I have said it before a number of times; ‘family films’ which I have seen during my turn into adulthood have always underwhelmed me but as I located while discussing Coco it felt like I was just the wrong demographic. It felt like these ‘family films’ were instead simply ‘children’s films’. This isn’t to say someone outside the age range can’t enjoy it, but simply to say there is very little adult-oriented or adult inclusive content within those films and thus they shift from being all-inclusive to exclusively for children. The main points of friction here revolve around message; namely the use of watered down and oversimplified messages about togetherness, otherness and overall acceptance. If we take Coco (2017) as an example we see overriding messages of (a) trying to be accepted by one’s family as an individual with individual dreams (b) accepting others even if they are different from ourselves, when looking at Hector and (c) dealing with the breaking down of an idolised figure. However if we look back to the original The Incredibles in 2004 we see these exact same messages, most notably with the villain Syndrome completely demystifying the figure of Mr Incredible.
However one could argue that this is an unfair criticism, that children’s films should enforce these ground-level morals in order to craft positive societal traits into them—but this would be an argument I completely agree with when using the term ‘children’s film’ instead of ‘family film’, as it perfectly designates it’s audience without false promises. But even here we see a wealth of Children’s films which feel as if they would jettison any fundamental message before they would remove any of the entertainment value of the work, meaning that these messages are often sitting flaccidly as bookends to a piece which simply aims to entertain the kids that sit in front of them. This, again, could be argued to be the purpose of children’s films, but I think the goal should definitely be moral/worldly education over pure entertainment when we are talking about the media presented during the most impressionable years of an individual’s life. To cite a couple of examples I felt these were exactly the problems faced by Monster’s University (2013) and Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs (2009).
Yet Incredibles 2 delivers a pulse back to the truly family film experience, bringing a number of complicated and extremely important contemporary discussions to children, teens, and adults alike. I think it is exactly this contemporary focus that sets it apart, it is very much a film from the 2010s dealing with our problems and reminding us (adults) of them while possibly being our children’s first point of contact to them. Enough with the vague praise, let’s dive into what these really are.
[This section will contain a few extremely minor plot points]
The Power of Media
Our first contemporary message comes near the beginning, where Mr Incredible, Elastigirl and Frozone sit down in front of a business tycoon who aims to make superheroes legal again. But his focus isn’t a scheme of heroic displays instead he wants to change the media perception of superheroes. He explains how the government has used the media to simply show the aftermath of superhero happenings tying the chaos and destruction with the heroes, he aims to show the truth to the public that these heroes are saving lives and preventing huge catastrophes. As you can see, this message is one of the information age tapping into a huge number of issues that have plagued American, and world, media especially hard over the last few years. This message spoke to me as an adult, reminding me of many instances of misused media and fake-news over the past few years. But what surprised me most was Brad Bird and his team’s bravery, and genius, to put this into a film which will be primarily viewed by children. I feel that they have truly understood the educative powers of film and have boxed up this complicated but essential message and spread it to millions of children worldwide, which is nothing but commendable. However I think that this points to an approach that separates them from other creators—treating children intelligently, not as a group which should be sheltered behind simplified and idealised messages but should instead be educated about the real world that lies around them.
The Dangers of a Virtual Life
Another section which really caught my eye, or rather ear, was a short monologue given by our villain—The Screenslaver. This monologue was layered over a simple sequence of Elastigirl using a tracker to find The Screenslaver’s hideout but it’s content was astonishingly profound and, again, dealing with a complicated contemporary issue. The Screenslaver spoke of the dangers of a virtual life over a real one, to paraphrase him he argues that people don’t play games anymore but watch game shows, they don’t cook they watch cooking shows and in all they don’t experience anything first hand but instead favour experience a crafted, mediated product which lies very far from reality. In other words people aren’t living life anymore they are simply watching mediated lives of others. This monologue directly pushes this issue, which fundamentally links with our first one to suggest that we are manipulated as all we do is watch but what we are watching is far from the whole truth. Although I am sure much of this monologue goes past a number of ears as it is simply laid on top of a someone separate scene, it again discusses an issue of the 2010. It brings it to the attention of the adults in the room while introducing the complicated idea to children, who as we have said are likely much more willing and able to understand it than we give them credit for. However here we reach a narrative contradiction, as The Screenslaver is our villain we are inclined to disregard his ‘warped beliefs’ as extreme and detrimental to society (even though I would argue it is an extremely positive message to experience things for yourself). And if we extrapolate to see that this film is produced by Disney, arguably the largest producer of this escapist, skewed and mediated media in the world we can see why they might want us and our children to oppose the idea that consuming media is a bad thing, as if we stop they would lack the funds to continue dominating every corner of our cinema screens. So I think it is rather dangerous to attach such an argument to a frowned upon character in the film, as it implies it’s a socially detrimental ideal, but I still commend the team for presenting such a fascinating argument that captivates adults and children alike and is likely to spur on family discussion beyond the borders of the screen.
Femininity
I will touch on this much less, as I feel it is a problem covered by a number of other children’s and Disney films. But Incredibles 2 makes the shift from focusing on our macho-hero Mr Incredible to Elastigirl (it’s even interesting here that they opted to use her original hero name that is separated from a male-oriented adopted name such as Mrs. Incredible used in the previous film). She takes the centre stage this time in an entire role-reversal leaving Mr Incredible to look after their children, while she ventures out on action-packed missions. This does well for both gender representations when paired with the previous instalment as it makes it clear that both extremes of macho and family-care are existent and perfectly normal parts of both genders, even if the humour at points almost compromises this with Mr Incredible undermining his wife’s ability to be as good a hero as him. However the most exciting part of this foregrounding of Elastigirl, for me, is that it felt completely natural. The film didn’t feel, as many do, that it was pushing a massive agenda to prove that a female character can be as good-or-better than a male one, it simply felt like the extremely humbly capable Elastigirl we know from 2004 took the lead role exactly as she was before only with the added screen-time to show us how awesome she actually was.
Ultimately these messages can be taken or left and the film still shines through as an entertaining children’s film, but the inclusion of them makes them a piece of educative and intelligent entertainment aimed at the whole family. It managed to break my recent dislike of family films by clearly displaying the two categories of Children’s and Family films as separate, even if they are commonly used interchangeably. The former being a simplified moralistic piece that reflects the media or stories we were given when we were young, and the latter being that but with the addition of some intelligently contemporary issues.
Side Note:
There is obviously also a positive affinity in my head, and many of my peers’, as The Incredibles was a favourite back in 2004. However I think this film greatly surpasses it’s predecessor in value purely because of it’s positive, complicated and contemporary messages that the team were daring enough to include in a form dominated by archaic and basic moral narratives (that one could even criticise the original film for). And besides, I don’t think that our like of an original really has much affect on whether we will like a sequel, especially when given such a huge time-span between the two. In fact it may be more likely to make us tougher critics of the new, but this is an discussion for another day.
~Leo
Incredibles 2 (2018)
2/3/3
8/13
(Again, as happens quite frequently, this mediocre score isn’t due to a lack of quality but is simply because of a lack in our most desired traits in a film. Do you think a family/children’s film could ever get a 13?)