. In high school it was the wistful romance of “Before Sunrise”, in college the black humor of “Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim”, and in my early twenties it was Star’s more-heartwrenching-than-normal “The North.” Once a year or so, a piece of pop culture will truly delight me and assure me that yes my soul is still intact. This year, it was Pixar’s long-awaited Incredibles sequel.
The first Incredibles is one of my all-time favorite films, and I think the sequel more than stands up to the original. In addition to delighting the audience, part two is also more thematically rich. It re-explores the notion of exceptionalism and exceptional people (it is afterall, a movie about superheroes), but more topically, Brad Bird dives into the hairy subjects of mass media, economic inequality, and tolerance (or intolerance) for minorities.
The central antagonist is the “Screenslaver,” a tech prodigy who uses screens to hypnotize victims, and then coerces them into doing crimes for him (or is it her?). More interesting to me is his worldview – as he battles Elastigirl he waxes poetic about our collective addiction to “ease over quality.”
“You don’t talk, you watch talk shows; you don’t play games, you watch game shows.”
It seems that his use of technological terrorism is a roundabout critique on technology itself – an urgent warning to our growing dependence, a call for the masses to take control of their own lives. He’s not wrong.
More striking and perhaps less obvious are references to a chasm between rich and poor. In the opening act, the Incredibles find new patrons in the siblings Deavor, captains of industry born to vast wealth. On the way to meeting these blue bloods, our heroes literally ride a glass elevator through the clouds into rarefied air. It turns out that the Deavors have a family tradition of superhero apologism. Their father was a big fan, and kept a direct phone line to supers. If the notion of special access to a limited resource for the elite doesn’t give you pause, you haven’t been paying attention to our recent political climate. I couldn’t help but anticipate a twist in which the Deavors try to legalize supers in order to put them at the beck and call of the plutocracy. Surprisingly, the plot turned out to be less surprising.
Lastly, in a time in which we are talking daily about walls, cages, and deportations, the use of the term “illegals” carries potent symbolism. Perhaps the metaphor is a bit obvious and overwrought, but in a unmistakable echo of the X-men series, the banned supers are a sympathetic stand-in for outsiders and the marginalized. In today’s America, it is an clear reference to immigrants.
More than any of the themes above however, the movie is really about a rebuke to cynicism. We later find out that the Screenslaver is a cover for Evelyn Deavor, the disheveled prodigy Deavor sister. She believes that supers weaken society by fostering a creeping dependence. I actually found myself sympathetic to her worldview: consumer media culture is indeed problematic, and I agree that in a democratic society, reliance on heroes, idols, and celebrities can erode our own sense of civic responsibilities. So what makes Evelyn a villain? Sure her tactics recklessly endanger lives, but I think it is her cynicism that makes her worthy of the our disdain. Early on, the avuncular Rick Dicker regrets that the powers-that-be don’t trust anyone who is motivated by the “right thing to do.” Evelyn embodies such cynicism, a worldview that precludes the possibility of virtue and altruism in good faith. It is an insidious and dangerous mindset, it is also one that is growing deeper roots in today’s America.
In spite of all the great complexities and nuances here, Incredibles 2 is still first and foremost an animated family film, and as such it is a soaring success . It’s primary virtue is that it’s just so darn fun. JackJack, the Parr family baby, is the indisputable crowd-pleaser. He reveals a spectacular set of superpowers as he baby talks his way into the audience’s heart. One sequence has him square off with a determined but outmatched raccoon. The rodent narrowly misses laser beams and tumbles through fight clouds in mid-air. It is pure slapstick and unadulterated joy.
Tying together the potent combination of comedy, action, and some pretty dense ideas into a story that works is a big heart underlying the movie. This heart is the Parr family, one with believable rough edges surrounding an essentially loving nuclear family. Remarkably each relationship in the family feels tonally authentic and true to life. Perhaps my favorite subplot is far from the flash and glitter in which Violet the moody daughter dumps her teenage romance frustration on her dad in the form of white hot adolescent anger. Dad’s awkward efforts to help are poignant and heartfelt. I couldn’t help but marvel at the attention the animators put into the dialogue, pacing, and framing to give such an cliched after-school-special subplot such incredible emotional resonance. Okay Pixar you win again, shut up and take my money.
Jack Wang 