Just to give you all a short summary, it's a Pixar flick about Bob and Helen Parr, two superheroes who were once revered by the city along with a host of their super-friends. Eventually, the citizens decided they no longer needed the help of superheroes, and they were forced to go into hiding, living their lives as normal, regular citizens. Bob (Mr. Incredible) and Helen (Elasti-girl) end up getting married, settling down, and having a family--Violet, Dash, and Jack-Jack, who also have superpowers they must hide from their peers. When a new super-villian pops up, the Incredible family has to come back into the limelight and defeat him for the sake of the city. It's a great movie, entertaining and funny in that way Pixar has that makes it okay for adults to love the movie, too.
I want to focus on SuperMom Helen Parr, or Elasti-girl. She is a spunky, strong female character who is self-relient and "wows" Mr. Incredible with her spirit when she neatly defeats a few would-be bank robbers. Fast forward a few years to married life--Helen fulfills Holz et al's submissive, female categorizations when she shows high commitment to her and Bob's relationship, is a homemaker, performs household tasks, and takes care of the children. Meanwhile, Bob is out performing the dominant, male gender role traits of showing physical aggression, working for pay outside the home, and financially supporting Helen (Holz et al, p. 181-182). In this way, Helen follows conventional female gender roles. However, Bob has been secretly fighting "test" robots in a remote island location and pretending that it is his new job; Helen finds out but suspects that he is cheating on her, at first crying and insecure. Her friend Edna literally beats her with a newspaper and tells her to pull it together, to remind Bob "who she really is." With new resolution, Helen is all business; she packs a small bag, tells the kids she has to go "help" their father, and borrows an entire plane to fly out and confront Bob. Anyway, lots of things go wrong, etc, etc, but my point is that in the ensuing chaos, Helen is anything but a submissive, passive female; she confidently and expertly flies the plane, dodging missiles shot at her while remaining her composure. When her children are threatened and frightened, she is extremely business-like and level-headed, formulating a plan and executing it. Later, Helen resourcefully sneaks into the compound to save Bob, who has gotten himself kidnapped by the super-villian, reversing the usual "hero-saves-the-girl" scenario. Rather than Bob acting as the only superhero to save his family and the city from the super-villian, he and Helen work as a team, effectively taking out the bad guys together.
In film and television culture where there are no female superheroes or those that are visible don't measure up to the males, The Incredibles presents a strong, reliable female superhero that I personally would be happy to show to my hypothetical children. In Ward & Rivadenyra's study about adolescents' sexual attitudes, they discuss how the uses and gratifications theory states that young viewers can consume media when they are seeking information about the world around them (p. 238). Taken in context of Holz et al's gendered relationships, adolescents could be learning what it means to be a female or male from television and film, and if we examine superhero movies, gender roles follow Holz et al's patterns. However, in a film such as The Incredibles, which is intended for children, I find it incredibly (ha, ha) refreshing to see such a progressive portrayal of a "stay-at-home mother" in such an assertive, strong position. Adolescents learning gender behaviors from this movie seem to be learning something completely opposite of the other 99% of the superhero genre; it seems to me that Pixar needs to continue on this vein of female empowerment (movies like Brave, perhaps, are a step in the right direction) and maybe the next generation of adolescents will see a larger, healthier variety of what it means to be a guy and what it means to be a girl.
This is a great example! Especially since the mother is such a strong character who mobilizes her family to save the dad. It's a good reversal of the "damsel in distress" role.
ReplyDelete