Brad Bird grew up in a very objectivist household, and has claimed he tries to move away from the ideals instilled in him by his family, but often unconsciously puts them in his work. This is not some theory, like Bird has fully admitted to the fact his objectivist upbringing influenced the plot of Incredibles.
I think that the intended bad aspect of Syndrome's goal was that he was going to be the one that controlled who got his inventions, in addition to the fact that only the rich would have access to them. His goal wasn't to equalize everyone, just to make money off his inventions by selling them to the rich after he had had his fun with them. I don't think the film did a very good job of drawing attention to that though.
@@SomeCallMeAku Yeah, I don't think the movie did a good enough job showing how Syndrome got basically all his wealth and power from arms dealing and probably war profiteering.
I think his movie TomorrowLand is kind of the same. I haven’t seen it but I read the basic plot. Something about a secret place for only exceptional people.
It's worth adding that Buddy was more interested in the valor of being a hero than actually being one. He wasted his opportunity to use his tech against Bomb Voyage to instead show them off to Mr. Incredible. He was 'marketing' his heroism by fighting a robot that he set loose. While he may have been right about non-Supers being denied the privilege of vigilantism. He was more interested in selling his technology, likely to the highest bidder, than to distribute it to everyone.
That was kinda the point. The villain makes a good point about the failings of the world which is then overshadowed and ignored due to some genuinely evil shit. The heroes stop the evil shit but rarely extend beyond a tepid acknowledgment of the actual point. And when any positive change to the world is always combined with genocidal maniacs, the overall message from this type of media is a wee bit shite.
Also he seemed to want to spread his tech not to lift normal people up, but to devalue what supers have and bring them down. He wanted to make everyone super so no-one was.
It's worth noting that, IIRC, The Incredibles was made at a time when the director, Brad Bird, had been badly mistreated by Disney, and he felt cheated of his position and abilities. That's part of the reason he went for the whole "you need to stop letting others hold yourself back" line, so it's not necessarily indicative of fascist beliefs, it could also be his frustration at Disney. Also, to be fair the "villain has a point but takes it too far" trope is overplayed more because it's an easy and simple way of making a non-cardboard-cutout villain than anything else.
He doesn't have a point though. Average people having powers would be a fucking disaster. For a wholly different reason than the movie outlines, mostly because it would lead to fucking horrible chaos, but still.
Syndrome: I believe in equality! _Structures his entire plan around a super genocide and then builds a massive threat so he can play superhero just like the society he wanted to tear down._
Literally this. Syndrome is a grifter and also basically the spitting image of some Randian hero - a self-made omega capitalist who needs no one but himself and cares only about his own desires.
He was never about equality though, Vaush totally messed that part up. Vaush totally misremembers that Buddy was told to heck off because Mr. incredible works alone, not because Buddy was discriminated against for being normal. Then he misremembers that the "when I've had my fun I'll sell my toys" as like the main part of the plan and not just like some random thing he'd do after if he doesn't forget maybe. Doing a super genocide so that he can be worshiped as a hero was 99% of his plan.
@@ashfox7498 Commits mass murder of a privileged class purportedly in the name of equality while in reality he was just a violent lunatic who wanted to take their place. So...Buddy was Stalin?
...you can like something without liking its ideological underpinnings. Personally I think fascist aesthetics (in movies, art etc) tend to be pretty cool; that doesn't make me a fascist, since it's very much possible to create that aesthetic with a different ideology behind it.
@@Tacklepig Yeah, this whole obsession with making quite literally everything about fascism be some major taboo in fiction is going to be the death of compelling fiction one day. Imagine a world where the creators of Killzone or Halo couldn't make those games because their iconic antagonists make heavy use of fascist (Killzone) or theocratic (Halo) aesthetics and that would somehow make the writers fascists in peoples' eyes.
As a Vaush frenemy one of the most frustrating things is watching Vaush coherently explain something I expected to disagree with and see where he’s coming from and then watch chat bring up irrelevant sub points to try to say “nuhuh,” while doing nothing to address his overall argument/position.
The only thing more frustrating about that is when Vaush's is actually wrong about some of his takes and he just doesn't want to admit it and chat is ill equipped on pointing this out.
@@voiceofreason467 To be fair to chat the reason they’re ill equipped to point out Vaush’s flaw is because he controls the show and narrative of his channel, so what eventually happens is that they talk in circles until either Vaush or the chat gets bored
I’m pretty sure Syndrome’s motive was to be THE ONLY super hero, and sell weapons/stage attacks where he would get praise. But I haven’t seen the film in a very long time
Yep. And the whole selling it to everyone thing was some shit he threw in purely for the sake of spite toward Bob. But he's literally the most selfish person in the movie, and Bob isn't. The first goddamn thing we see Bob doing after being forced to go into hiding? Help a sweet old lady getting fucked over by the capitalist machine. He spares Mirage when Syndrome would literally just sacrifice her without a second thought.
He didn't want to be the only super. To quote him "When everyone's super no one will be." True he wanted the glory and to be admired but he also hated how elitist the supers were. He had both good and bad intentions.
@@forgottenredemption4970 No no no, you can't extrapolate that he hated supers for being elitists for one sentence that doesn't even kind of hint at some broader criticism of supers. You're trying to read lefty politics into something just because you're a lefty, it's like when Vaush in DnD didn't like how orcs are so he just changes them to anarcho-syndicalists that are weirdly similar to his ideal world. Syndrome NEVER said anything about supers being elitist.
The movie could have made it more clear, but I'm pretty sure Syndrome didn't actually care about helping people, he just wanted them to look up to him as this glorious equalizer. Kinda like tankies with their vanguard/savior complex. His aesthetic was populist, but all he really wanted was power for himself
...which is exactly what populism is. It's LITERALLY just a style of rhetoric and aesthetic used to deceive people into giving you power. Also, if you think about it for more than five seconds, giving everyone powers wouldn't be a great equalizer, it would lead to a total collapse of civilization. It's as if you said "hey, let's give everyone nukes, that way there will be total equality due to mutually assured destruction". Technically that's a form of equality, yes, but it's also fucking insane.
@@thejudge1728 I think Bird’s illustration of how Syndrome was treated was a point to illustrate sympathy for the character. It was just his actions afterward weren’t justified. Kind of like Arthur Fleck in Joker. The way he was treated clearly was supposed to illicit an empathetic emotion towards him by the audience, it’s just the way he dealt w that was unjustified.
The text of the movie treats his goals as bad, tho. Syndrome has a villain speech where he literally threatened to make people equal, and it's clear in context that we're supposed to think that's a bad thing. It's framed as "I'm going to make you less special! (by raising up other people)"
The entire "some people being gifted while most people are normal thing" reminds of Behemolg in Fire Punch too, a city where people that are gifted with powers are tortured and/or turned into slaves in order to be of use for the rest of humanity (unless they are high ranking members of that society), I thought that was an interesting take on it, on Avatar a fire bender has more job opportunities and a higher status, on fire punch if you produce electricity chances are you will be tied up and plugged into an electricity outlet all day every day to produce electricity.
When I re-watched Legend of Korra recently, thefirst story arc kinda rankled me a bit. The entire plot point of benders ruling over non-benders creating social unrest was completely dropped after the Equalist story arc. That was a real grievance creating unrest in society and absolutely nothing was done to address it. Realistically, it would only be a matter of time before a new protest movement would arise, made all the worse by the impact such unrest would have the spirit wilds covering the city.
@@samiamrg7 There was some lasting change, mainly that the united republic council was disbanded and replaced with a democratically elected president. This could perhaps make a new protest movement less likely as the city was no longer literally a dictatorship run by benders. But if you think this is too cheap of a solution considering how big the anti-bending movement was during the equalist arc then I can understand that too.
@@samiamrg7 thats bcs it was a flat and shallow story arc to begin with. if the inequality was as bad as they claim it is that city would not look like it does.
When I was younger I didn’t even register the implications of the line “if everyone’s super, no one will be” because it sounded so cool. At the time (and somewhat today in my head canon) I interpreted his plan as being to cause mass chaos by making superhero grade military tech available to the masses. Think about what a mess it would be if everyone had superhero like powers (but certainly not of equal quality because the most powerful/dangerous ones would go to criminals or people with money).
no. the reality is that if everyone had superpowers we would find a way to make them boring. "you have telekinesis now." "okay. guess I'll use it to reach my iPhone when I'm in bed thanks." People generally don't upend their lives to cause chaos, instead I'd worry about how that kind of technology would be monopolized by the state. would anyone really want supercops?
"what a mess it would be if everyone had superhero powers" which is a similar perspective many people have when talking about things like workers or consumer cooperatives. Or Universal Basic Income. Or Medicare For All in the USA.
@@AB-zl4nh What the hell are you talking about? None of the things you listed can kill or harm people. Every third jagoff having a laser beam visor or wrist rocket would legitimately make everything more dangerous and worse.
The funniest part about this is that it essentially is “well we already have super heroes and super villains with powers, but allowing more people to have the same would somehow be different, therefore it’s better for a privileged minority to hold all the power instead, cause superheroes never go crazy, never get mind controlled, can never be threatened and or coerced after all they don’t have things like families and or loved ones that could be threatened or used to make them turn on society and do as they’re told...oh wait”
The “if everyone’s super” line is originally in the context of Syndrome saying he will sell weapons AFTER he “has his fun,” meaning that selling the weapons was just kinda an afterthought to stick it to the supers who wronged him and to get rich. He’s not interested in leveling the playing field when he’s on top with his self-given powers. Also, the supers don’t really gatekeep based on genetics, they gatekeep based on ability. If Buddy was good at fighting crime, he would be considered a super, even if he gave himself his powers. The audience’s reaction to the staged omnidroid fight makes it clear that he would have been accepted as a superhero, even with technology driven powers. Also, I don’t think Syndrome has a legit grievance that the movie brushes aside. The real fascist messaging happens in the subtext, like dash’s whole arc about not being able to do his best, or even, as you said, the ungrateful masses holding back the generous, talented, upper echelon of society. But the Syndrome critique seems kinda dumb.
Syndrome isn't legimately justified in his actions. That's the rhetorical strategy that movies do in a conservative society they take a legitimate leftist point and they twist and exaggerate it to look horrible or ludicrous. The cartoon socialist will say something like "everyone will have food!" And then he'll take a pea a split it 200 times for everyone in the town or something like that and laugh maniacally. Watchmen tv series does it, Falcon and Winter Soldier does it, Star Wars Solo does it. I can go into more detail. The audience was excited about Buddy because they didn't know that he wasn't super. If Buddy was relying on tech to fight crime it wouldn't have worked for him. The theme of tech is trash is all throughout the first and second movies, much more explicitly in the second one. Bird's ouevre makes it abundantly clear that he's working in a strong conservative vein. Renegade Cut has a video on that. Jenny Nicholson talks about it.
The point was that the film frames the idea that it is somehow a bad thing if the privileged few supers whose abilities are inherited and not earned and or worked for, are no longer seen and or valued as special and better than everyone else the film makes it pretty clear multiple times in the film especially the ending, that the value and improvement of the lives of the family only occurs and is tied directly to them openly using their powers and subsequently lording their privilege over everyone else Dash literally uses his powers to win races, which is literal cheating and unfair as his inherited powers he got just for being born give him an unfair advantage that no normal human will ever be able to meet and or surpass by any natural means Dash is also never shown to need to train as his natural ability allows him to run faster than any other human being and it takes very little work or effort for him to do so as shown several times in the film. and yet the films position is that this is not a bad thing that he uses his powers to cheat and win the families activities as the Incredibles also gives them massive popularity and self worth as they are valued by the government and populace And sorry but this implies directly that their privilege as the elite few is what elevates their self worth and their status in the society
Something that is worth mentioning is that the supers in incredibles, don't look down on your average person. This isn't Bioshock where Adrew Ryan (as does all objectivist) hold contempt for the people they feel as lesser than them. From what I remember, people want to be super heroes because it allows them to use their abilities to help. Literally a scene where Mr.Incredible gets pissed at his boss because he saw a woman get robbed and was made to stay out of it when he could have done something.
Violet: "Mom and dad's live's could be in jeopardy, or worse their marriage" Dash: "Their marriage? So, the bad guys are trying to wreck mom and dad's marriage?" Violet: "Forget it. You're so immature." Some funny lines of dialogue representing a discussion about the central conflict of The Incredibles that urgently needs to be had here. So let's try to understand what the movie is actually about. One day Bob Par wakes up. He goes to his boring day job at the office where he is pressured by his boss not to help people who need it. He's getting a bit chubby and out of shape. He has a wife and kids that he isn't quite paying enough attention to. He feels miserable and bored. This wasn't always Bob's life. He used to be Mr Incredible, a superhero who, with his incredible physical prowess, saved many lives. But through circumstance he's no longer able to do so and he's coping with it poorly. He assaults his boss and gets fired, encourages his sons misbehavior and moonlights at night as a hero. His wife gets progressively more angry at him, arguing that he should stop living in the past and help her with the family, his son gets the wrong guidance, his daughter is horribly insecure. Then Bob is presented with an opportunity. A rich and powerful organisation will pay him to destroy their rogue self-learning robot that they built. Bob gets a chance to relive the glorydays and it works out. He gets to feel like a hero again, and he gets to stop worrying about having a dayjob for a while. He starts working out again, buys a nice car, spends more time with his wife and son. But there is a catch. He's still lying to his wife, claiming he is doing better at his dayjob and that's where the money came from. She can tell something is off. His deceit blows up in his face when the organisation he works with turns out to be evil and his wife starts to learn the truth. He gets captured by a parasocial supervillain, some loser from his past who hates him. His wife suspects he cheated on her. She comes looking for him and his kids secretly tag along. The supervillain tries to kill them and Bob believes he succeeds. It is at this point that he realizes what he was squandering and how dangerous the glorydays actually were. He realizes, too late, that his wife had a point. His disappointment with life was real and understandable but he should not have dealt with it as selfishly and secretively as he did. Fortunately his family survived the attack. He meets them again, apologizes for endangering them all and for his earlier neglect. Then, with his family, he beats the supervillain and his new, actually rogue robot. During this, the people around him get a bit of a better understanding of his point of view and Bob gets a chance to be Mr Incredible again, at least a bit. Notice that in my summary, the motivations of the bad guy are basically irrelevant, the social circumstances that prevent Bob's heroism are basically irrelevant too. Syndrome has 12 minutes of screentime, the courtcase that leads to superheroism being banned has less than 12 seconds. Bob, who is on screen for over half the movie, is the main character, the central conflict is him vs himself, or perhaps vs his wife. Syndrome is basically a plot device crafted to be an appropriate antagonist for Mr Incredible. His desire to cheapen being super plays exactly into Bob's anxieties, because the movie was written that way. Notice also that Bob can be read as a stand-in for almost anyone who feels they peaked ten years ago. Being a superhero is pretty much a metaphor for how a guy in a midlife crisis would like to see himself. Now to understand what this means politically it might be helpful to get some different takes on heroism from different political perspectives. I'm going to stereotype a bit here. Fascists want to channel the desire to be a hero in violent and antagonistic ways. Their strategies revolve around creating enemies and becoming heroes in the struggle against them. Randians want to channel the desire to be a hero in selfish ways. They tend to believe that this helps society too, but that needn't be the concern of the industrialists and architects who are Rand's hero's. Liberals dob't usually seek to channel heroism or the desire to be one, but they are open to allowing the desire to do big things, provided it doesn't get in the way of other people too much. Socialists tend to believe that society has considerable influence on what individuals can accomplish. If you are a hero it is not usually because of how awesome you are but at least in part because you are allowed and helped to be one. Since socialists believe that people should be helped and accommodated equally, the creation of superhero's who tower above the rest of us, is usually thought of as a bad thing, because it probably means that resources were unduly spent on one person, to the detriment of the rest. Between these four crudely defined options, I'd say the Incredibles is clearly liberal, or arguably conservative in the focus on family life. The movie repudiates Mr Incredible's selfish impulses. The main lesson he learns is to focus on his family instead of his own self-image. The desire to be a hero can be accommodated, provided it doesn't interfere with Bob's role as a father and husband. It arguably engages with Randian ideas but only to repudiate them, and fascists just aren't in the picture. Syndrome's political views are vague and unimportant, and socialists shouldn't seek to claim the industrialist, arms-dealing supervillain. Like I said, the social circumstances are left so vague that there just isn't much for socialists to work with here. Disappointing perhaps, but the movie is psychological first. The politics are a corollary at best.
The lore of avatar is that the element you potentially can bend is either a gift from the LionTurtles or a bloodline from such a gift. The one exception is the wave of new air nomads following the convergence. How many people can bend within an ethnic group is related to the spirituality of that ethnic group. Air nomads are all benders for exemple. And even within that box, family lineages affect how powerful your bending can get. The 5 biggest families of the fire nation are basically eugenic programs. The pinnacle of the process being Azula. It gets wierder but it's not just ethnicity. Their is a good dose of eugenics too
It is interesting, though, that despite the importance of bending, the royal family of the Earth Kingdom are not benders. I wonder if that contributes to the Earth King being very weak with limited power outside the capital. That Conqueror guy WAS a bender though, and he conquered nearly the entire continent.
@@samiamrg7 It's not THE royal family. It's A royal family. Omachu was just as much of an Earth Kingdom as Ba Sing Se. Ba Sing Se just happens to be the kingdom that lasted last.
@@underthedice1231 no, the royal family of Ba Sing Se is the Ruling dynasty of the entire landmass, that said the Earth kingdom is very feudal and it wouldn't be uncommon to find Feudal lords like Bumi to be called kings, kind of like the Holy roman empire.
The part about the movie that always stood out to me was when Dash was in the race and hiding the fact he had Super Speed just enough so he could beat anyone he wants without showing off the fact he has an insane advantage.
@@SaurontheDeceiver Yes but it’s never stated if that is to hide his powers to keep his cover or because he intentionally slows his ability to do so which doesn’t even matter since if he wanted to he could win any race and etc. which is already an inherent advantage over everyone else. It also goes against the idea of being who you want to be if he is intentionally slowing so it also defeats the notion that film is stating itself.
Honestly Syndrom is a villain because he wanted to tear the hero’s down, rather than building the people up. He is like the Riddler in “The Batman”. While it is easy to frame him and his actions as a good thing to destroy a problematic system, he never wanted to fix the status quo, rather than improve the world for all.
His tech literally would give people power. If he had a power removal beam or some shit, the story would work. But no, he was literally going to make everyone super
@@verager2493 after he killed all Heros and lived a long life as the last and greatest one. There is more to his villain speech than that line. This is like a dictator toppling the government and instating himself as king for life, while promising that once he dies they will transition to a democracy,
@@frankwest5388 yes, they had to add a bit about eating babies because the main point of his plan (giving people power) just... isn't evil. Unless you're an ubermensch who doesn't want to lose their spot as "superior human" Like the main characters of the movie
@@verager2493 his main point wasn’t about giving power to the people. Have you even listened to his monologue? He wanted to destroy the exiting powerstructure and replace its upper class with himself. He said that he would spread his power only after living a long live of being god. This is like arguing that a billionaire that exploited people to get rich and kept doing so for the rest of his life is the hero, because he leaves his wealth behind for charity in his will.
@@frankwest5388 look at the text of the movie itself. His goal was to bring supers down. The way he was doing that was to make everyone super, But Villainously. The movie explicitly says that making everyone super is bad. The cartoonish villainy is set dressing to emotionally set up that message, that supers are just Special, and deserve special treatment, and normal humans have no right to complain
Another detail about Avatar bending is that the Earth Kingdom has the lowest percentage of benders, because they are the most materialistic culture (their kingdom's symbol is a coin). And like Vaush said, all of the Air Nomads are benders because they are all spiritual monks that live in harmony with nature. Therefore, an entire population's bending inheritance rate is influenced by spirituality. But, that trend doesn't have any meaningful effect on which people inherit bending. After all, people like Zhao and Long Feng would struggle to master bending if their spiritual connection is what granted them the power, but they are both among the best in their nation. On the individual level, it just seems to be genetic. I'm guessing the creators didn't put that much thought into bending inheritance, which is fine, but I'm still curious why this is a population trend that doesn't seem to have any impact on the individual level.
It would have been very interesting if the Fire Nation armies were more comprised of normal people and the benders were those with some spirituality at least, thus making the benders more rare and threatening. The Fire Nation was overwhelmingly industrial so it could've been extremely easy to make that the case, their soldiers already use weapons of war, mounts, etc. that we don't often see others using.
@@spikem5950 in an alternate universe where we got a version of the show that was allowed to have graphic violence, they really could have sold much better how terrifying firebenders would be in this world
@@spikem5950 "It would have been very interesting if the Fire Nation armies were more comprised of normal people" but they are, i remenber distinctly that there a fire nation soldiers that don't apear to be benders.
I think that you being way too literal with the use of spirituality here. The thing about bending inheritence being more influenced by spitituality seems to be something tied to the personality of the person in question, like Katara has a very "water" personality, Toph is more "earthy" and Zuko, Azula and Iroh have very firelike personalities, but in diferent ways. Being more introspective and living in harmony with the world plays a role but it is not all of it. "On the individual level, it just seems to be genetic." You may have forgot that Toph's parents weren't benders, Mako and Bolin parents weren't benders, Bumi wasn't born a bender. The creators seemed to aimed to make beinding inhenritance somewhat random but with a certain underlying logic.
@@DarkHunter047 Toph and the others could have still inherited bending if it was a recessive trait, but you're right that I'm probably being too literal here lol. The inheritance is probably supposed to be random, or beyond human comprehension. EDIT: Also, this is me either nitpicking or misremembering LOK, but it seems strange to me that Mako was such a good firebender despite not having the passionate personality ATLA seems to show is necessary for good firebending. He acts more like an earth bender in my opinion. I also thought it was weird how he could just lightning bend without any explanation other than "my old master taught me", with how rare and dangerous it was in the first series. But that's just a power creep issue the entire show had. Lightningbending as a whole became much more common, I guess since it has industrial applications. But that runs into the issue of a spiritual art being used for financial gain. It makes me wonder if bending inheritance would have dropped off over time because people were learning/practicing it in a different way. Korra's just weird for the lore for many reasons. Anyway I could overthink Avatar all day, thanks for reading my wall of text
Putting aside the possible good and harm of giving everyone superpowers, destructive or non, I think Vaush's reading of Syndrome is close, but just off the mark. Syndrome never cared about equality, and he doesn't want everyone to be superheroes. He wants HIMSELF to be a superhero. That's why he killed all of them off, and that's the basis of his plan. Sick a giant robot on the city, swoop in and save the day, and be the greatest superhero ever. And the only one. He only considers giving other people superpowers when he's either too old to keep doing it, or when he gets bored of it. At which point he'll SELL people powers, which isn't exactly giving them up to the people. And when that happens and superheroes become commodities, the last "real" hero will be Syndrome, a petty final dig against Mr Incredible and the heroes of his generation. He only cared about the inequality of superheroes insofar as he wanted to be one of the privileged ones, and then the only privileged one. The part about "uh uh this villain had a point but then they eat babies so I guess the status quo is good" still stands and is extremely valid, I just dispute that Syndrome qualifies. That said, one could still read Objectivist themes into Syndrome, with him being (from a Randian perspective) the filthy underclass that deserves to be ruled over and whose desire to rise above his station is innately immoral and brings disaster. It's just that he doesn't want other people to rise, only himself. And as the pinned comment says, this was probably unintentional. Still a valid reading though.
The point was not that Syndrome’s motivations are not good, it’s that they don't matter The point is that the film frames the idea that it is somehow a bad thing if the privileged few supers whose abilities are inherited and not earned and or worked for, are no longer seen and or valued as special and better than everyone else the film also makes it pretty clear multiple times, especially the ending, that the value and improvement of the lives of the family only occurs and is tied directly to them openly using their powers and subsequently lording their privilege over everyone else Dash literally uses his powers to win races, which is literal cheating and unfair as his inherited powers he got just for being born give him an unfair advantage that no normal human will ever be able to meet and or surpass by any natural means Dash is also never shown to need to train as his natural ability allows him to run faster than any other human being and it takes very little work or effort for him to do so as shown several times in the film. and yet the films position is that this is not a bad thing that he uses his powers to cheat and win the families activities as the Incredibles also gives them massive popularity and self worth as they are valued by the government and populace And sorry but this implies directly that their privilege as the elite few is what elevates their self worth and their status in the society
@@mckenzie.latham91 Once again I don't deny that The Incredibles is pretty Objectivist, or that Syndrome's master plan doesn't tie into those themes. I was just focusing on the "villain has legitimate grievances with society and wants something objectively good But Goes Too Far" trend Vaush was talking about and nitpicking how I don't think Syndrome fits into the archetype. As well as taking a trip down memory lane because I never really thought too much about Syndrome and this exercise me a greater appreciation for the character.
@@mckenzie.latham91 Superpowers are like nukes, regardless of Syndrome's intentions or the "privilege as the elite few" a world where EVERYONE has super powers is one where there's a extremely high chance of mutually assured destruction. We don't want that reality, which means that not everyone can superpowers.
@@WhoBlah21 But that’s not the point of the message Syndrome’s “when everyone is super, no one will be” line is not meant to represent oh how dangerous a world this would be the point of the line and how it has been ascribed and taken by the public is the loss of the “specialty” of being super That is Syndrome’s real revenge To take away what makes the supers special, their unique status cause of their powers
That's the inciting incident, but the scenes where they do fire rescue, where Bob wants to save someone from a mugging but his boss stops him, and the finale all imply that the normal people were wrong for wanting to force the supers to play by the rules.
@@chibiraptor The problem is, the super prohibition thing is actually fucked up and the product of an authoritarian state. It's like the Sokovia shit in Civil War - explicitly fashy, "you have to literally repress your identity and a central part of yourself and fit in with everyone else". In the end it isn't even the powers that make the Parr family "incredible", it's their family dynamic, which is why they get to win against the super capitalist dipshit who uses people as tools and has no real friends or family he cares about.
The opening narration calls it an opening of the floodgates to mass lawsuits against super heroes. It's maybe a bit unfair, but technically an entire trainload of people had all of their bones broke because Mr. Incredible threw a ball of c4 on the track
@@chibiraptor I mean a boss not caring and not letting someone intervene in a mugging is seen as fucked up by everyone, not just when it applies to a superhero.
Amon wanted to correct the essential inequality between benders and non-benders. Zaheer wanted to eliminate heirarchy, the last true monarch and the avatar.
Both actually made progress as a result of their actions being loud enough to force eyes to look upon real issues. Amon was defeated and his movement dissolved, but he still achieved what he wanted - the council of benders was dissolved and a president came to represent the people. With Zaheer his movement failed, but all meaningful power the Avatar had was effectively lost in the eyes of the public (transitioning to the airbenders) and the monarchy of the Earth Kingdom was challenged to the point where the next prince stepped down.
... After a Maoist dictator was slapped down by the Avatar. Let's not fool ourselves, if not for the wise tyranny of the Avatar, his power vacuum would've created another Fire Nation.
10:25 I mean kinda, t’challa opened wakandas borders and started helping people in other countries… even built a foundation in killmongers neighbourhood to help people out… that’s all at the end of the movie tho.
I think some people keep missing the fundamental point to the argument here. Syndrome wasn't right in his plan, he was right in his issues with the societal structure wherein the supers were by just their birthright able to get away with stuff other people could not. The point is that his underlying desire, for a world where "anyone can be super" is actually a good thing, but to make it bad they make him extremely evil with the whole genocide angle and treating it as him only giving weapons to people (when he actually has plenty of non-lethal tech like flight and stasis fields to make "powers"). The same goes with the other examples given, where the villain is someone that, if written to not be so over the top evil, would clearly be in the right as their issue is with the inherent flaws within the societal hierarchy.
I read it as Syndrome basically being a tankie. An authoritarian grifter who uses the talking points of the left to further his selfish goals, because his real motivation is spite and a desire to control others. That's like. Evident in every single thing he does. He's the omega capitalist. He's the guy who'll literally just leave his secretary to die. He's Elon Musk, back when Musk was dating Grimes and pretending to be progressive. That's all he is.
But that explicitly *wasn’t* his underlying motivation. His underlying motivation was basically just rainbow capitalism where “See we’re all equal just buy Product.” That’s like saying Scar’s underlying motivation in The Lion King is equality for the hyenas.
That's the thing though - they didn't get away with anything. Their identities were always known (if classified) by the government, they were always under its management, and they were subject to lawsuits, of all things, for the injuries they caused on the job. They were actually *more* accountable than police officers are in real life. The only person who thinks his abilities entitle him to get away with his crimes is Syndrome. And Syndrome is lying. His criticisms are not with the inherent flaws of society - his problem is that he wants to be a superhero but blames "the system" that he cannot be when A) there is no evidence that he would not be accepted as a superhero thanks to his Iron Man / Blue Beetle / whatever tech-based powers and B) the age of superheroes ended independently - nobody was allowed to be a superhero anymore, not just Buddy. But he blames Mr Incredible in particular and society at large for denying him, individually, super status. Note that Dash and Violet are *also* denied the ability to be a superhero, but they aren't planning mass terror events and murders.
It’s basically anti-communist agitprop. The evil was making everyone the same so that no one is special or unique. Basically erasing individuality. But that’s often the strawman of socialism, which is then juxtaposed to a more liberal solution.
"Killmonger is villified" Except the first movie literally ends with T'Challa acknowledging that Killmonger was right about not hiding from the outside world
Was syndrome *really* a regular human though? He was a super genius, he just didn't realize his intelligence was super-hero level. Just my opinion though.
True, he was smart enough to trap supers on an island and actually kill them with robots. When he isnt facing a whole family of supers, he's the most powerful person
Mussolini: "I defined the ultimate goal of Fascism. It was candidly stated. It was the the conquest of power." Page 125 of My Autobiography by Mussolini Mr. Incredible: I just want to help innocent people and raise my family Vaush: These two are literally the same person
Vaush: it's fascist to be against giving everyone superpowers Also Vaush: is actively writing a story about how fucked up the world will be if people got superpowers
@@pioneershark2230 I feel like super powers will also do things like increase the dangers of casual fights and accidents. There is also the interesting idea of your superpowers predetermining your lifestyle. That kinda stuff is explored by encanto and megamind.
Yeah no this is another brain dead media take. There's no way that you can say that Syndrome's ideals are gud, even if you say that it's fascist to be against giving everyone powers than I guess it's fascist to prevent China or Russia from happening again. A society where everyone can purchase powers sounds gud on paper, but like with Russia and China when you try to radically change a capitalist system into a socialist/communist utopia it then just rapidly devolves into a corrupt oligarchy where those who hold the most wealth or influence still hold the most power.
the whole point of the book he's writing is about the inequality that would come if some ppl had superpowers and other ppl didn't and the issues that creates.
Vaush saying PF is bad but Killmonger was right is making me laugh. Idk why people to this day keep trying to frame Killmonger as an anarchist when he wasn't one. He was a black imperialist. he didn't have an issue with the concept of imperialism, he just didn't like that he was on the losing side of it.
That and he wanted to give weapons to black gangsters, not realizing that these gangsters would in a heartbeat sell the tech to the government to get rich quick, because many of those gangsters are that stupid and wouldn't realize this tech would be used on them. So not only would it not work, it would create more chaos than anything else.
Heres a question. why werent Buddy and Edna considered Supers? Like they arguably had superhuman intelligence. Especially Buddy. From a young age being able to prototype and build amazing technology. In like the 1960s. Dude was outstripping the US military in his garage.
is anyone gonna bring up the attempted genocide syndrome was doing? he had been hunting down and murdering retired superheroes for years before the movie took place. He wasn't trying to make everyone equal, he tried to effectively create a black market for supers where the richest most powerful individuals could afford it and he murdered the only people who would have tried to stop him. Do you think the average everyday person would handle super powers well or better yet do you think syndrome would have made his tech cheap enough for the average everyday person to buy it themselves? imagine the proxy wars that would come about the u.s could start with a single "supervillian" in a given region. Fuck imagine instead of mass shootings every other week its some robot man shooting lasers in a grocery store.
Seriously I can't believe how much he missed the mark. How to say you don't understand a children's film without saying you don't understand a children's film. You're not supposed to agree with the villain
The point was not that Syndrome’s motivations were noble or not the point is that his motivations don’t matter The real issue is that the film is framing the idea that it is somehow a bad thing if the privileged few supers whose abilities are inherited and not earned and or worked for, are no longer seen and or valued as special and better than everyone else the *“when everyone is super, no one will be”* line directly implies that the intent is to take away what makes superheroes special, by taking away their privilege of being the only ones with powers whether this is for spite or not matters none the issue is that, that line only means something if your sense of self worth comes from being better and superior to everyone else, if your peers is what defines you as special and or standing out in society. And this is the actual underlying theme of the film It makes it pretty clear multiple times in the film especially the ending, that the value and improvement of the lives of the family only occurs and is tied directly to them openly using their powers and subsequently lording their privilege over everyone else
*Do you think the average everyday person would handle super powers well or better* How is this any different from the natural supers? According the film all natural supers inherit their powers doing nothing to earn and or achieve them by any effort or personal means (Dash, Violet and Jack jack are all born with powers which proves this) it is never shown or implied that natural supers are ever more inclined to hone there abilities then anyone else who could have powers
Did he not talk about that several times in this video. His point is that basically “villains that actually make good points must also be murderers or take it too far” is a trope that writers fall back on all the time because they want you to side with the hero of the story even when they are fighting for essentially the status quo Beside the example that vaush talk about in this video, I can also think of another character that fit this trope, Adam and the white fangs in RWBY, basically a civil right group turn terrorist to fight the oppression of their people. The show want you to take the oppression seriously and yet show the only group actively fighting against it as evil and taking it too far, especially Adam who the writers pretty much did an character assassination by turning him into an abusive ex who just using the white fangs to get all the things he want.
@@daryno9048 Exactly although i do disagree with him on the Black Panther part, at no point Wakanda start giving their technology to the West or US military etc. what they did was open up outreach and support groups in inner cities and poor marginalized communities to give them more options, more access to better and safe facilities and places for their kids away from gangs and doing a different kind of change Again Kill Monger’s entire thing was essentially, “flip the status quo” not fix the system his answer was to give weapons to marginalized gorups and let them get revenge, but at no point did he ever have a plan or any care if they became oppressors, genociders and or destroyed stuff because he didn’t care, they could have worsened and or destroyed themselves and their entire nations and people and it didn’t matter to hm. But yeah the worse cases of this are when the writers accurately have a villain that calls out the state quo, but then make it so his solutions are so extreme that you ignore the status quo the best examples however, show that change can be accomplished and or worked towards in a different way then the villain’s choice which usually is genocide and or mass murder (then again didn’t vaush get into trouble/a feud calling out a black separatist who was advocating something along that line? Suggesting it’s actually accurate?).
Poison Ivy is an example of environmentalists being villified in entertainment. However she got her redemption in Batman: Arkham Knight, where she essentially saves the day, to the expense of her own life.
Wait hold up, they never said how Black Panther was giving out their tech. In fact, it’s implied he was giving it straight to poorer neighborhoods when he bought builds in Oakland. He was going straight to the problem, announcement to let them know what they’re doing
It's actually more like Tankies. Claim to be against a certain issue, but actually just using that issue as a mask to slip in self serving hypocrisy. It's even got the genocide attempts!
The video that they are referring to is most likely the Renegade Cut on the video. Dude has absolutely amazing video essays, I would recommend him. Anyways, you can definitely see The Incredibles through an objectivst lens without a doubt, especially with Syndrome as the villian. However, I would argue that the objectivist framing of the film is faulty. For one, I don't think the general populace is argued to be ungrateful. Sure the guy who attempted might be but for the victims of the bomb that went off the by the train, it could be argued about the responsbility that superheroes have, which you know is not something Ayn Rand was not a fan off, and I think this context rings louder in particular after the criticism Man of Steel had concerning Superman's seemingly lack of care of the destruction around him. Secondly, Mr. Incredible was absolutely furious when he saw the mugging and couldn't do anything to help the victim, and his boss is portrayed as a ruthless capitalist. He gives his cilents the means to cut corners for a better outcome in their lives. This does not conincide with the thinking Ayn Rand argued for. I mean Mr. Incredible wants to help people. Is his motivation in part due to the fame of the glory days? Absolutely, but his character arc is basically getting over that in order to really see the value of helping his family and friends, among others. If the character arc of Mr. Incredible was more of a contrast to Syndrome IE to prove how superior superheroes are and how they should be left alone to do as they please than the film would definitely have a more definitive Objectivist text. However, Syndrome's main motivation is spite and not ideology. You can say spite has inspired ideology but it's still spite driving him. Obviously this doesn't mean that there isn't objectivist text within the film itself, it's just that it's not the sole ideology or theme at work within the film and it could be looked at through another lens.
I love Renegade Cut, and I think he does a lot of things way right with that video, like things that I didn't consider when approaching the subject, but I find his video about it a bit frustrating in that there's a ton of things he leaves out that would make the argument pretty bulletproof. Like, he handles the ideas totally correctly, but he doesn't quite reach a comprehensive analysis of the film IMO.
@@theoriginalrandomman As a comprehensive analysis of the film itself, it is lacking, but I think the main thesis of the video is debunking the objectivist lens of The Incredibles. Could he have included more such as how Syndrome is selfish in comparison to Mr. Incredible, and how he sincerely doesn't care about how much damage he causes as long as he is seen as the hereo? I think so, but as a video that debunks viewing the film through a Randian lens, I think it succeeds.
The Avatar situation is easily solved: Ditch the idea of meritocracy & the already inherently flawed idea of "equality of opportunity", and instead focus on "from those according to their ability, to those according to their need", with the goal being not necessarily equality of outcome, but rather giving everyone the freedom to live life the way they want to, so long as them doing so doesn't infringe on the right of others to do likewise, and within the confines of what society can realistically provide.
9:09 Happened recently again with the new Batman movie. Spoilers: Batman tries to fix Gotham by beating up low level criminals, but Riddler opens up the idea that the true rotten element comes from the top. The Riddler uncovers for Batman the corruption that has been going on for decades, and Batman slowly drops the idea that societies problems stems from the bottom but instead the top. But oops, suddenly Riddler goes too far and decides to shoot random innocent people in an elaborate plot, and now they have to stop him. The movie ends with 'somewhere in between a _totally not liberal, totally not status quo_ solution must exist' when the previous 80% was borderline *_kill your corrupted officials_* Edit: Guys, I'm _never_ fitting the entire movie into a couple of lines. Stop trying to explain stuff _'i forgot'_ , or elaborate a purposely simplified explanation of the film. It looks so desperate to have all this _'UHMM, ACKSHUALLY'_ going on when half of what you wrote isn't even a disagreement.
What? Batman doesn't try fixing gotham by beating up criminals. The reason why he beats up criminals in the beginning is not because he thinks he's saving gotham. He is still coping from the death of his parents and he's using batman as a coping mechanism. Sort of like a drug. It's not until after realizing that he could have a negative influence on the criminals in Gotham does he then realizes that instead of being a symbol of vengeance, he should become a symbol of hope to the citizens of gotham. And batman never implies the problem stems from the bottom.
Yeah I don't know about that. The ending wasn't about some status quo vs outsider approach to saving Gotham, it was about Batman realizing that with great power comes great responsibility and actually helping save people was more important than beating up the bad guys. In that sense I think the ending was really great, he arrested The Riddler and then realized he still had a lot more work to do. If you want to read some liberal point into things I suppose you could say the movie says if Batman wants to be a vigilantee other people will too, but the Riddler was from the beginning just vengeful about his childhood, he wasn't trying to fix anything really. He tries to murder totally-not-AOC even though she hasn't done anything
I'm sorry this will be so long, but I am a writer and have thought about this a lot before. The Problem is the way people write villains like this. The character does take it too far usually, that's usually what makes a tragic villain they were almost a hero. The actual issue with our media is we don't have many true revolutionary heroes who don't take it too far but do change the status quo. Usually, in narratives with an overkill "I want change now" villain, they have the hero relate to the villain but is against the villain because, as a hypothetical, the villain, also like the hero, wants to end poverty but sprinkles on something like "In order to end poverty, we must sacrifice Bourgeoisie babies to the blood god," and so the hero must stop them. But then, after stopping the villain dispute and agreeing with the villain on the ending poverty thing, they don't actually get shown strongly advocating or fighting for change, and instead, the narrative ends with them saying essentially, "We will work on it." I've especially noticed this in media based on an approximation of our world (Like Marvel or DC), almost like because the writers want to keep the relatable "our world" in the story, so they are too scared to rock the boat too much. I mean, it's not even just characters fighting for social betterment. In Marvel as an example, the biggest world-changing event was the snap, and up until then, nothing really changed, yet the snap also didn't cause a massive reformation of society. Basically, the same laws, countries' social norms, and general complacency with the current system remained the same dispute 50% of people effectively dying in an instant. The only new laws are effective ones regarding superheroes and aliens, and I struggle to believe losing half of the population and the civil unrest that would follow wouldn't result in much more massive changes to society on the entire planet; we have changed for far less than the hypothetical mass death scenario the MCU proposed. TBH, I only bring this up because I think when it comes to Urban fantasy media, on average, writers seem afraid to suggest anything that could possibly change our current system. Intentionally or not, some writers kind of treat the way society is as a monolith, and all changes to that monolith must take place over a long time after the credits have already rolled. I agree with the take that it may take a while to make change through preferable, peaceful methods, but the way it's commonly depicted implies that a better world is for the people of the future to worry about, not us.
Also, I'm not the smartest person every second of my life. So, if something I said came off as stupid, it may be because I was rambling, didn't explain what I intended well enough, or worded it wrong. So, if you disagree with something I said, tell me why I might have something incorrect I'm happy to possibly learn something.
I'm fairly sure people were upset at superheroes because they were often destructive in their vigilantism, as in yes I stopped the robber but leveled two city blocks in doing so, and not because they were upset at them having super powers
let's face in the Avatar universe the real equalizer between benders and non-benders would be technology and in the case of combat firearms instead of mechs. One of the comics touched on this when fire Nation industrial tech was brought to one of the water tribes & it was brought up that non-benders with just a few days of training with a machine can do what would take a bender years to master can do.
Say what you want about Black Panther, but if killmonger didn't open their eyes, those kids in the hood would have never gotten that new basketball court
Apparently Zack Snyder is one of the kindest and easiest to work with directors in hollywood, just a really nice guy respected by all. People describe working with him as an absolute joy.
The way I see it, coming to these conclusions depends on how cynically these stories can be viewed. The incredibles is incredibly idealistic. Even though the story is essentially about naturally gifted people needing help poor inferior people, those people that are gifted are inherently good and never abuse their powers, unlike our world. Syndrome is inherently evil and even if he has a point, he wants to save the best powers and weapons for himself. Compare this to the legend of korra, which can be cynically read because a good number of benders we're shown are heavily flawed and/or terrible people. The war was caused by benders and the fire nation ruined so many lives. Even if you don't get to see that much non-bender discrimination, Amon had a point and his goal was ultimately altruistic. All he wanted was to take away bending to gain equality. The worst thing he did, according to the writers, was be a hypocrite because he was a bender himself. As if that takes anything away from the point he's making.
Sorry, but Amon wanted to take away peoples’ bodily autonomy to make everyone “equal.” That’s like if men were forced to take hormones or some other biological alteration so they are no longer physically stronger than women. I mean, men are the most consistent and overwhelming threat to woman’s safety all throughout history. So what would be wrong with taking away their rights over their bodies, just like Amon did when performing bending-removal on people? Hm? Men’s physical advantages are just like the advantages benders have over non-benders.
@@Fantallana You can't compare Amon taking people's bending away to men being forced to take feminizing hormones? Bending has nothing to do with bodily autonomy. 1) Any woman can become as strong or stronger than a man. Female body builders exist. Unlike a non-bender, where even if they train hard enough like Sokka or Asami, they'll always be at a disadvantage. 2) There's literally no biological difference between benders and non-benders. They all have chi paths that can be blocked by chi blockers, regardless. Unlike people taking hormones that physically change their bodies inside and out in different ways.
It would be one thing if the film tries to push the X-men and Spiderman notion of the responsibility of those with power to use it to help and better things but the whole “when everyone is super no one will be line” changes that it directly infers that one’s sense of self worth and or their value is determined by their abilities, and since the supers are an elite privileged minority whose powers and gifts are hereditary, not something they earned, or made for themselves that the threat of not being special and or having that value by being better than the regular plebs, is the real threat of Sydnrome he’s threatening to make them irrelevant and or take their privilege away.
*Amon had a point and his goal was ultimately altruistic. All he wanted was to take away bending to gain equality. The worst thing he did, according to the writers, was be a hypocrite because he was a bender himself. As if that takes anything away from the point he's making.* It does though since his interest was not equality at all but daddy issues from being abused his hatred of benders and his goals was never about equality it was about revenge and personal grievance he used the idea of equality to manipulate and use others which is why when it's revealed his crew disbands and rejects him
@@mckenzie.latham91 I can see your point. But I think the incredibles being on the idealistic side of the scale makes the issue not as egregious as it could be.
There's a scene in Marvels Jessica jones. Jessica has powers and uses them all the time to strong arm people and get what she wants. But her sister has access to the serum that gives people mutant powers and Jessica is adamant that her sister not use it. It always irked me how her sister only wanted to equalize the two of them, and she was vilified for it later.
I wonder if part of this is also the relatively new trend of making villains more logical and sympathetic. Nowadays making a “good villain” means that they have some reason or justification for their actions. It’s kind of postmodern in the sense that it recognizes that people aren’t just like evil and no one’s fully good or bad. We’re all the heroes of our own stories and such. But then they have to make it clear that “they go about it the wrong way!” Or the villain is straight up in the right and their opposition (ie the protagonist) is the force of evil.
That's not postmodern, believable / good villains have always been that way. Go back to ancient mythology and even there, the bad guys will think themselves in the right. Actually, most modern movies do it more as an aesthetic rather than actually having their villains have a point. They try to portray it that way, but if you actually think about it, the logic behind that is extremely flawed and the "villain who has a point" would have to be extremely dumb if they actually wanted that point.
@@Tacklepig I’m specifically comparing it to the the era of the NBA Television Code, 50s-70s ish. The era where bad guys in media were cartoonishly evil, weren’t allowed to win, etc. It’s certainly postmodern in the sense that there is an attitude of skepticism toward the grand narratives of modernism, blurring the lines between good and evil, rejecting binary oppositions and categorizations, etc.
So my question is, how *do* you make a villain who's sympathetic, has understandable motives, etc. without making the protagonist the evil one? If the villain not getting the picture clearly and going too far as a result of their own character flaws is now apparently bad writing, how do you even make a good villain at all now?
@@spikem5950 I don’t think it’s bad writing necessarily, it’s more of just a trend to be aware of and to deconstruct. In the end it will usually be up to execution as to whether it’s “good writing”, which of course is subjective. One way to avoid it and still make a sympathetic villain is to give them human traits (emotions, a family to love and protect, etc) but don’t give them a justified political ideology. A lot of the stories try to make them sympathetic by giving them the “right camp” but wrong methods; switch it so that their ideology is the problem. The sympathy will come from making them feel like a real person who thinks they’re making the right choice but isn’t. Like the big bad could be a CEO to represent capitalism but they’re just trying to give their kids a better life or something.
I've seen quite a few people taking the "- and when everyone's super, no one will be!" line out of context. The line was given at the end of a long dialogue before Syndrome proceeds with the final stage of his plan; the plan being to stage a terrorist attack on a major city (where he definitely killed people with his robot) that he would pretend to stop with his technology to gain the admiration of the populace, when in reality he was control of it the entire time (at least, he thought he was). Syndrome didn't want to solve an equality problem between normal people and supers, he wanted to be THE super hero, so he created the omni-droid to be incapable off being stopped by any other single super hero by prototyping it against and killing off dozens of supers in secret on a remote island. He wanted to make sure no other hero could swoop in and steal the glory, SYNDROME had to be the hero. Had he really wanted to be in the right he would have already been selling his inventions, but he kept them secret so that only he could benefit from them. Right before the line he says "-and when I'm old and I've had my fun, I'll sell my inventions - ", so he was intending only to do it when he couldn't or no longer wanted to be a super hero as his final act of spite against super heroes, not to help the common person. Even then, he says he wants to sell them, meaning that another single or small group rich individuals may snap them up for their own ends. Buddy didn't want to help people he just wanted the fame of being a super hero, and he was willing to create threats and kill off the competition and innocent people to be the only one.
Yes, this is what I wish people like Vaush would understand. It wasn't a case of "the progressives have gone too far again!" it was a case of "another crony making the problem so he can sell us the solution." I'd say it's more of a commentary on oligarchs who pretend to be your friend or savior than anything else, and how there's always another one to pop up and bullshit their way into power.
@@tiborklein5349 Yeah. Not only that but the "Circle of Life" seems fundamentally unfair and borderline fascist. esp the remakes reason for the hyena's being evil (basically they're biologically incapable of not committing theft or something like that) good video by Big Joel.
@@rync1372 thought it was a bad video by Big Joel. The Lion King isn't making observations about society it is making observations about nature. Sometimes the animals are just animals.
@@corneliuscapitalinus845 Definitely monarchist messaging (which the original work was too), with some essentialist rhetoric (circle of life, good predator species and evil predator species) which is mostly fine when it's animals acting on evolutionary biology but becomes problematic the more intelligent and anthropomorphic they become.
this is actually really interesting grounds for a sequel, a new hero comes around with tech instead of powers, and Mr. Incredible has to learn to overcome his prejudice lingering from syndrome.
There was never prejudice though, the movie never showed a technological hero but Mr. Incredible was angry at Buddy because he didn't want ANY sidekick and Buddy was also inexperienced. He almost did get himself fucking kasploded 5 seconds after telling Mr. Incredible he can be useful even without powers.
In star wars KOTOR the second one kreia tries to end the force to free the univers from its grasp because it manipulates everything and breeds unfairness. She doesn’t really do the equality thing but the goal is similar
When someone went 'look at Africa' when going on about people going too far in retaliation I wanted to pull my own hair out. Sometimes people should just -- Not talk.
Not to anime brain, but that's also why Overhaul from MHA also absolutely did NOT have a point, but probably would've made the world a better place if he won anyway.
Syndrome's plan wasn't to make everyone superheroes, his plan was to kill all the superheroes. That's why he had that metal machine that kills them and Mr Incredible accessed the computer and saw the files of hundreds of his dead friends and realized he and his family were next
I don't think there's anything wrong with the idea of a villain taking retribution too far. However, the main issue is that the trope is used far too often, especially when compared to the times the nuanced oppressive system is challenged. It's almost always cartoonishly evil
That’s because the “retribution taken too far” is very real give someone power and/or status to bring social change is a recipe for disaster. Bringing up thought provoking and good points about how horrible and unfair the world is, isn’t anything special or unique we all do it. We need to bring back villains who are just plain evil, those who wants to harm people because they feel the need to have them be challenged by those who wants to see the hood in them
No, the real issue with it is that the media using the trope don't ever address the villain's concerns without going too far, they never show us what the good alternative is. They go with the liberal "keeping the status quo is best" route and that's what's fucked about it.
@@spikem5950 If they don’t go too far then they’re wouldn’t be villains in first place since there little in odds with the protagonist and universe. Radicals from both left and right like to think that they know the solution to every problem in world “if only we just took the good alternative” whatever that means, and that the issue is everyone is holding them back aka “keeping the status quo.” There’s no such thing as “keeping the status quo” our society and social norms is a boat that’s always moving and steering, the question is who do you want to control the boat and make the rules? Edit: autocorrect keeps change good to hood for some reason
I think Vaush needs to rewatch the movie cause he’s pretty off base here. Syndrome wasn’t trying to give superpowers to everyone, he was trying to kill the people with powers then sell his gadgets to everyone including the military. The gadgets which didn’t even really work and turned on him and got him killed. It’s not like he invented a way to actually give people powers and that was bad
@@TheAwesomeness1123 It just sounds like satire. Your criticism of Syndrome is that his gadgets werent good enough. Yes, the point of the film is that the plebs should know their place and live as loyal slaves of the master race. You are employing something called a Thermian argument. You are excusing a writing decision with an in-universe justification of why the writing is bad and fash-y. Your main problem isnt that Syndrome is actually not an advocate of equality and helping the weak, your problem is that he is an incompetent advocate which is obviously necessary to the story because if he was a competent advocate he would be the protagonist and the Incredibles would be the villains.
The thing with Foce sensitivity is that in most cases, an untrained force sensitive is indistinguishable from someome who is merely gifted in a field such as piloting, oratory, or athletics. It is extraordinarily rare, like, literally one out of tens of trillions of people, for someone to be so naturally strong with the force that they are able to, say, telekinetically kill a person, or drive them to madness with telepathic visions. Having such individuals taken under the care of a force-based organization and trained in seclusion in a monastary until they can be of benefit to society is actually a viable solution.
True, and the fact that the organization usually does this at the consent of the parents is also a very valuable thing, as it shows that such a system can exist with the consent of the govern.
Vaush literally addresses both those topics and point sout how they don’t actually do that in the video he literally makes the point that in black panther Killmonger has an actually accurate point but the writers way of preserving the status quo is to make the point that any action that isn’t approved of by the elites themselves is going too far
@@mckenzie.latham91 his complaint about the resolution in black panther was that they didn't share their tech with the people, just their weapons with other nation's governments. Except they built a community center in Killmonger's old neighborhood with the purpose of sharing their tech with the people.
@@MalachioftheForest Oh wait you’re right i think i screwed that up, i think i was thinking of Avatar not Black panther since he was totally wrong about that though i would say they were not sharing their tech they were using their hidden wealth and power to help change and make improvements on a community ad societal level but yeah you were right, my bad.
The Incredibles can definitely get a Randian reading, but I disagree that it intended to do that. The whole point of the movie was that Buddy wanted to be Mr. Incredible's sidekick and he was rejected, so the guy spent his whole life trying to get back at him. He wanted to be his equal, then, he wanted to take what made him special and give it to everybody, so he's not special anymore. But there's no vibe of "We are superior, so we should have special privileges" in the movie. Mind you, the whole idea of superhero accountability was a pivotal plot point in both Batman v Superman and Captain America: Civil War. And as for the Dash scene, because I know you're going to throw that at me, his mom is urging him to not use his powers because society has decided that unregulated superpowers are dangerous as a bunch of jackasses can just do whatever with no accountability, which could lead to people getting hurt. It's a public safety risk. (For the record, this is the mindset of a bunch of Libertarian jackasses: "I am better than everyone those, so the rules should not apply to me. I don't care if other people get hurt, sucks to be them.")
Okay: the equality in the movie being criticized is not some biological/Randian "stupid normal muggles need to bow down to the god men" and Syndrome isn't some radical equalist trying to end the tyranny of supers by giving everyone powers through technology. Syndromes actual plan, that Vaush horribly misremembers, is to stage a false flag attack so that he an become a super hero and be worshiped like a god. The main antagonist of the movie is literally a Randian super villian who wants the stupid normal muggles to bow down to him as a god man. His line about "when everyone is super no one will be" is basically him wanting to burn a bridge after he has passed it, so he can be the last superhero ever. He isn't challenging a hierarchy the movie thinks of as the natural order, he's trying to climb to the top of the hierarchy, reign alone until his retirement. If anything the "equality" criticized in the movie could be framed in a very anarchist sympathetic light as this overbearing "don't rock the boat and just be normal instead of being you" force that stems more from societal expectations which put order and stability ahead of human good. You could make a similar movie with the same plotpointss and message about the main character from Coco learning to become a guitar player even though his family doesn't approve.
@@ashfox7498 I was making a semi-joking loose comparison tbh. Yeah there are some fairly big differences as you mentioned but the similarities are striking.
Im not even 4 minutes in and this is such a horrendous take: "the narrative through line of the story is Syndrome a normal human being whos imbittered at super heros, and in response wants to give the powers of super heros to everybody- and the narrative essentially says 'no, the natural order is these blessed people holding powers, no one else and no one else deserves it'." "Syndrome wanted to make everyone equal" Vaush my brother in christ- Syndrome wasnt evil for wanting to make people equal or 'break a natural order'- he was evil because the methods which he developed his teck was bad-- yknow; mass killing people? Also Vaush seems to forget in the same 'if everyone is super, then no one will be' rant; Syndrome also went on about how he planned to sell his tech to the military as well. Further more Syndromes plan for the Omni Droid- even if it hadnt went out of control could have still resulted in deaths and if not was very clearly planning for a large amount of damage to be done to the city to sell himself as Tony Stark. Syndrome isnt bad because he wanted equality- hes bad because he was warped and had several screws loose and a murderer. Theres still 14 minutes left so we'll see how this goes- but so far its another Bad Vaush Media Take™ Edit: I've read the responses explaining the point Vaush is trying to make make and while I don't entirely 100% agree I think I can see the general point or idea.
Vaush is criticizing the radical revisionist villain trope, where the villain correctly identifies problems in society and then goes batshit insane to justify why the usually status quo hero is right in fighting them. Syndrome being a mass murderer is part of the trope. It's a bad trope because it makes a villain out of change and a hero out of fighting against change. It's a trope that tries to make a sympathetic villain by giving them a better ideological foundation than the hero, and over time the reasonable ideologies that these villains uphold can become associated with the evil that the villains commit. Vaush never said the movie was bad, he was just saying that it associates an essentialist worldview with the heros and a equality worldview with the villain. There was no good coded perspective on solving the inherit inequalities of having superheroes in the world, all that criticism came from the villain.
equality is his stated goal though, and you can't separate that out and say "actually it's about his methods being bad" because the conflict between supers and non-supers is the core theme the movie exists to explore. The Incredibles' lives suck at the start because they have to hold back and not wield power due to the unfairness of others not having that power. Syndrome is serving as their foil, he presents the hypothetical alternative "what if we brought everyone up to your level?" and regardless of how sincerely you think he means it, to just leave that dangling there without the heroes ever acknowledging it is either bad writing or implies that the writers really do think he's wrong about it. Like, if he's really supposed to be saying the right thing for the wrong reasons or going about it in the wrong way, why wouldn't they show that by having the protagonists go about it in the actually right way? Maybe they steal and distribute the tech that he made and the supers and non-supers arrest him together, maybe at the end of the movie the underminer rises up and instead of having a team of people designated better than everyone else, all of the attendees point their zero-point energy bands at him, and we end up with a world where supers and non-supers can harmoniously live as equals. ...but that doesn't happen. The ending we get is one where Syndrome is defeated by the Incredibles choosing to wield their power in spite of the unfairness of it, returning us to the previous unequal status quo. Like yes, making Syndrome's methods bad serves the rhetorical purpose of marking him as the villain, but to separate that from his ideas requires you to ignore the entire rest of the movie. That's what Vaush is getting at.
Honestly Vaush is just too naive, the movie just brings the idea of equality and presents it as bad: the ones wanting equality are just resentful, lazy loser groomers, iPhone Venezuela one hundred million dead, etc. Sounds familiar?
I disagree with what Vaush said about 300 being accidentally fascistic but I don't necesarily put the blame on snyder, more so I think it's to do with the source material, the comics created by Frank Miller. Miller is a legend in the comic book industry and has made some genuinely good comics but he is also a rightwing loon with some crazy ideas, so I could toatlly see how rightwing (not necesarily fascist but definitely rightwing) thought could permeate his comics as well.
fascism is right wing. Its just conservatism amped up. all the componants are there in normal conservative thinking, just amped up. The nationalism becoming ultra nationalism, the 'good old days' becoming a mythological past, The heirachy being capitalism becomes the heirarchy being about race. Hell, Conservatives have some fucked up ideas of Race too.
Can someone PLEASE explain to me how 300 was fascist? It was the soldiers of a small city-state fighting against a fucking *EMPIRE* demanding surrender or die, even ends with the *demigod* getting hit with a spear to prove they could bleed. I don't get the assertions it's fascistic.
@@spikem5950 I mean, See, your clearly Jumping into this in bad faith. Otherwise, you could have looked up and tried to genuinely absorb the opinions of others, rather then come to the comment section here looking for a fight. but, just to name a few things 300 has that are very fascistic propaganda feeling.. We’ve got... Eugenics, Romanticisation of Hellenic culture, Military worshipping culture, Ideological adherence to tradition, Hyper-masculinity, Defined role of women within the home, Hysterical fear of the outsider and other, Deference to the leader, Not to mention how Relatively advanced cultures are given a makeover to be inhuman, Xerxes himself and his 'immortals' to name a few. It very much feels like something a Fascist would show to prove the superiority of their cultural roots. Sure, you CAN just engage with it as a story about people fighting an empire.. but dont be surprised that other people can sense something your refusing to look at or engage with.
@@TranshumanMarissa I was asking because I have never even heard it called fascistic until this video, and Vaush did not explain why it's fascistic, nor did any comment I found scrolling through explain why but only assert that it was. I appreciate you giving an answer but you could have done it without immediately assuming bad faith and getting condescending like you're looking for a fight. Eugenics: I don't remember this being a point in the movie, but it could just be faulty memory and it being awhile since seeing it. Have an example? Romanticization: Hellenistic culture is pretty authoritarian and sexist as all fuck, but I don't really see how it's fascist. I always felt the Romans fit that bill a hell of a lot more. Military culture: Fair enough. Tradition: Fair enough. Hyper-masculinity: I see this as more idiotic than fascistic. You could have someone who's hyper-masculine but still progressive. Women's Roles: Yep, agree on this one. Xenophobia: Perhaps? I never saw any evidence they were just exactly xenophobic, just that they hated the Persians who were coming to conquer them. Almost certainly Spartan elitists, just never saw xenophobia myself. Deferance to Leader: Can agree on this one. Makeover: My Persian history is very spotty, but didn't the Persians *want* Xerxes and the Immortals to be viewed that way? That was the entire point of the Immortals, to garner a repetition as these unkillable greater-than-human warriors to demoralize their enemies. I always thought that was kind of cool about them. Again, I was never refusing to engage with it. Nobody would even explain, so I got a little frustrated in hopes someone would give me something to engage with. From those bullet points I can see a few that would make the start of a case at least, which is more than before.
Fair enough. I did assume you were Jonsing for a fight from your tone and almost defensiveness.. that being said, since we are just chatting, Ill go about explaining in a bit more detail. I do think you have a pretty important hang up to keep in mind. Not all points here have to be from an in universe perspective. Fascists historically had a habit of presenting the past in an especially glorified way. For example, your 'Xenophobic' point relies on viewing the story as presented, rather then looking at the 'presentation' itself. Consider how the persians are portrayed as a choice the author made, rather then a fact of the situation, and you might start to see the fascism a bit more clearly. After all, Every fascist regime ever has used fear of a monsterous enemy to justify their aggression, so a story that shows an unreasoning unhuman, but inferior oponant falling to the masculinity of the 300.. also, Hyper-Masculinity tends to be a trait Fascist sorts have. While its not exclusive TO fascists, Its still important TO them, if that makes sense. Its something that shouldnt be your first clue, but if it combines strongly enough with other points, it starts to add to the 'flavor' if that makes any sense. You are right though that Rome is usually more the go-to for folks then Hellenistic cultures broadly, But well.. Im pretty sure this exact story of the spartans holding out against the Persians is one even the Nazi Glorified. So while Rome is 'usually' the go to.. As for the eugenics bit, its In the form of culling the weak. Sort of a proto Eugenics. if I recall correctly, they even imply they practice infantacide on babies if they are too weak? Though my memory on this specific point is foggy. Now mind you, I dont think 300 is trying to be like.. Fascist or whatever nessicarily, but when you kinda keep an eye out for it, it does get really.. Rough to ignore.
Blueballed again. I just want a 12 hour long video of Vowsh talking exclusively about fictional worlds and magic systems. I want to hear more about the superpower story he made up. I want more avatar stuff. Star Wars would be cool. Anything. Please.
The subtext of "when everyone's super, noone will be" does not necessarily mean it's bad if everyone is equal. Buddy's plan is about petty revenge. Not sure the message most people got out of this is "equality bad". Especially when the way to equality is supposed to be genetic modifications or transhumanism. Also I'm pretty sure there is a critique of superheroes being vigilantes, with the state having to cover for fuckups and people being dissatisfied when things go wrong.
Not to mention, giving everyone powers would NOT be equality, it would lead to horrible chaos. Your average person would not be very responsible with powers.
I swear every single video that includes some mild media critique chat suddenly gets wayyyy more nitpicky than usual. Also chat is somehow always incapable of differentiating when he's talking about how the story could be better vs how it actually is.
It's what they did to Magneto. A Holocaust survivor, whose powers manifested in his childhood while imprisoned in the camps. And he fights for the well-being of people with powers against the rest of humanity that "Hates and Fears" mutants. Yeah in the beginning they just made him generic evil until Jack Kirby (who co-created magneto) left marvel, and it's fucked up when you figure out Jack Kirby was Jewish.
I think Vaush is wrong here… You could just as easily state that the movie is anti capitalistic tech billionaires. Syndrome’s anti-superhero outlook wasn’t really the issue the issue was that he was committing more crimes than one could count! I don’t believe the movie represents the superheroes in question as deserving of their powers and the muggles should just bend to their will. In fact I don’t think the powers were even God-given I’m pretty sure they were militarily manufactured super soldiers. Also the movie doesn’t out right approve vigilanteeism that’s white his wife was a post of him doing as such.
"300 was fascist" SPARTA WAS LITERALLY PROTO-FASCIST (and Hitler saw them as the ideal society) Obviously I'm not saying 300 accurately represents classical Sparta (or Persia) though.
The Incredibles is Fascist... I like Vaush, but I find this to be silly. "Supers being their own class and stuff" .. the entire movie was about how they regulated that shit and how that family of super heroes were basically displaced until evil money bags decided to play with these super power individuals.. so HE can play super hero. I chop this up to Vaush seeing the villian as pro equality over a phrase, when the world was already pro equality.. to the point that people who had powers had to hide them. Vaush was trying to explain that it's sort of mess up that super heros hit the genetic lottery.. while forgetting in the movie, they were not allow to show their super powers. You hit the lottery, but you're unable to cash in. The second movie was trying to get work the public up towards undoing the law that banned supers from showing themselves. But to be fair, chances are he haven't saw the movie in a long time and he might be inflating this movie with things like "the Boys"
Brad Bird grew up in a very objectivist household, and has claimed he tries to move away from the ideals instilled in him by his family, but often unconsciously puts them in his work.
This is not some theory, like Bird has fully admitted to the fact his objectivist upbringing influenced the plot of Incredibles.
I think that the intended bad aspect of Syndrome's goal was that he was going to be the one that controlled who got his inventions, in addition to the fact that only the rich would have access to them. His goal wasn't to equalize everyone, just to make money off his inventions by selling them to the rich after he had had his fun with them.
I don't think the film did a very good job of drawing attention to that though.
@@SomeCallMeAku Yeah, that one memorable line really undermined the whole weapons dealer thing.
@@SomeCallMeAku Yeah, I don't think the movie did a good enough job showing how Syndrome got basically all his wealth and power from arms dealing and probably war profiteering.
I think his movie TomorrowLand is kind of the same. I haven’t seen it but I read the basic plot. Something about a secret place for only exceptional people.
He directed the Iron Giant so this makes sense
It's worth adding that Buddy was more interested in the valor of being a hero than actually being one. He wasted his opportunity to use his tech against Bomb Voyage to instead show them off to Mr. Incredible. He was 'marketing' his heroism by fighting a robot that he set loose. While he may have been right about non-Supers being denied the privilege of vigilantism. He was more interested in selling his technology, likely to the highest bidder, than to distribute it to everyone.
That was kinda the point. The villain makes a good point about the failings of the world which is then overshadowed and ignored due to some genuinely evil shit. The heroes stop the evil shit but rarely extend beyond a tepid acknowledgment of the actual point. And when any positive change to the world is always combined with genocidal maniacs, the overall message from this type of media is a wee bit shite.
@@JOCoStudio1 He never really made any point in the movie about heroes failing people.
Also he seemed to want to spread his tech not to lift normal people up, but to devalue what supers have and bring them down. He wanted to make everyone super so no-one was.
@@JOCoStudio1
Syndrome essentially made a non-issue into a problem.
This reminds me a lot of the blockchain and fintech spaces.
It's worth noting that, IIRC, The Incredibles was made at a time when the director, Brad Bird, had been badly mistreated by Disney, and he felt cheated of his position and abilities. That's part of the reason he went for the whole "you need to stop letting others hold yourself back" line, so it's not necessarily indicative of fascist beliefs, it could also be his frustration at Disney.
Also, to be fair the "villain has a point but takes it too far" trope is overplayed more because it's an easy and simple way of making a non-cardboard-cutout villain than anything else.
Plus, "The villain has a point" is something that happens once in complete opposition to what that villan actualy does.
Theres honestly only 3 villains i can think of in superhero stuff that arent that trope.
@@Andrius971 Uh Uh, i am MatPat,
Ah Ah, Syndrome had a point
@@qwgar
Most of them aren't the "villain actually has a point."
He doesn't have a point though. Average people having powers would be a fucking disaster. For a wholly different reason than the movie outlines, mostly because it would lead to fucking horrible chaos, but still.
Syndrome: I believe in equality!
_Structures his entire plan around a super genocide and then builds a massive threat so he can play superhero just like the society he wanted to tear down._
This is why I can't take people who say he was "right" seriously.
Literally this. Syndrome is a grifter and also basically the spitting image of some Randian hero - a self-made omega capitalist who needs no one but himself and cares only about his own desires.
@@neidhardt8093 The issue he identified was indeed right. His idea of fixing it was the bad part.
He was never about equality though, Vaush totally messed that part up. Vaush totally misremembers that Buddy was told to heck off because Mr. incredible works alone, not because Buddy was discriminated against for being normal. Then he misremembers that the "when I've had my fun I'll sell my toys" as like the main part of the plan and not just like some random thing he'd do after if he doesn't forget maybe.
Doing a super genocide so that he can be worshiped as a hero was 99% of his plan.
@@ashfox7498 Commits mass murder of a privileged class purportedly in the name of equality while in reality he was just a violent lunatic who wanted to take their place.
So...Buddy was Stalin?
The Incredibles is one of those movies I’ve watched so many times that I can quote every line of dialogue. Lol
Weirdo
@@laozedong8837 boring, closed minded
@@laozedong8837 Said the person with the China pfp
@@Amelia_Whitevoid I’m Chinese
@@laozedong8837 weirdo
Also vaush: I love the movie
Vaush loves fascism confirmed???
The cat got to him!
...you can like something without liking its ideological underpinnings.
Personally I think fascist aesthetics (in movies, art etc) tend to be pretty cool; that doesn't make me a fascist, since it's very much possible to create that aesthetic with a different ideology behind it.
@@Tacklepig Yeah, this whole obsession with making quite literally everything about fascism be some major taboo in fiction is going to be the death of compelling fiction one day. Imagine a world where the creators of Killzone or Halo couldn't make those games because their iconic antagonists make heavy use of fascist (Killzone) or theocratic (Halo) aesthetics and that would somehow make the writers fascists in peoples' eyes.
@@spikem5950 We’re nowhere near that reality
As a Vaush frenemy one of the most frustrating things is watching Vaush coherently explain something I expected to disagree with and see where he’s coming from and then watch chat bring up irrelevant sub points to try to say “nuhuh,” while doing nothing to address his overall argument/position.
The only thing more frustrating about that is when Vaush's is actually wrong about some of his takes and he just doesn't want to admit it and chat is ill equipped on pointing this out.
@@voiceofreason467 Oh god, you just reminded me that June is coming soon and we'll probably see a revival of his Kink at Pride take.
@@Silverhawk100 Well... Vaush is basically right about his take on kink at pride.
@Doom Posterior I meant Vaush... my U key didn't push in right there.
@@voiceofreason467 To be fair to chat the reason they’re ill equipped to point out Vaush’s flaw is because he controls the show and narrative of his channel, so what eventually happens is that they talk in circles until either Vaush or the chat gets bored
I’m pretty sure Syndrome’s motive was to be THE ONLY super hero, and sell weapons/stage attacks where he would get praise. But I haven’t seen the film in a very long time
Yep. And the whole selling it to everyone thing was some shit he threw in purely for the sake of spite toward Bob. But he's literally the most selfish person in the movie, and Bob isn't. The first goddamn thing we see Bob doing after being forced to go into hiding? Help a sweet old lady getting fucked over by the capitalist machine. He spares Mirage when Syndrome would literally just sacrifice her without a second thought.
I'm pretty sure you're gay
He literally set a killer robot to civilians so he could stop it for fame
He didn't want to be the only super. To quote him "When everyone's super no one will be." True he wanted the glory and to be admired but he also hated how elitist the supers were. He had both good and bad intentions.
@@forgottenredemption4970 No no no, you can't extrapolate that he hated supers for being elitists for one sentence that doesn't even kind of hint at some broader criticism of supers.
You're trying to read lefty politics into something just because you're a lefty, it's like when Vaush in DnD didn't like how orcs are so he just changes them to anarcho-syndicalists that are weirdly similar to his ideal world.
Syndrome NEVER said anything about supers being elitist.
The movie could have made it more clear, but I'm pretty sure Syndrome didn't actually care about helping people, he just wanted them to look up to him as this glorious equalizer. Kinda like tankies with their vanguard/savior complex. His aesthetic was populist, but all he really wanted was power for himself
i'm pretty sure even the creator Brad Bird said he unconsciously made a randian film since he grew up in an objectivist family
...which is exactly what populism is. It's LITERALLY just a style of rhetoric and aesthetic used to deceive people into giving you power.
Also, if you think about it for more than five seconds, giving everyone powers wouldn't be a great equalizer, it would lead to a total collapse of civilization. It's as if you said "hey, let's give everyone nukes, that way there will be total equality due to mutually assured destruction". Technically that's a form of equality, yes, but it's also fucking insane.
That doesn't change the fact that his grievance was fundamentally justified, even if he was entirely too selfish to actually solve the issue.
@@thejudge1728 I think Bird’s illustration of how Syndrome was treated was a point to illustrate sympathy for the character. It was just his actions afterward weren’t justified. Kind of like Arthur Fleck in Joker. The way he was treated clearly was supposed to illicit an empathetic emotion towards him by the audience, it’s just the way he dealt w that was unjustified.
The text of the movie treats his goals as bad, tho. Syndrome has a villain speech where he literally threatened to make people equal, and it's clear in context that we're supposed to think that's a bad thing. It's framed as "I'm going to make you less special! (by raising up other people)"
The entire "some people being gifted while most people are normal thing" reminds of Behemolg in Fire Punch too, a city where people that are gifted with powers are tortured and/or turned into slaves in order to be of use for the rest of humanity (unless they are high ranking members of that society), I thought that was an interesting take on it, on Avatar a fire bender has more job opportunities and a higher status, on fire punch if you produce electricity chances are you will be tied up and plugged into an electricity outlet all day every day to produce electricity.
When I re-watched Legend of Korra recently, thefirst story arc kinda rankled me a bit. The entire plot point of benders ruling over non-benders creating social unrest was completely dropped after the Equalist story arc. That was a real grievance creating unrest in society and absolutely nothing was done to address it. Realistically, it would only be a matter of time before a new protest movement would arise, made all the worse by the impact such unrest would have the spirit wilds covering the city.
@@samiamrg7 There was some lasting change, mainly that the united republic council was disbanded and replaced with a democratically elected president. This could perhaps make a new protest movement less likely as the city was no longer literally a dictatorship run by benders. But if you think this is too cheap of a solution considering how big the anti-bending movement was during the equalist arc then I can understand that too.
@@samiamrg7 thats bcs it was a flat and shallow story arc to begin with. if the inequality was as bad as they claim it is that city would not look like it does.
When I was younger I didn’t even register the implications of the line “if everyone’s super, no one will be” because it sounded so cool. At the time (and somewhat today in my head canon) I interpreted his plan as being to cause mass chaos by making superhero grade military tech available to the masses. Think about what a mess it would be if everyone had superhero like powers (but certainly not of equal quality because the most powerful/dangerous ones would go to criminals or people with money).
no. the reality is that if everyone had superpowers we would find a way to make them boring. "you have telekinesis now." "okay. guess I'll use it to reach my iPhone when I'm in bed thanks." People generally don't upend their lives to cause chaos, instead I'd worry about how that kind of technology would be monopolized by the state. would anyone really want supercops?
"what a mess it would be if everyone had superhero powers" which is a similar perspective many people have when talking about things like workers or consumer cooperatives. Or Universal Basic Income. Or Medicare For All in the USA.
@@AB-zl4nh What the hell are you talking about? None of the things you listed can kill or harm people. Every third jagoff having a laser beam visor or wrist rocket would legitimately make everything more dangerous and worse.
@@Zarastro54 it’s already like that for women, since any r@pist douchbag has bigger muscles and physical strength that threatens our safety.
The funniest part about this is that it essentially is
“well we already have super heroes and super villains with powers, but allowing more people to have the same would somehow be different,
therefore it’s better for a privileged minority to hold all the power instead, cause superheroes never go crazy, never get mind controlled, can never be threatened and or coerced after all they don’t have things like families and or loved ones that could be threatened or used to make them turn on society and do as they’re told...oh wait”
The “if everyone’s super” line is originally in the context of Syndrome saying he will sell weapons AFTER he “has his fun,” meaning that selling the weapons was just kinda an afterthought to stick it to the supers who wronged him and to get rich. He’s not interested in leveling the playing field when he’s on top with his self-given powers. Also, the supers don’t really gatekeep based on genetics, they gatekeep based on ability. If Buddy was good at fighting crime, he would be considered a super, even if he gave himself his powers. The audience’s reaction to the staged omnidroid fight makes it clear that he would have been accepted as a superhero, even with technology driven powers. Also, I don’t think Syndrome has a legit grievance that the movie brushes aside. The real fascist messaging happens in the subtext, like dash’s whole arc about not being able to do his best, or even, as you said, the ungrateful masses holding back the generous, talented, upper echelon of society. But the Syndrome critique seems kinda dumb.
when vaush is giving a media take, your best bet is to just skip 'em
Syndrome isn't legimately justified in his actions. That's the rhetorical strategy that movies do in a conservative society they take a legitimate leftist point and they twist and exaggerate it to look horrible or ludicrous. The cartoon socialist will say something like "everyone will have food!" And then he'll take a pea a split it 200 times for everyone in the town or something like that and laugh maniacally.
Watchmen tv series does it, Falcon and Winter Soldier does it, Star Wars Solo does it. I can go into more detail.
The audience was excited about Buddy because they didn't know that he wasn't super. If Buddy was relying on tech to fight crime it wouldn't have worked for him. The theme of tech is trash is all throughout the first and second movies, much more explicitly in the second one.
Bird's ouevre makes it abundantly clear that he's working in a strong conservative vein. Renegade Cut has a video on that. Jenny Nicholson talks about it.
@@Cullinyan His best bet is to reject it and explain why.
The point was that the film frames the idea that it is somehow a bad thing if the privileged few supers whose abilities are inherited and not earned and or worked for, are no longer seen and or valued as special and better than everyone else
the film makes it pretty clear multiple times in the film especially the ending, that the value and improvement of the lives of the family only occurs and is tied directly to them openly using their powers and subsequently lording their privilege over everyone else
Dash literally uses his powers to win races, which is literal cheating and unfair as his inherited powers he got just for being born give him an unfair advantage that no normal human will ever be able to meet and or surpass by any natural means
Dash is also never shown to need to train as his natural ability allows him to run faster than any other human being and it takes very little work or effort for him to do so as shown several times in the film.
and yet the films position is that this is not a bad thing that he uses his powers to cheat and win
the families activities as the Incredibles also gives them massive popularity and self worth as they are valued by the government and populace
And sorry but this implies directly that their privilege as the elite few is what elevates their self worth and their status in the society
It was implied that he wanted to distribute powers so that he'd be the last super.
Something that is worth mentioning is that the supers in incredibles, don't look down on your average person. This isn't Bioshock where Adrew Ryan (as does all objectivist) hold contempt for the people they feel as lesser than them. From what I remember, people want to be super heroes because it allows them to use their abilities to help. Literally a scene where Mr.Incredible gets pissed at his boss because he saw a woman get robbed and was made to stay out of it when he could have done something.
Violet: "Mom and dad's live's could be in jeopardy, or worse their marriage"
Dash: "Their marriage? So, the bad guys are trying to wreck mom and dad's marriage?"
Violet: "Forget it. You're so immature."
Some funny lines of dialogue representing a discussion about the central conflict of The Incredibles that urgently needs to be had here.
So let's try to understand what the movie is actually about. One day Bob Par wakes up. He goes to his boring day job at the office where he is pressured by his boss not to help people who need it. He's getting a bit chubby and out of shape. He has a wife and kids that he isn't quite paying enough attention to. He feels miserable and bored. This wasn't always Bob's life. He used to be Mr Incredible, a superhero who, with his incredible physical prowess, saved many lives. But through circumstance he's no longer able to do so and he's coping with it poorly. He assaults his boss and gets fired, encourages his sons misbehavior and moonlights at night as a hero. His wife gets progressively more angry at him, arguing that he should stop living in the past and help her with the family, his son gets the wrong guidance, his daughter is horribly insecure.
Then Bob is presented with an opportunity. A rich and powerful organisation will pay him to destroy their rogue self-learning robot that they built. Bob gets a chance to relive the glorydays and it works out. He gets to feel like a hero again, and he gets to stop worrying about having a dayjob for a while. He starts working out again, buys a nice car, spends more time with his wife and son. But there is a catch. He's still lying to his wife, claiming he is doing better at his dayjob and that's where the money came from. She can tell something is off.
His deceit blows up in his face when the organisation he works with turns out to be evil and his wife starts to learn the truth. He gets captured by a parasocial supervillain, some loser from his past who hates him. His wife suspects he cheated on her. She comes looking for him and his kids secretly tag along. The supervillain tries to kill them and Bob believes he succeeds. It is at this point that he realizes what he was squandering and how dangerous the glorydays actually were. He realizes, too late, that his wife had a point. His disappointment with life was real and understandable but he should not have dealt with it as selfishly and secretively as he did.
Fortunately his family survived the attack. He meets them again, apologizes for endangering them all and for his earlier neglect. Then, with his family, he beats the supervillain and his new, actually rogue robot. During this, the people around him get a bit of a better understanding of his point of view and Bob gets a chance to be Mr Incredible again, at least a bit.
Notice that in my summary, the motivations of the bad guy are basically irrelevant, the social circumstances that prevent Bob's heroism are basically irrelevant too. Syndrome has 12 minutes of screentime, the courtcase that leads to superheroism being banned has less than 12 seconds. Bob, who is on screen for over half the movie, is the main character, the central conflict is him vs himself, or perhaps vs his wife. Syndrome is basically a plot device crafted to be an appropriate antagonist for Mr Incredible. His desire to cheapen being super plays exactly into Bob's anxieties, because the movie was written that way. Notice also that Bob can be read as a stand-in for almost anyone who feels they peaked ten years ago. Being a superhero is pretty much a metaphor for how a guy in a midlife crisis would like to see himself.
Now to understand what this means politically it might be helpful to get some different takes on heroism from different political perspectives. I'm going to stereotype a bit here. Fascists want to channel the desire to be a hero in violent and antagonistic ways. Their strategies revolve around creating enemies and becoming heroes in the struggle against them. Randians want to channel the desire to be a hero in selfish ways. They tend to believe that this helps society too, but that needn't be the concern of the industrialists and architects who are Rand's hero's. Liberals dob't usually seek to channel heroism or the desire to be one, but they are open to allowing the desire to do big things, provided it doesn't get in the way of other people too much. Socialists tend to believe that society has considerable influence on what individuals can accomplish. If you are a hero it is not usually because of how awesome you are but at least in part because you are allowed and helped to be one. Since socialists believe that people should be helped and accommodated equally, the creation of superhero's who tower above the rest of us, is usually thought of as a bad thing, because it probably means that resources were unduly spent on one person, to the detriment of the rest.
Between these four crudely defined options, I'd say the Incredibles is clearly liberal, or arguably conservative in the focus on family life. The movie repudiates Mr Incredible's selfish impulses. The main lesson he learns is to focus on his family instead of his own self-image. The desire to be a hero can be accommodated, provided it doesn't interfere with Bob's role as a father and husband. It arguably engages with Randian ideas but only to repudiate them, and fascists just aren't in the picture. Syndrome's political views are vague and unimportant, and socialists shouldn't seek to claim the industrialist, arms-dealing supervillain. Like I said, the social circumstances are left so vague that there just isn't much for socialists to work with here. Disappointing perhaps, but the movie is psychological first. The politics are a corollary at best.
Lol, that became a huge wall of text, and now I'm late for work.
@@Evilanious This was an amazing breakdown of the film and a reminder of what the film is actually conveying as important.
Ok
this is a goat comment my dude
Really good comment should be a blog post or even a short youtube video :P
The lore of avatar is that the element you potentially can bend is either a gift from the LionTurtles or a bloodline from such a gift. The one exception is the wave of new air nomads following the convergence.
How many people can bend within an ethnic group is related to the spirituality of that ethnic group. Air nomads are all benders for exemple.
And even within that box, family lineages affect how powerful your bending can get. The 5 biggest families of the fire nation are basically eugenic programs. The pinnacle of the process being Azula.
It gets wierder but it's not just ethnicity. Their is a good dose of eugenics too
Was gonna say basically this
It is interesting, though, that despite the importance of bending, the royal family of the Earth Kingdom are not benders. I wonder if that contributes to the Earth King being very weak with limited power outside the capital. That Conqueror guy WAS a bender though, and he conquered nearly the entire continent.
@@samiamrg7 It's not THE royal family. It's A royal family. Omachu was just as much of an Earth Kingdom as Ba Sing Se. Ba Sing Se just happens to be the kingdom that lasted last.
@@underthedice1231 no, the royal family of Ba Sing Se is the Ruling dynasty of the entire landmass, that said the Earth kingdom is very feudal and it wouldn't be uncommon to find Feudal lords like Bumi to be called kings, kind of like the Holy roman empire.
@@fateless3239 It's called the EarthKingdoms not kingdom.
The part about the movie that always stood out to me was when Dash was in the race and hiding the fact he had Super Speed just enough so he could beat anyone he wants without showing off the fact he has an insane advantage.
It's noteworthy that he actually takes second in the race - he doesn't "barely win", he lets someone else do it.
@@SaurontheDeceiver The family even is coaching close second.
@@SaurontheDeceiver Yes but it’s never stated if that is to hide his powers to keep his cover or because he intentionally slows his ability to do so
which doesn’t even matter since if he wanted to he could win any race and etc. which is already an inherent advantage over everyone else.
It also goes against the idea of being who you want to be if he is intentionally slowing
so it also defeats the notion that film is stating itself.
Honestly Syndrom is a villain because he wanted to tear the hero’s down, rather than building the people up.
He is like the Riddler in “The Batman”.
While it is easy to frame him and his actions as a good thing to destroy a problematic system, he never wanted to fix the status quo, rather than improve the world for all.
His tech literally would give people power. If he had a power removal beam or some shit, the story would work.
But no, he was literally going to make everyone super
@@verager2493 after he killed all Heros and lived a long life as the last and greatest one.
There is more to his villain speech than that line.
This is like a dictator toppling the government and instating himself as king for life, while promising that once he dies they will transition to a democracy,
@@frankwest5388 yes, they had to add a bit about eating babies because the main point of his plan (giving people power) just... isn't evil. Unless you're an ubermensch who doesn't want to lose their spot as "superior human"
Like the main characters of the movie
@@verager2493 his main point wasn’t about giving power to the people. Have you even listened to his monologue?
He wanted to destroy the exiting powerstructure and replace its upper class with himself. He said that he would spread his power only after living a long live of being god.
This is like arguing that a billionaire that exploited people to get rich and kept doing so for the rest of his life is the hero, because he leaves his wealth behind for charity in his will.
@@frankwest5388 look at the text of the movie itself. His goal was to bring supers down.
The way he was doing that was to make everyone super, But Villainously.
The movie explicitly says that making everyone super is bad.
The cartoonish villainy is set dressing to emotionally set up that message, that supers are just Special, and deserve special treatment, and normal humans have no right to complain
Another detail about Avatar bending is that the Earth Kingdom has the lowest percentage of benders, because they are the most materialistic culture (their kingdom's symbol is a coin). And like Vaush said, all of the Air Nomads are benders because they are all spiritual monks that live in harmony with nature. Therefore, an entire population's bending inheritance rate is influenced by spirituality.
But, that trend doesn't have any meaningful effect on which people inherit bending. After all, people like Zhao and Long Feng would struggle to master bending if their spiritual connection is what granted them the power, but they are both among the best in their nation. On the individual level, it just seems to be genetic.
I'm guessing the creators didn't put that much thought into bending inheritance, which is fine, but I'm still curious why this is a population trend that doesn't seem to have any impact on the individual level.
It would have been very interesting if the Fire Nation armies were more comprised of normal people and the benders were those with some spirituality at least, thus making the benders more rare and threatening. The Fire Nation was overwhelmingly industrial so it could've been extremely easy to make that the case, their soldiers already use weapons of war, mounts, etc. that we don't often see others using.
@@spikem5950 in an alternate universe where we got a version of the show that was allowed to have graphic violence, they really could have sold much better how terrifying firebenders would be in this world
@@spikem5950 "It would have been very interesting if the Fire Nation armies were more comprised of normal people" but they are, i remenber distinctly that there a fire nation soldiers that don't apear to be benders.
I think that you being way too literal with the use of spirituality here. The thing about bending inheritence being more influenced by spitituality seems to be something tied to the personality of the person in question, like Katara has a very "water" personality, Toph is more "earthy" and Zuko, Azula and Iroh have very firelike personalities, but in diferent ways.
Being more introspective and living in harmony with the world plays a role but it is not all of it.
"On the individual level, it just seems to be genetic." You may have forgot that Toph's parents weren't benders, Mako and Bolin parents weren't benders, Bumi wasn't born a bender. The creators seemed to aimed to make beinding inhenritance somewhat random but with a certain underlying logic.
@@DarkHunter047 Toph and the others could have still inherited bending if it was a recessive trait, but you're right that I'm probably being too literal here lol.
The inheritance is probably supposed to be random, or beyond human comprehension.
EDIT: Also, this is me either nitpicking or misremembering LOK, but it seems strange to me that Mako was such a good firebender despite not having the passionate personality ATLA seems to show is necessary for good firebending. He acts more like an earth bender in my opinion. I also thought it was weird how he could just lightning bend without any explanation other than "my old master taught me", with how rare and dangerous it was in the first series. But that's just a power creep issue the entire show had.
Lightningbending as a whole became much more common, I guess since it has industrial applications. But that runs into the issue of a spiritual art being used for financial gain. It makes me wonder if bending inheritance would have dropped off over time because people were learning/practicing it in a different way. Korra's just weird for the lore for many reasons.
Anyway I could overthink Avatar all day, thanks for reading my wall of text
Putting aside the possible good and harm of giving everyone superpowers, destructive or non, I think Vaush's reading of Syndrome is close, but just off the mark.
Syndrome never cared about equality, and he doesn't want everyone to be superheroes. He wants HIMSELF to be a superhero. That's why he killed all of them off, and that's the basis of his plan. Sick a giant robot on the city, swoop in and save the day, and be the greatest superhero ever. And the only one. He only considers giving other people superpowers when he's either too old to keep doing it, or when he gets bored of it. At which point he'll SELL people powers, which isn't exactly giving them up to the people. And when that happens and superheroes become commodities, the last "real" hero will be Syndrome, a petty final dig against Mr Incredible and the heroes of his generation. He only cared about the inequality of superheroes insofar as he wanted to be one of the privileged ones, and then the only privileged one.
The part about "uh uh this villain had a point but then they eat babies so I guess the status quo is good" still stands and is extremely valid, I just dispute that Syndrome qualifies. That said, one could still read Objectivist themes into Syndrome, with him being (from a Randian perspective) the filthy underclass that deserves to be ruled over and whose desire to rise above his station is innately immoral and brings disaster. It's just that he doesn't want other people to rise, only himself. And as the pinned comment says, this was probably unintentional. Still a valid reading though.
The point was not that Syndrome’s motivations are not good, it’s that they don't matter
The point is that the film frames the idea that it is somehow a bad thing if the privileged few supers whose abilities are inherited and not earned and or worked for, are no longer seen and or valued as special and better than everyone else
the film also makes it pretty clear multiple times, especially the ending, that the value and improvement of the lives of the family only occurs and is tied directly to them openly using their powers and subsequently lording their privilege over everyone else
Dash literally uses his powers to win races, which is literal cheating and unfair as his inherited powers he got just for being born give him an unfair advantage that no normal human will ever be able to meet and or surpass by any natural means
Dash is also never shown to need to train as his natural ability allows him to run faster than any other human being and it takes very little work or effort for him to do so as shown several times in the film.
and yet the films position is that this is not a bad thing that he uses his powers to cheat and win
the families activities as the Incredibles also gives them massive popularity and self worth as they are valued by the government and populace
And sorry but this implies directly that their privilege as the elite few is what elevates their self worth and their status in the society
@@mckenzie.latham91 Once again I don't deny that The Incredibles is pretty Objectivist, or that Syndrome's master plan doesn't tie into those themes. I was just focusing on the "villain has legitimate grievances with society and wants something objectively good But Goes Too Far" trend Vaush was talking about and nitpicking how I don't think Syndrome fits into the archetype.
As well as taking a trip down memory lane because I never really thought too much about Syndrome and this exercise me a greater appreciation for the character.
@@mckenzie.latham91 Superpowers are like nukes, regardless of Syndrome's intentions or the "privilege as the elite few" a world where EVERYONE has super powers is one where there's a extremely high chance of mutually assured destruction. We don't want that reality, which means that not everyone can superpowers.
@@WhoBlah21 But that’s not the point of the message
Syndrome’s “when everyone is super, no one will be” line is not meant to represent oh how dangerous a world this would be
the point of the line and how it has been ascribed and taken by the public is the loss of the “specialty” of being super
That is Syndrome’s real revenge
To take away what makes the supers special, their unique status cause of their powers
I thought the people were mad at the supers for always fucking up, that's why the train scene was important
That's how I remember it.
That's the inciting incident, but the scenes where they do fire rescue, where Bob wants to save someone from a mugging but his boss stops him, and the finale all imply that the normal people were wrong for wanting to force the supers to play by the rules.
@@chibiraptor The problem is, the super prohibition thing is actually fucked up and the product of an authoritarian state. It's like the Sokovia shit in Civil War - explicitly fashy, "you have to literally repress your identity and a central part of yourself and fit in with everyone else".
In the end it isn't even the powers that make the Parr family "incredible", it's their family dynamic, which is why they get to win against the super capitalist dipshit who uses people as tools and has no real friends or family he cares about.
The opening narration calls it an opening of the floodgates to mass lawsuits against super heroes. It's maybe a bit unfair, but technically an entire trainload of people had all of their bones broke because Mr. Incredible threw a ball of c4 on the track
@@chibiraptor I mean a boss not caring and not letting someone intervene in a mugging is seen as fucked up by everyone, not just when it applies to a superhero.
the very fact superheroes choose to use their powers to help others at no benefit to themselves instantly makes it very un atlas shrugged-y
Amon wanted to correct the essential inequality between benders and non-benders.
Zaheer wanted to eliminate heirarchy, the last true monarch and the avatar.
Both actually made progress as a result of their actions being loud enough to force eyes to look upon real issues. Amon was defeated and his movement dissolved, but he still achieved what he wanted - the council of benders was dissolved and a president came to represent the people.
With Zaheer his movement failed, but all meaningful power the Avatar had was effectively lost in the eyes of the public (transitioning to the airbenders) and the monarchy of the Earth Kingdom was challenged to the point where the next prince stepped down.
... After a Maoist dictator was slapped down by the Avatar. Let's not fool ourselves, if not for the wise tyranny of the Avatar, his power vacuum would've created another Fire Nation.
Both were kinda based
10:25 I mean kinda, t’challa opened wakandas borders and started helping people in other countries… even built a foundation in killmongers neighbourhood to help people out… that’s all at the end of the movie tho.
God I miss Lindsay Ellis
Traumatica: "I miss Lindsay Ellis."
Me: "We have Lindsay Ellis at home."
Lindsay Ellis at home: Vaush
@@Juhz0r YES
I think some people keep missing the fundamental point to the argument here. Syndrome wasn't right in his plan, he was right in his issues with the societal structure wherein the supers were by just their birthright able to get away with stuff other people could not. The point is that his underlying desire, for a world where "anyone can be super" is actually a good thing, but to make it bad they make him extremely evil with the whole genocide angle and treating it as him only giving weapons to people (when he actually has plenty of non-lethal tech like flight and stasis fields to make "powers").
The same goes with the other examples given, where the villain is someone that, if written to not be so over the top evil, would clearly be in the right as their issue is with the inherent flaws within the societal hierarchy.
I read it as Syndrome basically being a tankie. An authoritarian grifter who uses the talking points of the left to further his selfish goals, because his real motivation is spite and a desire to control others.
That's like. Evident in every single thing he does. He's the omega capitalist. He's the guy who'll literally just leave his secretary to die. He's Elon Musk, back when Musk was dating Grimes and pretending to be progressive. That's all he is.
SPOILERS
6:20 This is essentially Season 1 of The Legend of Korra, sequel to Avatar The Last Airbender.
But that explicitly *wasn’t* his underlying motivation. His underlying motivation was basically just rainbow capitalism where “See we’re all equal just buy Product.” That’s like saying Scar’s underlying motivation in The Lion King is equality for the hyenas.
That's the thing though - they didn't get away with anything. Their identities were always known (if classified) by the government, they were always under its management, and they were subject to lawsuits, of all things, for the injuries they caused on the job. They were actually *more* accountable than police officers are in real life. The only person who thinks his abilities entitle him to get away with his crimes is Syndrome.
And Syndrome is lying. His criticisms are not with the inherent flaws of society - his problem is that he wants to be a superhero but blames "the system" that he cannot be when A) there is no evidence that he would not be accepted as a superhero thanks to his Iron Man / Blue Beetle / whatever tech-based powers and B) the age of superheroes ended independently - nobody was allowed to be a superhero anymore, not just Buddy. But he blames Mr Incredible in particular and society at large for denying him, individually, super status. Note that Dash and Violet are *also* denied the ability to be a superhero, but they aren't planning mass terror events and murders.
It’s basically anti-communist agitprop. The evil was making everyone the same so that no one is special or unique. Basically erasing individuality. But that’s often the strawman of socialism, which is then juxtaposed to a more liberal solution.
"Killmonger is villified"
Except the first movie literally ends with T'Challa acknowledging that Killmonger was right about not hiding from the outside world
Was syndrome *really* a regular human though? He was a super genius, he just didn't realize his intelligence was super-hero level. Just my opinion though.
True, he was smart enough to trap supers on an island and actually kill them with robots. When he isnt facing a whole family of supers, he's the most powerful person
Nightmare before Christmas' moral was basically "Stay in your lane. Cuz if you try new things, it will fuck up everything."
Mussolini: "I defined the ultimate goal of Fascism. It was candidly stated. It was the the conquest of power." Page 125 of My Autobiography by Mussolini
Mr. Incredible: I just want to help innocent people and raise my family
Vaush: These two are literally the same person
Come on man that's not what he said
Vaush: it's fascist to be against giving everyone superpowers
Also Vaush: is actively writing a story about how fucked up the world will be if people got superpowers
isn't the main problem caused by the disparity between those with and without superpowers
Is actively writing a story about how fucked up the world will be if *SOME* people got superpowers. FTFY.
@@pioneershark2230 I feel like super powers will also do things like increase the dangers of casual fights and accidents.
There is also the interesting idea of your superpowers predetermining your lifestyle. That kinda stuff is explored by encanto and megamind.
Yeah no this is another brain dead media take. There's no way that you can say that Syndrome's ideals are gud, even if you say that it's fascist to be against giving everyone powers than I guess it's fascist to prevent China or Russia from happening again. A society where everyone can purchase powers sounds gud on paper, but like with Russia and China when you try to radically change a capitalist system into a socialist/communist utopia it then just rapidly devolves into a corrupt oligarchy where those who hold the most wealth or influence still hold the most power.
the whole point of the book he's writing is about the inequality that would come if some ppl had superpowers and other ppl didn't and the issues that creates.
Vaush saying PF is bad but Killmonger was right is making me laugh.
Idk why people to this day keep trying to frame Killmonger as an anarchist when he wasn't one. He was a black imperialist. he didn't have an issue with the concept of imperialism, he just didn't like that he was on the losing side of it.
That and he wanted to give weapons to black gangsters, not realizing that these gangsters would in a heartbeat sell the tech to the government to get rich quick, because many of those gangsters are that stupid and wouldn't realize this tech would be used on them. So not only would it not work, it would create more chaos than anything else.
Heres a question. why werent Buddy and Edna considered Supers?
Like they arguably had superhuman intelligence.
Especially Buddy. From a young age being able to prototype and build amazing technology. In like the 1960s. Dude was outstripping the US military in his garage.
is anyone gonna bring up the attempted genocide syndrome was doing? he had been hunting down and murdering retired superheroes for years before the movie took place. He wasn't trying to make everyone equal, he tried to effectively create a black market for supers where the richest most powerful individuals could afford it and he murdered the only people who would have tried to stop him. Do you think the average everyday person would handle super powers well or better yet do you think syndrome would have made his tech cheap enough for the average everyday person to buy it themselves? imagine the proxy wars that would come about the u.s could start with a single "supervillian" in a given region. Fuck imagine instead of mass shootings every other week its some robot man shooting lasers in a grocery store.
Seriously I can't believe how much he missed the mark. How to say you don't understand a children's film without saying you don't understand a children's film.
You're not supposed to agree with the villain
The point was not that Syndrome’s motivations were noble or not
the point is that his motivations don’t matter
The real issue is that the film is framing the idea that it is somehow a bad thing if the privileged few supers whose abilities are inherited and not earned and or worked for, are no longer seen and or valued as special and better than everyone else
the *“when everyone is super, no one will be”* line directly implies that the intent is to take away what makes superheroes special, by taking away their privilege of being the only ones with powers
whether this is for spite or not matters none
the issue is that, that line only means something if your sense of self worth comes from being better and superior to everyone else, if your peers is what defines you as special and or standing out in society.
And this is the actual underlying theme of the film
It makes it pretty clear multiple times in the film especially the ending, that the value and improvement of the lives of the family only occurs and is tied directly to them openly using their powers and subsequently lording their privilege over everyone else
*Do you think the average everyday person would handle super powers well or better*
How is this any different from the natural supers?
According the film all natural supers inherit their powers doing nothing to earn and or achieve them by any effort or personal means
(Dash, Violet and Jack jack are all born with powers which proves this)
it is never shown or implied that natural supers are ever more inclined to hone there abilities then anyone else who could have powers
Did he not talk about that several times in this video. His point is that basically “villains that actually make good points must also be murderers or take it too far” is a trope that writers fall back on all the time because they want you to side with the hero of the story even when they are fighting for essentially the status quo
Beside the example that vaush talk about in this video, I can also think of another character that fit this trope, Adam and the white fangs in RWBY, basically a civil right group turn terrorist to fight the oppression of their people. The show want you to take the oppression seriously and yet show the only group actively fighting against it as evil and taking it too far, especially Adam who the writers pretty much did an character assassination by turning him into an abusive ex who just using the white fangs to get all the things he want.
@@daryno9048 Exactly
although i do disagree with him on the Black Panther part, at no point Wakanda start giving their technology to the West or US military etc.
what they did was open up outreach and support groups in inner cities and poor marginalized communities to give them more options, more access to better and safe facilities and places for their kids away from gangs
and doing a different kind of change
Again Kill Monger’s entire thing was essentially, “flip the status quo” not fix the system
his answer was to give weapons to marginalized gorups and let them get revenge, but at no point did he ever have a plan or any care if they became oppressors, genociders and or destroyed stuff
because he didn’t care, they could have worsened and or destroyed themselves and their entire nations and people and it didn’t matter to hm.
But yeah the worse cases of this are when the writers accurately have a villain that calls out the state quo, but then make it so his solutions are so extreme that you ignore the status quo
the best examples however, show that change can be accomplished and or worked towards in a different way then the villain’s choice which usually is genocide and or mass murder (then again didn’t vaush get into trouble/a feud calling out a black separatist who was advocating something along that line? Suggesting it’s actually accurate?).
The existence of super- powered inequality would be classified as a form of ableism.
Poison Ivy is an example of environmentalists being villified in entertainment. However she got her redemption in Batman: Arkham Knight, where she essentially saves the day, to the expense of her own life.
Of course she had to kill herself
Wait hold up, they never said how Black Panther was giving out their tech. In fact, it’s implied he was giving it straight to poorer neighborhoods when he bought builds in Oakland. He was going straight to the problem, announcement to let them know what they’re doing
And then he died (even before the actor did)
It's actually more like Tankies.
Claim to be against a certain issue, but actually just using that issue as a mask to slip in self serving hypocrisy.
It's even got the genocide attempts!
The video that they are referring to is most likely the Renegade Cut on the video. Dude has absolutely amazing video essays, I would recommend him. Anyways, you can definitely see The Incredibles through an objectivst lens without a doubt, especially with Syndrome as the villian. However, I would argue that the objectivist framing of the film is faulty. For one, I don't think the general populace is argued to be ungrateful. Sure the guy who attempted might be but for the victims of the bomb that went off the by the train, it could be argued about the responsbility that superheroes have, which you know is not something Ayn Rand was not a fan off, and I think this context rings louder in particular after the criticism Man of Steel had concerning Superman's seemingly lack of care of the destruction around him.
Secondly, Mr. Incredible was absolutely furious when he saw the mugging and couldn't do anything to help the victim, and his boss is portrayed as a ruthless capitalist. He gives his cilents the means to cut corners for a better outcome in their lives. This does not conincide with the thinking Ayn Rand argued for. I mean Mr. Incredible wants to help people. Is his motivation in part due to the fame of the glory days? Absolutely, but his character arc is basically getting over that in order to really see the value of helping his family and friends, among others. If the character arc of Mr. Incredible was more of a contrast to Syndrome IE to prove how superior superheroes are and how they should be left alone to do as they please than the film would definitely have a more definitive Objectivist text. However, Syndrome's main motivation is spite and not ideology. You can say spite has inspired ideology but it's still spite driving him.
Obviously this doesn't mean that there isn't objectivist text within the film itself, it's just that it's not the sole ideology or theme at work within the film and it could be looked at through another lens.
I love Renegade Cut, and I think he does a lot of things way right with that video, like things that I didn't consider when approaching the subject, but I find his video about it a bit frustrating in that there's a ton of things he leaves out that would make the argument pretty bulletproof. Like, he handles the ideas totally correctly, but he doesn't quite reach a comprehensive analysis of the film IMO.
@@theoriginalrandomman As a comprehensive analysis of the film itself, it is lacking, but I think the main thesis of the video is debunking the objectivist lens of The Incredibles. Could he have included more such as how Syndrome is selfish in comparison to Mr. Incredible, and how he sincerely doesn't care about how much damage he causes as long as he is seen as the hereo? I think so, but as a video that debunks viewing the film through a Randian lens, I think it succeeds.
The Avatar situation is easily solved: Ditch the idea of meritocracy & the already inherently flawed idea of "equality of opportunity", and instead focus on "from those according to their ability, to those according to their need", with the goal being not necessarily equality of outcome, but rather giving everyone the freedom to live life the way they want to, so long as them doing so doesn't infringe on the right of others to do likewise, and within the confines of what society can realistically provide.
In the movie, Syndrome's flashback is actually different than what happened earlier in the movie, but yeah.
9:09 Happened recently again with the new Batman movie.
Spoilers:
Batman tries to fix Gotham by beating up low level criminals, but Riddler opens up the idea that the true rotten element comes from the top. The Riddler uncovers for Batman the corruption that has been going on for decades, and Batman slowly drops the idea that societies problems stems from the bottom but instead the top.
But oops, suddenly Riddler goes too far and decides to shoot random innocent people in an elaborate plot, and now they have to stop him. The movie ends with 'somewhere in between a _totally not liberal, totally not status quo_ solution must exist' when the previous 80% was borderline *_kill your corrupted officials_*
Edit:
Guys, I'm _never_ fitting the entire movie into a couple of lines. Stop trying to explain stuff _'i forgot'_ , or elaborate a purposely simplified explanation of the film. It looks so desperate to have all this _'UHMM, ACKSHUALLY'_ going on when half of what you wrote isn't even a disagreement.
Riddler went too far when he livestreamed an execution to his followers AND implicated Catwoman's innocent best friend.
What? Batman doesn't try fixing gotham by beating up criminals. The reason why he beats up criminals in the beginning is not because he thinks he's saving gotham. He is still coping from the death of his parents and he's using batman as a coping mechanism. Sort of like a drug. It's not until after realizing that he could have a negative influence on the criminals in Gotham does he then realizes that instead of being a symbol of vengeance, he should become a symbol of hope to the citizens of gotham. And batman never implies the problem stems from the bottom.
Yeah I don't know about that. The ending wasn't about some status quo vs outsider approach to saving Gotham, it was about Batman realizing that with great power comes great responsibility and actually helping save people was more important than beating up the bad guys. In that sense I think the ending was really great, he arrested The Riddler and then realized he still had a lot more work to do.
If you want to read some liberal point into things I suppose you could say the movie says if Batman wants to be a vigilantee other people will too, but the Riddler was from the beginning just vengeful about his childhood, he wasn't trying to fix anything really. He tries to murder totally-not-AOC even though she hasn't done anything
I'm sorry this will be so long, but I am a writer and have thought about this a lot before. The Problem is the way people write villains like this. The character does take it too far usually, that's usually what makes a tragic villain they were almost a hero. The actual issue with our media is we don't have many true revolutionary heroes who don't take it too far but do change the status quo. Usually, in narratives with an overkill "I want change now" villain, they have the hero relate to the villain but is against the villain because, as a hypothetical, the villain, also like the hero, wants to end poverty but sprinkles on something like "In order to end poverty, we must sacrifice Bourgeoisie babies to the blood god," and so the hero must stop them. But then, after stopping the villain dispute and agreeing with the villain on the ending poverty thing, they don't actually get shown strongly advocating or fighting for change, and instead, the narrative ends with them saying essentially, "We will work on it." I've especially noticed this in media based on an approximation of our world (Like Marvel or DC), almost like because the writers want to keep the relatable "our world" in the story, so they are too scared to rock the boat too much. I mean, it's not even just characters fighting for social betterment. In Marvel as an example, the biggest world-changing event was the snap, and up until then, nothing really changed, yet the snap also didn't cause a massive reformation of society. Basically, the same laws, countries' social norms, and general complacency with the current system remained the same dispute 50% of people effectively dying in an instant. The only new laws are effective ones regarding superheroes and aliens, and I struggle to believe losing half of the population and the civil unrest that would follow wouldn't result in much more massive changes to society on the entire planet; we have changed for far less than the hypothetical mass death scenario the MCU proposed. TBH, I only bring this up because I think when it comes to Urban fantasy media, on average, writers seem afraid to suggest anything that could possibly change our current system. Intentionally or not, some writers kind of treat the way society is as a monolith, and all changes to that monolith must take place over a long time after the credits have already rolled. I agree with the take that it may take a while to make change through preferable, peaceful methods, but the way it's commonly depicted implies that a better world is for the people of the future to worry about, not us.
Also, I'm not the smartest person every second of my life. So, if something I said came off as stupid, it may be because I was rambling, didn't explain what I intended well enough, or worded it wrong. So, if you disagree with something I said, tell me why I might have something incorrect I'm happy to possibly learn something.
But Syndrome plans to sell his weapons, meaning only the wealthy will have the powers. Also, he is selling weapons that just technology
Vaush Stop With The Bad Media Takes Challenge (DIFFICULTY: IMPOSSIBLE).
Vaush: Mr. Rogers is unironically a fascist.
Ah yes, the obligatory "you can't think critically about this media property because it's for kids." comment.
I'm fairly sure people were upset at superheroes because they were often destructive in their vigilantism, as in yes I stopped the robber but leveled two city blocks in doing so, and not because they were upset at them having super powers
let's face in the Avatar universe the real equalizer between benders and non-benders would be technology and in the case of combat firearms instead of mechs. One of the comics touched on this when fire Nation industrial tech was brought to one of the water tribes & it was brought up that non-benders with just a few days of training with a machine can do what would take a bender years to master can do.
Reniassance: Goddamn crossbows!
Post-reniassance: goddamn gunpowder!
Say what you want about Black Panther, but if killmonger didn't open their eyes, those kids in the hood would have never gotten that new basketball court
I mean do you want everyone having super powers? Literally everyone?
Sounds like a recipe for chaos
Apparently Zack Snyder is one of the kindest and easiest to work with directors in hollywood, just a really nice guy respected by all. People describe working with him as an absolute joy.
People can be nice on an interpersonal level while being awful on an ideological level
Loving the frigid outskirts gameplay to go along with this lmao
The way I see it, coming to these conclusions depends on how cynically these stories can be viewed. The incredibles is incredibly idealistic. Even though the story is essentially about naturally gifted people needing help poor inferior people, those people that are gifted are inherently good and never abuse their powers, unlike our world. Syndrome is inherently evil and even if he has a point, he wants to save the best powers and weapons for himself.
Compare this to the legend of korra, which can be cynically read because a good number of benders we're shown are heavily flawed and/or terrible people. The war was caused by benders and the fire nation ruined so many lives. Even if you don't get to see that much non-bender discrimination, Amon had a point and his goal was ultimately altruistic. All he wanted was to take away bending to gain equality. The worst thing he did, according to the writers, was be a hypocrite because he was a bender himself. As if that takes anything away from the point he's making.
Sorry, but Amon wanted to take away peoples’ bodily autonomy to make everyone “equal.” That’s like if men were forced to take hormones or some other biological alteration so they are no longer physically stronger than women. I mean, men are the most consistent and overwhelming threat to woman’s safety all throughout history. So what would be wrong with taking away their rights over their bodies, just like Amon did when performing bending-removal on people? Hm? Men’s physical advantages are just like the advantages benders have over non-benders.
@@Fantallana
You can't compare Amon taking people's bending away to men being forced to take feminizing hormones? Bending has nothing to do with bodily autonomy.
1) Any woman can become as strong or stronger than a man. Female body builders exist. Unlike a non-bender, where even if they train hard enough like Sokka or Asami, they'll always be at a disadvantage.
2) There's literally no biological difference between benders and non-benders. They all have chi paths that can be blocked by chi blockers, regardless. Unlike people taking hormones that physically change their bodies inside and out in different ways.
It would be one thing if the film tries to push the X-men and Spiderman notion of the responsibility of those with power to use it to help and better things
but the whole “when everyone is super no one will be line” changes that
it directly infers that one’s sense of self worth and or their value is determined by their abilities, and since the supers are an elite privileged minority whose powers and gifts are hereditary, not something they earned, or made for themselves
that the threat of not being special and or having that value by being better than the regular plebs, is the real threat of Sydnrome
he’s threatening to make them irrelevant and or take their privilege away.
*Amon had a point and his goal was ultimately altruistic. All he wanted was to take away bending to gain equality. The worst thing he did, according to the writers, was be a hypocrite because he was a bender himself. As if that takes anything away from the point he's making.*
It does though since his interest was not equality at all but daddy issues from being abused
his hatred of benders and his goals was never about equality it was about revenge and personal grievance he used the idea of equality to manipulate and use others
which is why when it's revealed his crew disbands and rejects him
@@mckenzie.latham91 I can see your point. But I think the incredibles being on the idealistic side of the scale makes the issue not as egregious as it could be.
There's a scene in Marvels Jessica jones. Jessica has powers and uses them all the time to strong arm people and get what she wants. But her sister has access to the serum that gives people mutant powers and Jessica is adamant that her sister not use it.
It always irked me how her sister only wanted to equalize the two of them, and she was vilified for it later.
If it's randomised I understand. If it's like Jessica then she's selfish.
I wonder if part of this is also the relatively new trend of making villains more logical and sympathetic. Nowadays making a “good villain” means that they have some reason or justification for their actions. It’s kind of postmodern in the sense that it recognizes that people aren’t just like evil and no one’s fully good or bad. We’re all the heroes of our own stories and such. But then they have to make it clear that “they go about it the wrong way!” Or the villain is straight up in the right and their opposition (ie the protagonist) is the force of evil.
That's not postmodern, believable / good villains have always been that way. Go back to ancient mythology and even there, the bad guys will think themselves in the right.
Actually, most modern movies do it more as an aesthetic rather than actually having their villains have a point. They try to portray it that way, but if you actually think about it, the logic behind that is extremely flawed and the "villain who has a point" would have to be extremely dumb if they actually wanted that point.
@@Tacklepig I’m specifically comparing it to the the era of the NBA Television Code, 50s-70s ish.
The era where bad guys in media were cartoonishly evil, weren’t allowed to win, etc. It’s certainly postmodern in the sense that there is an attitude of skepticism toward the grand narratives of modernism, blurring the lines between good and evil, rejecting binary oppositions and categorizations, etc.
Well Frieza is lol I’m space Hitler and I’ll have fun doing it
So my question is, how *do* you make a villain who's sympathetic, has understandable motives, etc. without making the protagonist the evil one? If the villain not getting the picture clearly and going too far as a result of their own character flaws is now apparently bad writing, how do you even make a good villain at all now?
@@spikem5950 I don’t think it’s bad writing necessarily, it’s more of just a trend to be aware of and to deconstruct. In the end it will usually be up to execution as to whether it’s “good writing”, which of course is subjective.
One way to avoid it and still make a sympathetic villain is to give them human traits (emotions, a family to love and protect, etc) but don’t give them a justified political ideology. A lot of the stories try to make them sympathetic by giving them the “right camp” but wrong methods; switch it so that their ideology is the problem. The sympathy will come from making them feel like a real person who thinks they’re making the right choice but isn’t.
Like the big bad could be a CEO to represent capitalism but they’re just trying to give their kids a better life or something.
"Honey, where is my Super Suit?"
my Super Suit
Super Suit
*S.S.*
My God...
I've seen quite a few people taking the "- and when everyone's super, no one will be!" line out of context. The line was given at the end of a long dialogue before Syndrome proceeds with the final stage of his plan; the plan being to stage a terrorist attack on a major city (where he definitely killed people with his robot) that he would pretend to stop with his technology to gain the admiration of the populace, when in reality he was control of it the entire time (at least, he thought he was). Syndrome didn't want to solve an equality problem between normal people and supers, he wanted to be THE super hero, so he created the omni-droid to be incapable off being stopped by any other single super hero by prototyping it against and killing off dozens of supers in secret on a remote island. He wanted to make sure no other hero could swoop in and steal the glory, SYNDROME had to be the hero.
Had he really wanted to be in the right he would have already been selling his inventions, but he kept them secret so that only he could benefit from them. Right before the line he says "-and when I'm old and I've had my fun, I'll sell my inventions - ", so he was intending only to do it when he couldn't or no longer wanted to be a super hero as his final act of spite against super heroes, not to help the common person. Even then, he says he wants to sell them, meaning that another single or small group rich individuals may snap them up for their own ends.
Buddy didn't want to help people he just wanted the fame of being a super hero, and he was willing to create threats and kill off the competition and innocent people to be the only one.
Yes, this is what I wish people like Vaush would understand. It wasn't a case of "the progressives have gone too far again!" it was a case of "another crony making the problem so he can sell us the solution." I'd say it's more of a commentary on oligarchs who pretend to be your friend or savior than anything else, and how there's always another one to pop up and bullshit their way into power.
Wasn't Syndrome talking about selling his superhero tech? So "everyone" meant "everyone rich enough to buy it".
The Lion King is also ideologically questionable
@@tiborklein5349 Yeah. Not only that but the "Circle of Life" seems fundamentally unfair and borderline fascist. esp the remakes reason for the hyena's being evil (basically they're biologically incapable of not committing theft or something like that) good video by Big Joel.
@@rync1372 thought it was a bad video by Big Joel. The Lion King isn't making observations about society it is making observations about nature. Sometimes the animals are just animals.
Its more monarchical than fash
@@corneliuscapitalinus845 Definitely monarchist messaging (which the original work was too), with some essentialist rhetoric (circle of life, good predator species and evil predator species) which is mostly fine when it's animals acting on evolutionary biology but becomes problematic the more intelligent and anthropomorphic they become.
this is actually really interesting grounds for a sequel, a new hero comes around with tech instead of powers, and Mr. Incredible has to learn to overcome his prejudice lingering from syndrome.
There was never prejudice though, the movie never showed a technological hero but Mr. Incredible was angry at Buddy because he didn't want ANY sidekick and Buddy was also inexperienced. He almost did get himself fucking kasploded 5 seconds after telling Mr. Incredible he can be useful even without powers.
Saw the thumbnail and thought this was a Jack Saint video lol
lmao 🤣
Yeah, as mentioned by one of your commentators, Zack Snyder very famously spoke out against Geeks + Gamers.
In star wars KOTOR the second one kreia tries to end the force to free the univers from its grasp because it manipulates everything and breeds unfairness. She doesn’t really do the equality thing but the goal is similar
Emplemon pointed this out in his video on villains. If The Incredibles was any other pixar movie Syndrome would've been the hero.
When someone went 'look at Africa' when going on about people going too far in retaliation I wanted to pull my own hair out. Sometimes people should just -- Not talk.
Feels like the better example would be Haiti, no?
@@zacheryeckard3051 no
I'm pretty sure, they meant Rwanda.
Being charitable, I feel like they meant specific countries post-colonialism, like Rwanda and South Africa.
@@zacheryeckard3051 maybe they mistook Haiti for all of Africa
Not to anime brain, but that's also why Overhaul from MHA also absolutely did NOT have a point, but probably would've made the world a better place if he won anyway.
Answer: No.
WAIT I WATCHED THE VIDEO: Maybe
Syndrome's plan wasn't to make everyone superheroes, his plan was to kill all the superheroes. That's why he had that metal machine that kills them and Mr Incredible accessed the computer and saw the files of hundreds of his dead friends and realized he and his family were next
I thought the plot in the movie 300 was a propagandistic storytelling to the other soldiers
It was, and it was really obvious lmao
I love how Vaush is beating an undead horse while beating an undead horse
Vaush has a bad memory. The way he spoke about Avatar lore was all over the place. He tried.
I love how the conversation just cuts off when we get to Star Wars
I don't think there's anything wrong with the idea of a villain taking retribution too far. However, the main issue is that the trope is used far too often, especially when compared to the times the nuanced oppressive system is challenged. It's almost always cartoonishly evil
That’s because the “retribution taken too far” is very real give someone power and/or status to bring social change is a recipe for disaster. Bringing up thought provoking and good points about how horrible and unfair the world is, isn’t anything special or unique we all do it. We need to bring back villains who are just plain evil, those who wants to harm people because they feel the need to have them be challenged by those who wants to see the hood in them
No, the real issue with it is that the media using the trope don't ever address the villain's concerns without going too far, they never show us what the good alternative is. They go with the liberal "keeping the status quo is best" route and that's what's fucked about it.
@@spikem5950 If they don’t go too far then they’re wouldn’t be villains in first place since there little in odds with the protagonist and universe. Radicals from both left and right like to think that they know the solution to every problem in world “if only we just took the good alternative” whatever that means, and that the issue is everyone is holding them back aka “keeping the status quo.” There’s no such thing as “keeping the status quo” our society and social norms is a boat that’s always moving and steering, the question is who do you want to control the boat and make the rules?
Edit: autocorrect keeps change good to hood for some reason
vaush is being a real mr incredible about AI art
I think Vaush needs to rewatch the movie cause he’s pretty off base here. Syndrome wasn’t trying to give superpowers to everyone, he was trying to kill the people with powers then sell his gadgets to everyone including the military. The gadgets which didn’t even really work and turned on him and got him killed. It’s not like he invented a way to actually give people powers and that was bad
I can't tell if you're joking.
@@RevolutionaryLoser what is there to joke about? That is what Vaush said he was trying to do give powers to everyone but that’s not it
@@TheAwesomeness1123 It just sounds like satire. Your criticism of Syndrome is that his gadgets werent good enough. Yes, the point of the film is that the plebs should know their place and live as loyal slaves of the master race. You are employing something called a Thermian argument. You are excusing a writing decision with an in-universe justification of why the writing is bad and fash-y.
Your main problem isnt that Syndrome is actually not an advocate of equality and helping the weak, your problem is that he is an incompetent advocate which is obviously necessary to the story because if he was a competent advocate he would be the protagonist and the Incredibles would be the villains.
The thing with Foce sensitivity is that in most cases, an untrained force sensitive is indistinguishable from someome who is merely gifted in a field such as piloting, oratory, or athletics. It is extraordinarily rare, like, literally one out of tens of trillions of people, for someone to be so naturally strong with the force that they are able to, say, telekinetically kill a person, or drive them to madness with telepathic visions. Having such individuals taken under the care of a force-based organization and trained in seclusion in a monastary until they can be of benefit to society is actually a viable solution.
True, and the fact that the organization usually does this at the consent of the parents is also a very valuable thing, as it shows that such a system can exist with the consent of the govern.
Vaush talks about media a lot but often forgets events that happen in the media that refute his point, ie Avatar and Black Panther
Vaush literally addresses both those topics and point sout how they don’t actually do that in the video
he literally makes the point that in black panther Killmonger has an actually accurate point but the writers way of preserving the status quo is to make the point that any action that isn’t approved of by the elites themselves is going too far
@@mckenzie.latham91 his complaint about the resolution in black panther was that they didn't share their tech with the people, just their weapons with other nation's governments. Except they built a community center in Killmonger's old neighborhood with the purpose of sharing their tech with the people.
@@MalachioftheForest Oh wait you’re right i think i screwed that up, i think i was thinking of Avatar not Black panther since he was totally wrong about that
though i would say they were not sharing their tech they were using their hidden wealth and power to help change and make improvements on a community ad societal level
but yeah you were right, my bad.
"Fucked up evil saxophone noises"
Oh god please no oh god please
The Incredibles has thicc mommies, so it therefore cannot be fascist. Checkmate Vaush.
The Incredibles can definitely get a Randian reading, but I disagree that it intended to do that.
The whole point of the movie was that Buddy wanted to be Mr. Incredible's sidekick and he was rejected, so the guy spent his whole life trying to get back at him. He wanted to be his equal, then, he wanted to take what made him special and give it to everybody, so he's not special anymore.
But there's no vibe of "We are superior, so we should have special privileges" in the movie.
Mind you, the whole idea of superhero accountability was a pivotal plot point in both Batman v Superman and Captain America: Civil War.
And as for the Dash scene, because I know you're going to throw that at me, his mom is urging him to not use his powers because society has decided that unregulated superpowers are dangerous as a bunch of jackasses can just do whatever with no accountability, which could lead to people getting hurt. It's a public safety risk.
(For the record, this is the mindset of a bunch of Libertarian jackasses: "I am better than everyone those, so the rules should not apply to me. I don't care if other people get hurt, sucks to be them.")
I always took it that this kind of power is dangerous in the hand of one person. And giving every person that power is thus extremely destructive.
Incredibles is literally PG Dark Knight Returns, change my mind
Okay: the equality in the movie being criticized is not some biological/Randian "stupid normal muggles need to bow down to the god men" and Syndrome isn't some radical equalist trying to end the tyranny of supers by giving everyone powers through technology. Syndromes actual plan, that Vaush horribly misremembers, is to stage a false flag attack so that he an become a super hero and be worshiped like a god. The main antagonist of the movie is literally a Randian super villian who wants the stupid normal muggles to bow down to him as a god man. His line about "when everyone is super no one will be" is basically him wanting to burn a bridge after he has passed it, so he can be the last superhero ever. He isn't challenging a hierarchy the movie thinks of as the natural order, he's trying to climb to the top of the hierarchy, reign alone until his retirement.
If anything the "equality" criticized in the movie could be framed in a very anarchist sympathetic light as this overbearing "don't rock the boat and just be normal instead of being you" force that stems more from societal expectations which put order and stability ahead of human good. You could make a similar movie with the same plotpointss and message about the main character from Coco learning to become a guitar player even though his family doesn't approve.
@@ashfox7498 I was making a semi-joking loose comparison tbh. Yeah there are some fairly big differences as you mentioned but the similarities are striking.
Pretty funny how chat just destroys his points throughout the whole vid lol
Im not even 4 minutes in and this is such a horrendous take:
"the narrative through line of the story is Syndrome a normal human being whos imbittered at super heros, and in response wants to give the powers of super heros to everybody- and the narrative essentially says 'no, the natural order is these blessed people holding powers, no one else and no one else deserves it'."
"Syndrome wanted to make everyone equal"
Vaush my brother in christ- Syndrome wasnt evil for wanting to make people equal or 'break a natural order'- he was evil because the methods which he developed his teck was bad-- yknow; mass killing people? Also Vaush seems to forget in the same 'if everyone is super, then no one will be' rant; Syndrome also went on about how he planned to sell his tech to the military as well.
Further more Syndromes plan for the Omni Droid- even if it hadnt went out of control could have still resulted in deaths and if not was very clearly planning for a large amount of damage to be done to the city to sell himself as Tony Stark.
Syndrome isnt bad because he wanted equality- hes bad because he was warped and had several screws loose and a murderer.
Theres still 14 minutes left so we'll see how this goes- but so far its another Bad Vaush Media Take™
Edit: I've read the responses explaining the point Vaush is trying to make make and while I don't entirely 100% agree I think I can see the general point or idea.
That's exactly what Vaush said. Next time, please watch the video before you comment. Thanks and have a nice day
Vaush is criticizing the radical revisionist villain trope, where the villain correctly identifies problems in society and then goes batshit insane to justify why the usually status quo hero is right in fighting them. Syndrome being a mass murderer is part of the trope.
It's a bad trope because it makes a villain out of change and a hero out of fighting against change. It's a trope that tries to make a sympathetic villain by giving them a better ideological foundation than the hero, and over time the reasonable ideologies that these villains uphold can become associated with the evil that the villains commit.
Vaush never said the movie was bad, he was just saying that it associates an essentialist worldview with the heros and a equality worldview with the villain. There was no good coded perspective on solving the inherit inequalities of having superheroes in the world, all that criticism came from the villain.
equality is his stated goal though, and you can't separate that out and say "actually it's about his methods being bad" because the conflict between supers and non-supers is the core theme the movie exists to explore. The Incredibles' lives suck at the start because they have to hold back and not wield power due to the unfairness of others not having that power. Syndrome is serving as their foil, he presents the hypothetical alternative "what if we brought everyone up to your level?" and regardless of how sincerely you think he means it, to just leave that dangling there without the heroes ever acknowledging it is either bad writing or implies that the writers really do think he's wrong about it.
Like, if he's really supposed to be saying the right thing for the wrong reasons or going about it in the wrong way, why wouldn't they show that by having the protagonists go about it in the actually right way? Maybe they steal and distribute the tech that he made and the supers and non-supers arrest him together, maybe at the end of the movie the underminer rises up and instead of having a team of people designated better than everyone else, all of the attendees point their zero-point energy bands at him, and we end up with a world where supers and non-supers can harmoniously live as equals.
...but that doesn't happen. The ending we get is one where Syndrome is defeated by the Incredibles choosing to wield their power in spite of the unfairness of it, returning us to the previous unequal status quo.
Like yes, making Syndrome's methods bad serves the rhetorical purpose of marking him as the villain, but to separate that from his ideas requires you to ignore the entire rest of the movie. That's what Vaush is getting at.
@@Darth_Insidious alright I think I understand the idea here yea
Honestly Vaush is just too naive, the movie just brings the idea of equality and presents it as bad: the ones wanting equality are just resentful, lazy loser groomers, iPhone Venezuela one hundred million dead, etc. Sounds familiar?
About 300 and weirdly in Snyders defense, actual spartans were very fascist as well so it was kinda accurate about that at least...
I disagree with what Vaush said about 300 being accidentally fascistic but I don't necesarily put the blame on snyder, more so I think it's to do with the source material, the comics created by Frank Miller. Miller is a legend in the comic book industry and has made some genuinely good comics but he is also a rightwing loon with some crazy ideas, so I could toatlly see how rightwing (not necesarily fascist but definitely rightwing) thought could permeate his comics as well.
fascism is right wing. Its just conservatism amped up. all the componants are there in normal conservative thinking, just amped up. The nationalism becoming ultra nationalism, the 'good old days' becoming a mythological past, The heirachy being capitalism becomes the heirarchy being about race. Hell, Conservatives have some fucked up ideas of Race too.
Can someone PLEASE explain to me how 300 was fascist? It was the soldiers of a small city-state fighting against a fucking *EMPIRE* demanding surrender or die, even ends with the *demigod* getting hit with a spear to prove they could bleed. I don't get the assertions it's fascistic.
@@spikem5950 I mean, See, your clearly Jumping into this in bad faith. Otherwise, you could have looked up and tried to genuinely absorb the opinions of others, rather then come to the comment section here looking for a fight. but, just to name a few things 300 has that are very fascistic propaganda feeling.. We’ve got...
Eugenics,
Romanticisation of Hellenic culture,
Military worshipping culture,
Ideological adherence to tradition,
Hyper-masculinity,
Defined role of women within the home,
Hysterical fear of the outsider and other,
Deference to the leader,
Not to mention how Relatively advanced cultures are given a makeover to be inhuman, Xerxes himself and his 'immortals' to name a few. It very much feels like something a Fascist would show to prove the superiority of their cultural roots. Sure, you CAN just engage with it as a story about people fighting an empire.. but dont be surprised that other people can sense something your refusing to look at or engage with.
@@TranshumanMarissa I was asking because I have never even heard it called fascistic until this video, and Vaush did not explain why it's fascistic, nor did any comment I found scrolling through explain why but only assert that it was. I appreciate you giving an answer but you could have done it without immediately assuming bad faith and getting condescending like you're looking for a fight.
Eugenics: I don't remember this being a point in the movie, but it could just be faulty memory and it being awhile since seeing it. Have an example?
Romanticization: Hellenistic culture is pretty authoritarian and sexist as all fuck, but I don't really see how it's fascist. I always felt the Romans fit that bill a hell of a lot more.
Military culture: Fair enough.
Tradition: Fair enough.
Hyper-masculinity: I see this as more idiotic than fascistic. You could have someone who's hyper-masculine but still progressive.
Women's Roles: Yep, agree on this one.
Xenophobia: Perhaps? I never saw any evidence they were just exactly xenophobic, just that they hated the Persians who were coming to conquer them. Almost certainly Spartan elitists, just never saw xenophobia myself.
Deferance to Leader: Can agree on this one.
Makeover: My Persian history is very spotty, but didn't the Persians *want* Xerxes and the Immortals to be viewed that way? That was the entire point of the Immortals, to garner a repetition as these unkillable greater-than-human warriors to demoralize their enemies. I always thought that was kind of cool about them.
Again, I was never refusing to engage with it. Nobody would even explain, so I got a little frustrated in hopes someone would give me something to engage with. From those bullet points I can see a few that would make the start of a case at least, which is more than before.
Fair enough. I did assume you were Jonsing for a fight from your tone and almost defensiveness.. that being said, since we are just chatting, Ill go about explaining in a bit more detail.
I do think you have a pretty important hang up to keep in mind. Not all points here have to be from an in universe perspective. Fascists historically had a habit of presenting the past in an especially glorified way. For example, your 'Xenophobic' point relies on viewing the story as presented, rather then looking at the 'presentation' itself. Consider how the persians are portrayed as a choice the author made, rather then a fact of the situation, and you might start to see the fascism a bit more clearly. After all, Every fascist regime ever has used fear of a monsterous enemy to justify their aggression, so a story that shows an unreasoning unhuman, but inferior oponant falling to the masculinity of the 300..
also, Hyper-Masculinity tends to be a trait Fascist sorts have. While its not exclusive TO fascists, Its still important TO them, if that makes sense. Its something that shouldnt be your first clue, but if it combines strongly enough with other points, it starts to add to the 'flavor' if that makes any sense. You are right though that Rome is usually more the go-to for folks then Hellenistic cultures broadly, But well.. Im pretty sure this exact story of the spartans holding out against the Persians is one even the Nazi Glorified. So while Rome is 'usually' the go to..
As for the eugenics bit, its In the form of culling the weak. Sort of a proto Eugenics. if I recall correctly, they even imply they practice infantacide on babies if they are too weak? Though my memory on this specific point is foggy.
Now mind you, I dont think 300 is trying to be like.. Fascist or whatever nessicarily, but when you kinda keep an eye out for it, it does get really.. Rough to ignore.
superpowers equals to guns...he wanted to give guns to everyone..he was a libertarian
Blueballed again. I just want a 12 hour long video of Vowsh talking exclusively about fictional worlds and magic systems. I want to hear more about the superpower story he made up. I want more avatar stuff. Star Wars would be cool. Anything. Please.
Agreed 100%
In the movie, Syndrome's superpowers were intellect and creativity, thus making him just as super as the other superheroes.
The subtext of "when everyone's super, noone will be" does not necessarily mean it's bad if everyone is equal. Buddy's plan is about petty revenge. Not sure the message most people got out of this is "equality bad". Especially when the way to equality is supposed to be genetic modifications or transhumanism.
Also I'm pretty sure there is a critique of superheroes being vigilantes, with the state having to cover for fuckups and people being dissatisfied when things go wrong.
Not to mention, giving everyone powers would NOT be equality, it would lead to horrible chaos. Your average person would not be very responsible with powers.
I mean even if we remove Syndrome. Bob's whole view is that he and his families are exceptional and sould be recognised as such.
I swear every single video that includes some mild media critique chat suddenly gets wayyyy more nitpicky than usual. Also chat is somehow always incapable of differentiating when he's talking about how the story could be better vs how it actually is.
It's what they did to Magneto.
A Holocaust survivor, whose powers manifested in his childhood while imprisoned in the camps.
And he fights for the well-being of people with powers against the rest of humanity that "Hates and Fears" mutants.
Yeah in the beginning they just made him generic evil until Jack Kirby (who co-created magneto) left marvel, and it's fucked up when you figure out Jack Kirby was Jewish.
I think Vaush is wrong here… You could just as easily state that the movie is anti capitalistic tech billionaires. Syndrome’s anti-superhero outlook wasn’t really the issue the issue was that he was committing more crimes than one could count! I don’t believe the movie represents the superheroes in question as deserving of their powers and the muggles should just bend to their will. In fact I don’t think the powers were even God-given I’m pretty sure they were militarily manufactured super soldiers. Also the movie doesn’t out right approve vigilanteeism that’s white his wife was a post of him doing as such.
Lol you are confusing the Incredibles with the Boys. Nowhere in the movie is it said or implied that the supers are some government experiment.
@@Zarastro54 Ah well
It’s crazy how many villains have a good point formed from experiencing inequality but are going about it the wrong way.
Vaush can you stop having bad media take imposible chalenge
The media take was "Incredibles is good" the rest was not a media take
@@driveasandwich6734 its called a joke chill
@@karlo125 Explain joke.
@@Juhz0r ok the Joke or refrence is how vaush has bad media takes sometimes
@@karlo125 🤣
Giving everybody Superpowers isn't the same as everybody having rights. Its also not what happened
V00sh moment
The insurance scene was still the basically the opposite of objectism, aswell as altruism is still considered good in the movie, not being selfish
"300 was fascist"
SPARTA WAS LITERALLY PROTO-FASCIST (and Hitler saw them as the ideal society)
Obviously I'm not saying 300 accurately represents classical Sparta (or Persia) though.
The Incredibles is Fascist... I like Vaush, but I find this to be silly. "Supers being their own class and stuff" .. the entire movie was about how they regulated that shit and how that family of super heroes were basically displaced until evil money bags decided to play with these super power individuals.. so HE can play super hero.
I chop this up to Vaush seeing the villian as pro equality over a phrase, when the world was already pro equality.. to the point that people who had powers had to hide them. Vaush was trying to explain that it's sort of mess up that super heros hit the genetic lottery.. while forgetting in the movie, they were not allow to show their super powers. You hit the lottery, but you're unable to cash in.
The second movie was trying to get work the public up towards undoing the law that banned supers from showing themselves.
But to be fair, chances are he haven't saw the movie in a long time and he might be inflating this movie with things like "the Boys"