The Incredibles Film Analysis

When looking back at my childhood, I would say that I watched around two to three hours of cartoon daily and at times up to four hours, especially on the weekend. Yet, I haven’t once taken the time to wonder if there was an impact of cartoons on my growth or how much of an influence the cartoons that I watched had on my personal development. According to a report by Yvette Middleton, she discovered that children were exposed to an average of 20-25 violent acts per hour on Saturday morning cartoons (Middleton). In addition to violence, researchers discovered that traditional genders have been continuingly portrayed in cartoons (Thompson and Zerbinos). Moreover, children have a difficult time distinguishing what they see on television as fiction
In particular, the movie “The Incredibles” will be analyzed to discuss the issues of violence, gender roles, and racial representation found in the film. When thinking back to some of the cartoons that I enjoyed watching as a child, most of them contained violence. I would say that maybe only 20 percent of the cartoons that I enjoyed did not contain violence, however, these cartoons were often meant for children who were under the ages of five and was shown on the child-friendly Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) channel. Researchers have found that children were more drawn to cartoons that contain violence, and found these shows to be much more entertaining (Middleton). In the film, “The Incredibles”, the storyline revolves around a family of superheroes who must come together to fight an enemy in order to save the lives of each other and the world from destruction. More importantly, this family of superheroes consist of two children, a boy and a girl named Dash and Violet, who must come together to help their parents named Bob and Helen fight the evil in the world. This plot is alarming because most
We can see this from the different way each member of the family’s power is reflective of their traditional gender role. For example, the father was portrayed as an independent and strong man with the power of super-strength who tends to respond poorly regarding his emotions to his wife. The father, a retired superhero, took it upon himself to go on secret missions after losing his job, all the while hiding this fact from his wife. The wife was portrayed as a stay-at-home mom who had to juggle the family duties which involved cleaning the house and taking care of the children. The wife’s power was being super flexible and elastic because as a traditional wife and mother, a women must be elastic. These gender roles are the typical gender roles that we as a society tend to associate to gender and these could negatively impact children into unknowingly assuming these as self-fulling prophecies when they become adults. Another major gender stereotype found within the film was that, the boy was an energetic, fierce and stubborn character with his power of superspeed, while the daughter with the power of invisibility was a shy, unconfident and obedient character who did not like much public attention. With a role like this for the boy, it can encourage boys to be independent and strong willed, which can help them develop into strong individuals but could also impact