I dislike “The Incredibles,” an animated movie released by Pixar in 2004.

To be clear: I think the movie is of high quality from a technical perspective. By this I mean that the animation is well-rendered, the character voices are well-acted, and the music, sound, editing and so forth all reflect the high level of talent and effort so many of us have come to expect from Pixar studios. “The Incredibles” is also a popular and critically acclaimed film (hence the sequel). But I dislike the movie anyways.

I have sometimes experienced feelings of confusion and isolation that come from disagreeing with the critical or popular consensus about a work of art. But reading a review from even one other person who shares my opinion is usually the cure. Sometimes you just need to hear that you’re not the only one. So I have published an account of my feelings because I suspect that others might share those feelings.

I dislike “The Incredibles” because every time I consider the movie, I become more disturbed by the ideas in the script. In particular, I feel revulsion at the way the script examines (or fails to examine) the immoral actions of Bob “Mr. Incredible” Parr, who is arguably the film’s main character.

A World Created to Oppress “Supers”

The limitations of the writers are apparent during the prologue, which informs the audience that plaintiff’s lawyers (I am a plaintiff’s lawyer) have caused superheroes to be banned. We are informed that the people rescued by superheroes (such as Bob Parr a.k.a. Mr. Incredible) brought so many lawsuits against the heroes who rescued them that the whole superhero thing had to be called off — and that this development is a tragedy for everyone. This idea outrages me; it feels like libel against the justice system. False beliefs about the tort system — beliefs validated by this film — have devastating practical consequences for ordinary Americans whose fellow citizens often vote to damage the justice system based on these false beliefs. 

After the prologue, the first act of the movie goes on like this: Bob, a former superhero, demonstrates a range of about 2 emotions: boredom and frustration. Everything in his life is boring and constrains him (his job, his family), and this frustrates him. He still wishes he could be a superhero. He wishes this so much that he illegally moonlights as a superhero and lies to his wife about it.

When Bob’s super-powered son is caught “pranking” a teacher by placing a tack on the teacher’s chair with his powers (this “prank” is morally wrong and also a crime), Bob is excited to see his son use his powers and undermines his wife’s attempt to discipline their son. Thus, the central moral contradiction of the script appears: Bob aspires to restore his status as a superhero, but can’t treat his wife with respect or teach his son right from wrong.

Bob’s boredom and frustration follow him everywhere. Bob works in customer service at an insurance company and his boss orders him to confuse customers as much as possible so that even a kind, elderly woman cannot make a claim through her policy. There are also humdrum relationship problems at home. And so on.

All of this is a crafty writing trick: by portraying everyday life as impossibly boring, frustrating, and bureaucratic, the life of a superhero will seem immensely desirable.

Bob’s Violence and the Script’s Sympathy

Eventually, Bob crosses a moral threshold. When Bob’s boss is disciplining him for helping a customer (working in customer service is difficult, but usually not for this backwards reason), Bob somehow sees a mugging taking place right next to their offices. Bob’s boss notices that Bob wants to help, but chews him out and threatens to fire him if he leaves the meeting. Afraid of losing his job, Bob stays put — only to be patronized by his boss and watch the muggers get away with their crime.

Bob is an enormous man and has a corresponding superpower: great physical strength. Bob is so strong that he lifts entire trains as part of his workout routine. Bob’s boss is caricatured as a tiny, whiny, ugly, annoying man.^[1]With this, the story informs us that small, ugly men are to be despised, and that large, handsome men are to be lauded.

What does Bob do? Bob picks up his boss with a choke-hold and throws him through a wall. 

Bob’s boss survives this assault by the writers’ fiat (we see the boss in a body cast). But given Bob’s strength, I cannot describe this attack as anything less than attempted murder. 

Bob’s actions should demonstrate to the audience that he is a meat-head who cannot think rationally and will explode into violence with slight provocation. The only leverage Bob’s boss had over Bob was to fire him, and Bob threw away his job when he threw his boss through the wall. Bob could have just walked away and never seen that annoying boss again, but instead he attempted to murder the man.^[2]When Bob has to choose between protecting the mugging victim and keeping his job, the correct moral choice between those two is unclear, true. But Bob irrationally choose NEITHER, and instead let the mugger get away and then attacked his boss. That’s not defensible, that’s not understandable. … Continue reading

After this, Bob should be under arrest and talking to his lawyer about the attempted murder charges against him. But somehow in the world invented by this script — a world where superheroes were banned due to the personal injury lawsuits — the only consequence Bob suffers from this is the loss of his job.

What disturbs me so much about this scene is what the movie wants us to feel about Bob. I’ve seen this movie many times. The audience is supposed to sympathize with Bob, as if every person fantasizes about murdering their own bosses. And not only that; the movie wants the audience to feel that Bob, who is physically strong and morally courageous, is justified in attacking his physically weak, moral coward of a boss — even though this boss is not a present danger to anybody and not guilty of anything worse than bad-faith insurance denials.

Bob continues on like this, lying to his wife about getting fired, secretly getting an entire other career, gaslighting her about a woman’s hair she found on his clothes (she correctly determines that it is the hair of a young woman, but Bob lies to her face and angrily says it belongs to an old lady). Eventually Bob’s reckless, selfish decisions, his lies and deceptions, his violent actions and crimes, endanger his entire family, all of whom are nearly killed multiple times by the villain (introduced later in the movie).

A World Created to Oppress Able-Bodied Men

Bob’s bad experiences in the first act of the movie — specifically, his chafing at his life as a white-collar worker and family man — are analogous to the experiences of many middle-aged men. In my opinion, this is exactly the purpose of this act: to make everyday life look awful and to make Bob relatable.

Bob’s reaction to his situation is also, sadly, representative of how men sometimes respond to those feelings — including violently lashing out at people he personally knows as if they are somehow to blame for his way of life. Bob’s strength of moral character is no better than a man who beats his dog because he feels powerless. I would never want such a person put in any position of power, let alone trust a man like that with protecting life. He demonstrates that he does not deserve to be a superhero by committing a crime out of anger that, in real life, puts many people in jail for years.

But my point is much more serious than just criticizing Bob’s actions. My problem is not that Bob is a flawed protagonist. What I dislike about “The Incredibles” is that the movie tells us that Bob is righteous, that Bob is sympathetic, that Bob really is a hero. I can’t stand it. It disgusts me. Many people feel like Bob at one time or another, but they need to get a different job, go to family counseling, etc.

The Fantasy of Able-Bodied, White, Cisgendered, Heterosexual Male Oppression

For a story about oppression/repression, the writers created the worst possible main character. The writers chose to have the main character be a handsome, able-bodied, heterosexual white man of fantastic physical strength and agility. In real life, such men are not oppressed by the government or society. Indeed, in America, such men get most of what they want with considerably smaller effort than other people.

The things Bob dislikes (white collar work, crappy bosses, domestic life, bureaucracy) are experiences common to many men. For the most part, I don’t think his experiences are coded to be anything other than how they are literally represented — I think the whole point is to contrast a caricature of boring “normal” life with Bob’s desire to live as a super hero.^[3]I make one exception: Bob’s secret adventure on superhero island is clearly meant to be an analogue for an extramarital affair.

A friend (and fan of “The Incredibles”) once asked me to imagine Bob as a closeted gay man or as a transgender person. The point was, I believe, to help me sympathize with Bob’s character and interpret Bob’s actions more charitably. I guess I am still offended by the suggestion, so I’m going to incorporate my thoughts on that into this review.

The analogy is improper because LGBTQ people commonly fear that bigots will harass, hate, and physically attack them once those bigots learn the truth about who they are. Bob’s boss threatens to fire him for insubordination, not for being super. And most importantly, Bob can (and does) destroy his boss without facing serious consequences — the fantasy of a straight white cisgendered able-bodied man. Actual oppressed people in America rarely retaliate against oppressors with physical violence because they won’t win and predict they would be killed in response.^[4]But able-bodied white men, suffering from delusions of oppression, do commonly attack people they know, or even people they don’t know (e.g. in shooting sprees).

In other words, Bob is the kind of man who a gay or transgender person should FEAR — a physically strong straight white man who takes it upon himself to dispense vigilante justice in the form of physical violence. Bob isn’t afraid that his parents won’t love him if he is super; Bob is bored and frustrated that he can’t rescue people from fires and attack muggers.

The way Bob experiences oppression is barely different than the way many men commonly feel bad about their lives. I think the film is very explicit that all the manifestations of the way Bob is fantastically oppressed have a 1:1 correspondence to boring things about everyday life. And all of Bob’s bad actions in the first act are within the capabilities of normal men (attacking someone at work, lying to your spouse, expressing adoration for your son for his pranking a teacher). Indeed, real men frequently do these exact bad deeds and other similar ones. There’s no deep metaphor here.

Bob isn’t different from other white men because he chafes at injustice; many white men become lawyers, social workers, police, or work at charities, a church, and so on. Bob is different from other white men because he can lift a train with his bare hands. That’s about it.

“The Incredibles” is not a tragedy; Bob was Right All Along

Early in the movie, we’re led to think that Bob and his wife have some trouble in their marriage because they have different priorities in middle age. This is pretty interesting, except that in the end, Bob is vindicated in every way (and therefore his wife Helen was wrong all along). Bob returns to being a superhero and so does each member of his family. All of the family’s problems (including Bob’s marital strife and his daughter’s shyness) are apparently cured by Bob getting his way.

In other words, “The Incredibles” offers a complete fantasy of oppression for men like Bob, because once Bob does whatever the hell he wants, once Bob’s wife gives in to his demands, all the problems the family has been experiencing are cured. Furthermore, Bob’s misguided, rotten, hurtful actions he did to achieve this outcome are overlooked.

I am disgusted by all of this. “The Incredibles” portrays a man, a husband, a father, making immoral choices over and over again. Men should not attack innocent people. Husbands should not lie to their wives. Fathers should not encourage their sons to commit crimes and should not endanger their family’s lives. Bob “Mr. Incredible” Parr does all of these things and is rewarded by getting EVERYTHING he wanted out of life.

Conclusion

Not every story needs to be a morality tale, but “The Incredibles” is a tale about morality by its own terms. A story about the meaning of being a hero and directed at children should teach good moral values.

At the end of the movie, I feel like the entire universe of the story centered around Bob and contorted to give him what he wanted even though he doesn’t deserve it, and that’s the basis of why I don’t like the movie. It’s unreal to me, and alien to my moral core.

My assessment is that the writers of “The Incredibles” embrace an interpretation of masculinity (or perhaps American life in general) that I reject, and that this comes across in the way the story is told and what happens in it. I get that feeling early on, never shake it, and end in a bad mood.^[5]If you want to challenge my view, don’t waste your time pointing to the technical merits of the production. All the technical qualities of the movie (the good action, music, set design, and so forth) only enhance my criticism because the technical qualities serve to promote and disguise the … Continue reading