The Most Unbelievable Part of Incredibles 2
This post wastes no time spoiling Incredibles 2. Also, it should be noted that I loved this movie - It was beautifully shot, acted, animated, and scored, and I really can’t wait for the future of this series.
Up until the predictable moment where Evelyn Deavor (or “Evil Endeavor”, as my wife smartly caught) goes full comic villain and monologues to a captive Elastigirl, Incredibles 2 presents the danger of entertainment as consumerism in society. Before the movie’s red herring Screenslaver is “foiled”, he delivers a speech, albeit slightly cliché, about how society is living vicariously through television, “you don’t play games, you watch game shows”. This theme is reinforced when we see Jack Jack sneaking out of bed repeatedly to watch TV, later mistaking a raccoon for a ne’er-do-well, acting out the very actions he’s just seen. In one scene Robert Parr wakes from a 17 hour sleep to his son gorging on Sugar Bombs and lost in an episode of Johnny Quest, despite actually living adventures that likely inspired the cartoon no more than a week ago. When Winston Deavor delivers feed of his summit to the world, we’re shown people crowded around TV store windows to watch. Hell, the creepy mind control opening for the Outer Limits even plays in one scene to an exhausted, zombie-like Mr. Incredible. Once Evelyn lays out her motivation to simply make supers stay illegal, however, the movie kind of scraps all that setup.
The setup for what, you ask? For Winston Deavor to be the villain too. Winston, played wonderfully by the lovable Bob Odenkirk, begins as a generous mogul, starstruck by supers and ends the same way. He’s the CEO of a telecommunications company, owner of what could be the city’s tallest building, and a public relations wiz wanting to alter people’s perception of the news in order to legalize supers out of the kindness of his heart. No return. No quid pro quo at all. And it’s kind of a wasted opportunity.
I was pretty sure Winston was going to reveal that legalizing supers was just the first step in his effort to produce and air a reality show. Staging elaborate, deadly crimes for them to foil was just the necessary PR move to alter public perception, and their suit cameras would do all the filming. He could socialize any damages through insurance and taxes while privatizing the gain a mega-hit series brings. Exclusivity with the most famous supers further lines his pockets (something Edna later demands of the Parrs and their future suit designs). Winston could’ve been the kind of villain that’s less RULE THE WORLD tyrannical and more rooted in the real, which the first Incredibles had juggled well. Imagine Winston accidentally letting slip the words “pilot” or “season”, or unveiling new supersuits sporting sponsor logos like Nascar drivers. It’s the kind of villainy that might go overshadowed by Screenslaver, but that makes it all the more diabolical and relatable. Exploitation can be hard to see if you don’t know how to see it.
Where Evelyn physically and mentally exploits the supers with her hypno-goggles, Winston, like corporations today, could have been exploiting them socially. Where Evelyn is the embodiment of evils in a traditional comic book, exaggerated style, Winston could have embodied the real evils in the forms they take right in front of our eyes each day. Evelyn even looks more like a cartoon villain, when we know real world villains wear suits and ties, smile for the camera, and reenact scenes from Princess Bride. Not only would the plot remain largely the same with this minor change, but Evelyn’s motivation would be shaped a little more for the better.
I wasn’t entirely sold on the reason for her hatred of supers like I was for her hatred of commercialism as expressed through her alter ego, Screenslaver. It’s unfortunate that she delivers some of the movies most compelling yet least elaborated upon lines; laughing at the thought of hypno tech in the hands of her “free enterprise” brother, alluding to the trap of nostalgia in criticizing Winston’s conflation of supers’ existence with safety. Those are flaws of Winston’s that make him the villain of our world. Giving Evelyn a foil in Winston, rather than simply all supers, would have made her the kind of villain that fights evil with more evil. The best villains, after all, offer our protagonists moral conundrums.
You may say I saw something where there was nothing, or that I wanted too much from an already arguably bloated children’s film. Or maybe I’m jumping the gun here and this plot of commercial exploitation is something to be explored in the next Incredibles. Maybe having too few characters to trust in a movie that laments that nobody wants to do good for good’s sake anymore is too bleak a story. Here’s the thing though — our president is a reality show host who literally profits off of muddying perception. We live in a world where McDonalds flips it’s M upside down for International Women’s Day, but pays its staff horribly. Where Elon Musk sends a car into space as a beacon of hope while busting unions. Where Amazon donates a small portion of your purchases to charity but creates working conditions in which its employees pee in bottles to work through bathroom breaks.
When corporations take political stands like defending marginalized groups of people, it’s rarely to their detriment. When it looks like they’re on the right side of history, it’s because it’s financially beneficial for them to be there. They calculate what move loses them the least customers, then take that move. Some moves don’t always pan out due to the public seeing right through the ruse to make money (rainbow Doritos anyone?), but even that is a calculated “risk”. About the only good thing corporations running messages of inclusivity means is that the idea is mainstream enough to be profitable. So there’s that.
The first Incredibles didn’t shy away from more adult themes — children’s movies have often been a platform for messages that go over a toddler’s head. There’s just something about Incredibles 2 that feels like the movie is taking great pains to avoid a more relevant, and in my opinion richer, narrative. In a film in which people can shoot eye-lasers, lift trucks, and teleport, I found it hardest to suspend disbelief at the notion that a telecom giant would be truly altruistic.
