Ranting to /dev/null

"Doubt is a luxury we can't afford anymore." On The Incredibles.

The Incredibles is either one of the most deeply Christian or one of the most deeply un-Christian films of the year. I haven't decided which, but it's amazingly deep either way, especially for an animated film.

Let me set the tone for the conversation by starting with this:

"For Jews demand signs and Greeks seek wisdom, but we preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and folly to Gentiles, but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. For the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men. For consider your calling, brothers: not many of you were wise according to worldly standards, not many were powerful, not many were of noble birth. But God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong; God chose what is low and despised in the world, even things that are not, to bring to nothing things that are, so that no human being might boast in the presence of God."

Having said that, if you're paying attention at all while watching the film, you'll be struck immediately about the applicability of the film as social commentary. The central motif of the film is that those people granted the abilities to protect the world from evil should do so, and that not everyone is special. Brad Bird has caught on to the fact that "If everyone's special, then no one is." Thus, the film winds up with a dramatically anti-egalitarian message. This isn't disturbing in and of itself, at least not to me. Team America had a similarly inequitable (and thus accurate) perspective on the distribution of power, but Parker and Stone came up with the same conclusions as Sam Raimi did in Spiderman 2 (a brilliant analysis of which can be found here). In short, those with power have a responsibility to help others.

But Bird isn't saying that. Bird is saying that those with power have a duty to not betray themselves by hiding their powers. The public good is certainly in view (and quite humorously so in an unforgettable exchange between Samuel L. Jackson's "Lucius Best" and his offscreen wife), but it's in view as a way for the superheroes to be authentic in the living of their lives. When Mr. Incredible is forced to go underground, he's unhappy. But the reason that he's supposed to reclaim his mantle of superheroness is not, like Spidey, because the public needs him, but because he's miserable. There is little to no sense of servanthood.

If the screaming Nietzschean overtones haven't completely deafened you now, then you must have been deaf to begin with. I mean, uebermensch can be validly transliterated as "superman". And we've got these characters referred to collectively as "supers". I'm not sure how I can make this more obvious. Bird is clearly of the opinion that, to quote Suzy Hansen and Sheelah Kolhatkar in their Observer piece, "the chosen few should have the right to exercise their powers over a wide, bland majority of fans and mediocrity-worshippers, and save the world from a bitter, deadly evil."

Now this is where it gets interesting. Hansen and Kolhatkar go on to say that this is traditionally a view maintained by the Right. Back in the first half of the 20th century, this was probably true. Republicans were pretty blue-blooded back then. But today? The Democratic Party is the party of the liberal elite, an elite that believes its own vision to be so inherently superior to all others that it should be the rule, even when in a minority (how's that for populist, eh?). Nine out of ten university professors report their party affiliation as Democrat or Green. It's the Republicans who have the stereotype of the middle-class everyman. And yet it's the Democrats who are more concerned about the poor, right? And yet Blue states apparently give a lot less than Red states.

I don't think they make a clear case for which party is more truly populist (frankly, neither of them are, so stop pretending), but they do have a clear case that historically, superheroes have been populist, especially before 1950. There was always responsibility associated with power, something Raimi won't let us forget for a minute. Bird completely punts here.

The other point that Hansen and Kolhatkar make is that in a bizarre role reversal, it seems to be the Right that is producing the films that are both of the highest quality and that best resonate with the general public. Long gone are the days of film as a tool of the Revolution. The recent Jude Law flick Alfie, a remake of a 1966 film of the same name, vanished without a trace. Alfie is about a classic womanizer. The studio is blaming the movie's flop on the surge in moral values that gave Bush the election (Which is nonsense: there wasn't a "surge", the Left was just two disconnected to notice, and from all reports, the movie just sucked.) The Incredibles fits well the stereotypical portrayal of the Bush administration as a group of close-knit people who believe in their own vision for the world, and don't accept much outside advice. For the party that perfected brutal power-politics, it must be pretty terrifying to not have power anymore.

The applications to the Great War are immediate. We are faced with an enemy who takes no prisoners, observes no rules, and "shows no restraint". They want to kill us. In some cases, it looks like we have the chance to kill them first. This is notably the first Pixar movie in which anyone dies. Pixar has made kids movies up until now, and it's delightful to see that they can grow up well.

Again, one of the most important ideas in Nietzsche is the uebermensch. Far from being wrong, as many both Christian and not will argue, Nietzsche is almost exactly right. One of the central tenents of the Christian faith is that humanity does need the "right Man on our side", the one who will exercise power unilaterally to save the world. Humanity is broken, and no amount of finding common cause, working for the improvement of society, and progressive reform is going to change that fact. The story of Scripture is a record of attempts to create utopia on earth. It started in utopia, and we blew it. We tried living as families, without central leadership, and grew so wicked that God wiped the slate clean. We tried living as a family, but each man did what was right in his own eyes, and the judges that rose up were not sufficient to curtail the derangement of human society. We needed a king. So we got one, but kings too are fallen. We need a Heavenly king, a strong man without fault.

But here is where God uses the folly of his wisdom to shame the wise. God's king is a crucified king, who serves with his all while ruling the nations with an iron scepter. The scepter we can understand. The Cross is an offense. This is the stumbling block to Jews and folly to Gentiles, the King who serves by dying. And this is something that The Incredibles entirely lacks.

This, then, is the struggle we face: how do we live in a political world in which, as the movie so beautifully puts it, "doubt is a luxury we can't afford anymore", while serving by dying, especially in the face of an enemy that wants our deaths and plays by no rules? The Incredibles gives one answer: the powerful shall rule. As profound as this winds up being - sometimes the most profound ideas are the ones that are the most obvious - I do have to say that is deeply un-Christian. The answer to evil is not The Vision of the Anointed, but the Vision of the Anointed One.

Posted by ryan at November 13, 2004 08:07 AM | TrackBack