You're in good company until Raq comes in here and throttles me.....

More Buffistas need to watch "The Wire" and not just because(George likes urban carrots!) my fictionwriting boyfriend got Emmy nom for it, although I'm an idiot and got all proud when I read that, like I could say "That's my man!" or something. God.(And my friend asked me how I could be sure I'm not a genius. Um, I know okay?)

Nah, no throttling. I totally get that people will see the movie in different ways, and it's illuminating to read those differences.

My one response is that the part where Jack-Jack gets his powers isn't in the movie - it's in one of the DVD extras. I just watched it. I thought it was great, but it wasn't part of the text I was talking about. (And to be insanely pedantic, because, hey, it's b.org, he teleports or whatever before Kari breaks out the cognitive development toys).

I'm not really addressing what my political stance is, or what I think about everyone getting medals, etc, although if you guys want to talk about that we can (maybe better done in Natter, though). I was only addressing how the writing of a movie seemed to me to take the line that I've often heard from the right wing, and agree with it. And that I got a strong Objectivist vibe from the movie.

Heck, I've been accused before of reading too much into movies. I tried to explain to my nephew the symbolism I saw at the end of The Searchers, where the couples go off as couples and John Wayne is alone with the open doorway. He said, "Man, can't you just enjoy a movie?" I was boggled; much of my enjoyment comes from looking for the symbolism or message. So that's me; YmoviewatchingMV.

(I still think it's symbolic that Mr. Incredible started off with a blue uniform and ended up with a red one.)

Well, I think Raq's right that they repeat the statement that "if everyone's special, no one is" twice, which does make it a particular point. However, like Aimée says, the first time is in the mouth of an impetuous child, and the second time is in the mouth of the supervillian, so I think it's up ambiguous how much this message is sanctioned by Bird. I do think that the way the Incredibles coddle their older son (what was his name? Zippy? Speedy? Fast kid?) when he's clearly in the wrong for the way he treats his teacher is a particularly egregious example of bad parenting. Again, I'm not sure how much Bird wants you to admire them, though, because this is when the family is still being treated as dysfunctional. Later, the more functional family allows Zippy to go out for sports, with the qualification that he has to let slower, non-super kids win in order to maintain their secret identities. Presumably, per the earlier discussion, this subdues his behavior problem, I dunno (and they don't tell us).

Anyway, I think ultimately that Raq's problem with this movie is that it doesn't have the brainpower of comics like The Watchmen or Powers, both of which do examine (with wild succes in the former and varied success in the latter) the ethical issues of having a Nietzschean superman walking among us. Personally, I think that's ok because it's just not that movie - it's a play on the goofy tropes of superheroes, mostly Marvel superheroes like the Fantastic Four or the X-Men (and how do I know that? Sometimes I wonder), both of which mostly ignore the implications of superherodom for society at large in favor of inner turmoil and implications for immediate family.

And Erika is dead right about the way that intent is used in The Wire and Homicide, but I don't know if Bird is that nuanced. As much as I love The Iron Giant -- and trust me, I love the hell out of that movie -- it wasn't exactly subtle. Bird's also worked on lots of Simpsons episodes, which don't exactly involve categorical imperative in the actions of the protagonists.

And just to be silly, Forbes Book Club (.com) has an Incredibles book for sale. Here's the metadata that helps Google and other search engines find it:

t META NAME="keywords" CONTENT="DK Publishing: The Incredibles,Conservative,Book Club,Reagan,Homeschool,Human Events,Eagle Publishing,Religion,Politics,Republican,History,Biographies,National Review,Worldnewsdaily.com,Christian,Regnery,Conservative Leadership Series,Ann Coulter,Rush Limbaugh,William F. Buckley,Drudge"

t META NAME="description" CONTENT="DK Publishing: The Incredibles,Conservative,Book Club,Reagan,Homeschool,Human Events,Eagle Publishing,Religion,Politics,Republican,History,Biographies,National Review,Worldnewsdaily.com,Christian,Regnery,Conservative Leadership Series,Ann Coulter,Rush Limbaugh,William F. Buckley,Drudge"

I tried to explain to my nephew the symbolism I saw at the end of The Searchers, where the couples go off as couples and John Wayne is alone with the open doorway.

You are 1,000,000,000% right there.

My one response is that the part where Jack-Jack gets his powers isn't in the movie - it's in one of the DVD extras. I just watched it. I thought it was great, but it wasn't part of the text I was talking about. (And to be insanely pedantic, because, hey, it's b.org, he teleports or whatever before Kari breaks out the cognitive development toys).

You're totally right. I forgot it was Jack-Jack Attack and that he did teleport.

I still think it's symbolic that Mr. Incredible started off with a blue uniform and ended up with a red one.

BWAH! Never realised that.

I tried to explain to my nephew the symbolism I saw at the end of The Searchers, where the couples go off as couples and John Wayne is alone with the open doorway.

Well, that is incredibly significant in that movie. Ethan creates a safe space for reuniting a family, but he has no place in it himself. That's the heroic/tragic thing about him, even though he's a raving nutbar.

FWIW, Raq, I agree in part with your take on The Incredibles. I didn't extrapolate to the widescreen spectrum of associations you did, but it did strike me as significant that the movie overtly stated a thesis consistent with Libertarian philosophy.

And in case you missed that, Beadie tells Frank "There's all kinds of wrong."(Very gut-wrenching scene and without the Buffista-like humor of Ziggy correcting the verbiage on his murder confession because he liked some other word better, which I mention because?) It's not really relevant to good vs. evil and intent. But I saw it and thought "I know about two hundred people who would do that!"

Anyway, I think ultimately that Raq's problem with this movie is that it doesn't have the brainpower of comics like The Watchmen or Powers, both of which do examine (with wild succes in the former and varied success in the latter) the ethical issues of having a Nietzschean superman walking among us. Personally, I think that's ok because it's just not that movie - it's a play on the goofy tropes of superheroes, mostly Marvel superheroes like the Fantastic Four or the X-Men (and how do I know that? Sometimes I wonder), both of which mostly ignore the implications of superherodom for society at large in favor of inner turmoil and implications for immediate family.

Yep, Corwood, you're right. I would also add that it doesn't have the brainpower of BtVS. Joss has clearly wondered a lot about the issues surrounding being special by birth, and whether that makes one better, and if so what that means.

I do think that The Incredibles crossed the line of being a goofy play on the tropes with the repeated hammering of the point, but that's my read. Your (and Aimee's) points about the offending lines being in the mouths of non-protagonists are good ones, but I'm not convinced. The line from Dash resonated as a "truth from the mouths of babes" statement with me, and Syndrome's goal of making everyone super so no one would be was the genesis of the whole conflict. Having his goal be prefigured by Dash served to underscore that the writer felt that was a very important point.

Speaking of Dash, did they get in utero testing to know what his and Violet's superpowers would be before they named them? Even if Dash's manifested at birth, how would you tell? 5-second labor? Or do super families name the first boy "Jack" until he gets his powers, then the second boy "Jack-Jack," and so on?

I tell you, this movie raises a lot of questions.