Lessons We Never Learned From He-Man
I must admit, I was rolling my eyes a bit after reading the discussion chez Prophet about Pixar’s shiny new The Incredibles. For fuck’s sake (thought I) it’s a cartoon about superheroes. I defy anyone – even A.O. Scott – to make political hay from this. Are we in danger of presenting superheroes too uncritically in our cartoons? The message that people seem to be picking up from the film – don’t hide your torch under a bushel, get the most you can out of the talents you have, be an individual! blah blah empowerment-cakes – is always timely, but I don’t think it’s particularly (or exclusively) conservative in the political sense. After all (thought I) laments against mediocrity don’t have to be partisan. I’m looking forward to seeing the film, but for reasons that have everything to do with Brad Bird and nothing to do with politics. And so I went about my day.
You know what’s coming next. Ladies and gentlemen, I present to you Lois Wadsworth, in what may be her finest hour.
I’m troubled by the ideas expressed and suggested here. Is the movie about being reluctant to surrender youth to age or relegate past heroics to today’s ordinariness? Does everyone secretly long to be a young man or woman going off to fight evil? Does the movie say to really young kids that might is always right, bigger and stronger is better, and being different is only OK if you’re secretly an unstoppable power? The American way?
I retract my earlier eye-roll. Clearly, Pixar’s The Incredibles is a sinister tool of the neofascist right, deviously conditioning our children to, um, be superheroes.
But while Helen expresses warmth and thoughtfulness through her relationships with her husband and children, the little boy Dash is getting the message to “be like Daddy,” and that sounds like a conservative invitation to be a warrior to me.
Jesus. I’m always gratified when people write this kind of thing while I’m putting a Spew section together.
