"Suit up.
It might get weird."
"I'll be there, ASAP."
14 years have passed between Incredibles 1 and 2.
And while the sequel picks up
right where the first one left off in story time,
"The Underminer escaped!"
it’s striking how different this new Incredibles’ world feels.
The contrast wordlessly reflects how different our world today seems
from the one in which we watched the first movie a decade and a half ago.
And for an animated superhero movie set in an alternate version of the 60s,
Incredibles 2 has a lot to say about our times.
Incredibles 2 drops us into a world that’s suddenly more uncertain, sinister
--
infused with threat.
It taps into today’s political divisiveness
and distrust in government, our changing gender dynamics,
and our cultural obsessions with marketing and branding.
In the context of this darker world, the movie asks its fundamental question --
do superheroes really do the world good?
Does watching a superhero movie inspire us to be better?
Or does it infantilize us with the fantasy
that god-like beings will save us,
so we won’t have to solve problems ourselves?
"Thank you, Mr. Incredible.
You've done it again."
"Yeah, you're the best."
"No, I'm just here to help."
And in times that feel dark,
do we need to cut ourselves off from this lazy escape,
or does it become more crucial than ever that we have strong heroes to look up to?
"I just want to thank you for, like, for being you!"
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The world of the first Incredibles reflects the challenges of middle age.
Mr. Incredible (slash Bob) has to accept that his glamorous, exciting youth is over.
"We appreciate what you did in the old days,
but those days are over."
And he has to learn that normalcy can be great --
even if his life is a little more boring than he'd like,
his family is worth that sacrifice.
Yet this first Incredibles world is still, generally, stable and safe --
its major evils are bureaucracy and mundanity.
"We're supposed to help people-"
"We're supposed to help OUR people!
Starting with our stockholders, Bob!"
In Incredibles 2, the plates have shifted.
There’s a vague yet perceptible shift darker in tone.
And two key things have changed in the Incredibles’ world:
first, superheroes are now fighting back against their illegal status.
Bob and Helen explicitly debate the question,
what do we do if we live in a time when the laws are wrong?
"Superheroes are illegal."
"We want to fight bad guys!"
[Blabbering]
Ideally, as Elastigirl says, we try to reform the laws --
but what if that’s not in our power?
Do we break the law?
When Elastigirl takes a new job to act out in the open as a Super
"Help me bring Supers back into the sunlight."
this is an act of civil disobedience.
Following icons like Martin Luther King, Jr and Gandhi,
she’s staging a nonviolent resistance in order to change unjust laws.
"It’s crazy, right?
To help my family I gotta leave it,
to fix the law I gotta break it."
"You’ve got to, so the kids can have that choice."
So this movie is saying that,
if you really believe something is wrong in your society or government,
then you have to resist, even if that means going outside the law.
"It’s time to make some wrong things right."
The second key thing that’s new in the Incredibles 2 world is
the focus on shaping public perception.
"What is the main reason you were all forced underground?"
"Ignorance."
"Perception."
"We need to change people’s perceptions about superheroes."
The movie is referencing today’s commercial world --
in which, if you have a problem, the go-to solution is rebranding.
So suddenly the Incredibles are placed in a nebulous, post-truth environment.
Gone are the old-school Superhero values like good and bad, truth and lies;
it’s about what people believe and how to shape what they believe.
There are good and bad sides to this: on the one hand,
anyone can get their story out and change people’s minds.
"So, if we want to change people’s perceptions about superheroes,
we need you to share your perceptions with the world."
On the other hand, shady special interest groups
can manipulate and control people’s beliefs according to their own agendas.
Incredibles 2’s answer to these dilemmas of the divisive, post-truth world i
to return to some common ground we can all agree on.
"What?
Is this all vegetables?
Who ordered all vegetables?"
The magic of the Incredibles has always been that it’s a superhero story second
and a family one first.
And the message of both Incredibles movies is
that what’s normal is super --
things people do every day, like raising a family,
are incredibly hard, rewarding and courageous.
"Done properly, parenting is a heroic act.
Done properly."
So if we’re concerned about chaos or divisiveness in the world today,
we can recognize that the most heroic thing we can do
is the basic work of being there every day to love and support each other,
as families and communities.
And this will always be the solid, black-and-white truth.
The first Incredibles used the All-American nuclear family
to critique traditional gender roles --
it focused on Mr. Incredible’s masculine pressure to be strong all on his
own,
"I have to do this alone."
and Elastigirl’s female burden of feeling she has to overextend herself
to take care of others.
But in the sequel we’re starting to see these traditional family roles changing,
and pretty explicitly reflecting today’s Me Too Era and the Future is Female mood.
Elastigirl gets to steps out into the spotlight,
no longer defined by her relationships.
"Bye, sweetie."
"I’ll watch the kids.
No problem."
"I like Mom’s new job."
This is actually uncomfortable for Helen at first,
because she’s used to supporting others.
Now, she gets to experience others supporting her.
"What gets presented to me in particular is the opportunity
for me to explore being exclusively Elastigirl,
whereas I’ve been Helen Parr, mother, wife, predominantly for years."
Elastigirl shines in her new role,
and rediscovers a more independent piece of herself
that she’s forgotten about.
"Wow, a new Elasticycle."
"Elasticycle?
I didn’t know you had a bike."
"Yeah, I had a Mohawk.
There’s a lot about me you don’t know."
Going out into the world she also sees
that she’s having an impact on other women.
"I felt like an outcast, before, but now with you being you,
I feel like...
Yay me."
So it’s important that she’s stretching herself
out of her comfort zone,
and not just for her own sake.
"Helen makes the choice to go out and support her family,
they need her to go out there and make some money,
and they also need her to make supers legal again.
She wants her kids to be fully realized
as supers in the world."
Yet equally as heroic is Bob’s growth in the domestic sphere,
as he learns the value of being a stay-at-home dad
and supporting his wife’s career.
"Cookie!
Cookie!
Cookie!"
It’s an understatement to say
it’s difficult for Mr. Incredible to step aside
and let his wife be center stage.
“Elastigirl is our best play.”
“Better than...me?”
[Coughs]
"Probably the first idea I had about this movie was
right on the heels of the original movie,
and that was that I wondered how Bob would take it
if his wife got the assignment rather than him.
And it's not because he think poorly of his wife,
it's because he so believes in his own ability."
Bob has to come to understand
how hard it really is to be the primary caregiver.
"They want us to do it this way."
"I don’t know that way.
Why would they change math?
Math is math.
Math is math!"
"It sounds mundane and easy but it’s a much more difficult job
than most people, most guys, would think."
"We needed AA batteries, but I got AAAs.
Now we still need AA batteries."
Yet it’s heartwarming -- and empowering --
to watch Mr. Incredible eventually start to take pride in his new role
as a stay-at-home dad.
However fantastic Elastigirl is at her new job,
she can’t have this chance without Bob supporting her choice.
"I couldn't have done this if you haven't taken over so well."
In the first movie,
Mr. Incredible had to learn that he needed his family
and couldn’t do it all on his own.
"I'm not...strong enough."
"If we work together, you won't have to be."
In this movie, both parents end up needing their kids’ help.
So whether it’s the mom or the dad out there being the primary breadwinner,
the ultimate lesson is still the same --
family is strong together.
Sometimes we have to forego the glory
and take on responsibilities that aren’t what we feel like doing,
but the end game is helping the unit as a whole succeed.
"I got to succeed, so she can succeed, so WE can succeed."
"I get it, Bob.
I get it."
The villain of Incredibles 2, the Screenslaver,
aims some scathing critiques at today’s entertainment culture.
"The Screenslaver interrupts this program for an important announcement."
The Screenslaver uses screens to hypnotize characters
and turn them into puppets.
So this is getting at how passively consuming entertainment
can turn us into zombies, without agency.
"It defines who I am."
"We're not saying you have... what?"
"Someone on TV said it."
Even the Screenslaver’s name is a statement in itself --
it announces that modern people are slaves to their screens.
"The Screenslaver is a commentary on our addiction, attraction to screens
and the way in which they hypnotize us and maybe what they’re doing
to our behavior a little."
The Screenslaver argues that we consume packaged versions of reality
via our screens in order to avoid actually living ourselves.
So on the one hand,
the Screenslaver is warning of the evils of distraction-entertainment in general.
On another level, the Screenslaver attacks our desire
to watch superhero characters specifically --
the argument is basically that people watch superheroes
as an escape,
instead of facing the hard work that we really do need to do
to make our lives and our world better.
Other superhero movies also explore this question
of whether Superheroes actually do more harm than good.
"What would you call a group of U.S.-based, enhanced individuals
who routinely ignores sovereign borders,
and inflict their will, wherever they choose?"
"A lot of superhero movies took this path where so much has happened,
or when they do their super things there’s so much residual damage,
that now everybody wants to go, well 'is it worth it?'"
But in Incredibles --
since it’s combined with this commentary on screens --
the question of whether superheroes are good for us
is really a stand-in for the question of whether superhero movies are good for us.
Does watching superhero blockbusters actually inspire us
to be braver or more moral in our lives?
Or are these movies just distractions that let us briefly imagine being powerful,
so that afterwards we feel content not to act in our own world?
This is an age-old debate, most famously associated with Bertolt Brecht,
who argued that theater should leave audiences with critical distance
and not give them a satisfying emotional climax,
so that they go home motivated to enact social change.
At one point in the film,
Helen mentions that she has both a cynic and a believer in her.
The Screenslaver’s criticisms of society are valid,
but they’re the cynical truth.
And the movie ultimately leaves us with the other side of the truth --
the believer’s truth.
Which is that Superheroes and their movies can empower us to be better.
"Their life could be mundane, but they choose to be heroic."
Moreover, Incredibles 2 suggests that these role models are needed
most of all in times that feel chaotic or scary.
What Incredibles 2 leaves us with most of all is that,
however uncertain you feel about the direction your world is going in,
you do contain the powers within you to make a positive difference --
because, for all his flaws, Syndrome was kind of right
all those years ago --
"Everyone can be super."
all of us normals really are Supers, too.
Or at least we can be.
"You will be great."
"I will be great, and you will, too."
"We will both be great."
Hi, guys.
Susannah and Debra here.
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