You know how I believe that comics are smart.  Well it seems that children’s films are too.  I happened across an article recently that asked the question of how you make a kids flick engaging for an adult audience too.  The answer?  You place ideas in it.  (Are you listening Hollywood?)

For instance, the excellent 2004 film The Incredibles. It ‘satirises the litigiousness of US society, as those saved by superheroes take legal action against them, forcing their saviours into an equivalent of the witness protection programme.’  Good so far.  But here’s the bit that grabbed my attention.

‘Adherents of the individualist thinker Ayn Rand analysed the movie through the prism of her philosophy, noting that the film appears to attack the oppressive egalitarianism that forces superheroes to disguise their powers.

‘In The Incredibles, the superhero mother tells her son: “Everyone’s special.”  He replies sotto voce: “Which is another way of saying no one is.”‘

Too true!  I’ve blogged about Ayn Rand before in an attempt to raise some interest in her work in Northern Ireland.  We’re a victim-orientated society in which the only race people want to win is the “I hurt more than you (therefore give me loads of cash)” sprint finals.

Truthfully, though, there’s always been a bit of a tension in my own worldview between two beliefs.  (1) Everyone has the potential for personal development and the right to claim respect.  (2)  Only some people put forth the effort to succeed in life, and therefore deserve to reap the rewards.  The rest (perhaps the majority) will content themselves with a existence of TV and tedium or ‘wine and whineing’.  Especially if they’re guys.

The first of these is egalitarian, socialist, lowest-common-denominator; the second, meritocratic, capitalist, elitist.  Question is, which is the more heroic?  I’ve argued before that everyone is born with a set of intelligences but how you develop them is your responsibility and no-one else.

So heroes aren’t born out of wealth, education or any other privilege.  They are those who have raised themselves above the ordinary by their own persistence and resilience.  That is what makes them incredible, invincible, heroic.  As the lady said:

“Do not let the hero in your soul perish, in lonely frustration for the life you deserved, but have never been able to reach. Check your road and the nature of your battle. The world you desired can be won, it exists, it is real, it is possible, it’s yours.”

Image credit: audi_insperation.