A funny movie with conservative undertones?

Rating: 5/10 (14 May 2019)

Tonight I watched this film once again. It's not the best film but it has its positives. The superheroes are in hiding after lawsuits were brought against them for their damages. One, Bob (also known as Mr. Incredible), wants to relieve his glory days, and does so, a bit, with his friend, Lucius (Frozone), a Black man. Bob is married to Helen (Elastagirl) and they have three children: Violet (who can turn invisible), Dash (who can run very fast), and Jack Jack (a baby said to not have powers). Also, the designer, Edna, is a fun character who adds character to the film.
A messenger, Mirage, gives Mr. Incredible a message which Bob takes in stride to relieve his glory days, after he was fired from his dead end job as a bureaucrat who helps people go around the system, to benefit them. He goes to a secluded island and finds that a man with blown back and colored hair (white) named Syndrome, confronts him. This man was once a superfan of Mr. Incredible but he was turned away, saying that he liked to work alone, so he set out to get venegance once and for all. Soon, Mr. Incredible is captured, after finding out that Syndrome murdered superheroes, and the whole "super" family comes to save him. The movie, in that sense, becomes a bit of a family movie, which is why it was clearly a success, while also fitting into the superhero genre.
The villain, Syndrome, despite the fact he is a murderous and power-hungry psychopath has a plan to make technology that would make everyone superheroes available to all. But, perversely he wants to become a superhero himself and save the day. Not surprisingly, the elitist message of superheroes wins out, with people respecting these "god-like" figures by the end, like the "old days." Perhaps this is no surprise as the film itself is not set in the present but rather in the 1960s, with the "glory days" in the 1940s. This is interesting because Brad Bird, admitted to Michael Barrier in 2005 that he was "not a big comic-book reader" and argued that he tried to "base the powers on family archetypes" of the father, mother, teenage girls, ten-year boys, and babies.
While you could say this film is positive, it falls into the typical Hollyweird qualities you would expect, like the prominence of male superheroes (three of the five on screen) and possible sexist attitudes by some, like Lucius, or even Bob, who lies to his wife about his activities for MONTHS! While the writer and director of the film, Brad Bird, after noting he had the idea for the film for 12 years and that the film feels realistic even though it is animated, he told IGN in 2005 that people who said that the film had undercurrents of Ayn Rand or Nietzsche are wrong, as are those that said there was "sort of a right-wing feeling," arguing that he is "a centrist and feel like both parties can be absurd." This brings us to how Frederica Mathewes-Green of National Review describes the film, in 2009, summarizing from other social conservatives, as skipping pop culture references and "gross jokes in favor of a story that celebrates marriage, courage, responsibility, and high achievement." It goes onto say that the film shows a "family of superheroes...living an anonymous life in the suburbs, thanks to a society that doesn't appreciate their unique talents," but the society then "comes to need them."
In a large way, this is not wrong, and I would argue they are correct. After all,
the film is in some ways a criticism of the superhero genre, in that the superheroes have fit into society, a petty bourgeois "middle class" life to be exact, avoiding the spotlight. But other films, like Watchman, or the Deadpool films, are a bit stronger on this point. You could say that this film also is conservative in its criticism of bureaucracy and government as the enemy of the heroes, in some ways. So, I would argue that the film has conservative undertones, although it is not necessarily along the lines of Atlas Shrugged or something like that. Even so,it is still a funny movie that should have a rating of 5 out of 10.