Social Issues In The Incredibles

The representation of diverse people and experiences in comics is important to expand the thoughts and minds of readers. Yang and Wilson, the minds behind American Born Chinese and Ms. Marvel, use the medium of comic books and graphic novels to help bring a new sense of belonging and acceptance to marginalized people. They do this by applying a “millennial mindset” to their respective stories. What this means is that the characters they have created, whether they are based off real people or are fiction, address the problems of race, religion, or sexuality that we are facing today. These characters also act to threaten the current atmosphere of the comic book industry. Typical comic book characters and superheroes, before now, were mostly white and from a typical American background. Heroes that were women were generally over-sexualized and unrealistic. These two authors hope to challenge the current status quo of the comic book industry by creating characters whose background is much different than previous superheroes.

Superheroes can be defined in many ways by many experts. Clare Pitkethly’s academic background consists of comparative literature, culture and communication as she also speaks and writes comic books and superhero, defines a superhero to be different. In Pitkethly’s article “Straddling a Boundary: The Superhero and the Incorporation of Difference,” talks about

Remember the Titans is directed by Boaz Yakin and stars Denzel Washington as Coach Herman Boone, Will Patton as Bill Yoast, Ryan Hurst as Gerry Bertier, and Wood Harris as Julius Campbell. The movie takes place in 1971, at T.C Williams High School in Alexandria, Virginia. The high school had recently integrated, where both Americans and African Americans conjoin to the same school. The main social issue in the movie was racism, because the Americans didn’t want to be a part of the same school as the African Americans, but they play on the same football team. They also didn’t want to be coached by Herman Boone, because he was a different race from them and Coach Yoast coached most of the white players. Remember the Titans teaches us we can put our differences aside and work together as a team to achieve a goal.

A movie by Pixar, The Incredibles was very well thought of by audiences. In 2005, it won an Academy Award for "Best Animated Feature Film of the Year" beating the movies "Shark Tale" and "Shrek 2". The film starts off as an interview with three superheroes known as Mr. Incredible, Elastigirl, and Frozone talking about why they have secret identity. They all love their role as superheroes and enjoy helping people. While the start doesn't necessarily show conflict it does provide the audience of some tension by having Elastigirl mention that she fights crime because it's typically a male only thing, and she doesn't believe that men should be the only ones able to save the

This source discusses the most popular superheroes and how they relate in their own given time period. It makes connections with the major time periods in and the location of the publications. For my essay I intend to use the time period and publication locations to show relation in the societies culture through their superheroes. This source is also very credible being that the author Joseph Darowski has not only a BA and MA, but a PHD as well. He’s written 15 other books that been published.

The concept of a hero has been around for many generations, and the meaning of a hero is defined in ways people grasp its idea. A hero can be a person who has a superpower and is willing to make a personal sacrifice for the benefit of others or can be an ordinary everyday person who just wants to help people out of his or her own heart. Linda Seger’s article, “Creating the Myth,” tackles the idea of a “Hero 's Myth,” and shows the ten steps of how heroes are transformed from an ordinary person to the Savior. On the other hand, Robert B. Ray piece titled, “The Thematic Paradigm,” emphasizes that in modern films, it is either having an “Outlaw Hero or an Official Hero,” which he uses three stages to demonstrates how they are different each other in the way they perform in the society. Further, the article, “Out of Character: Wonder Woman’s Strength Is Her Compassion - What Happened?” by Stevie St. John, explains how Wonder Woman was viewed as a compassionate woman in the 1940s and 1950s, and in the 2000s she changes into a more violent person. In this essay, I argue that a hero is subjective, and is defined by the villain or event that they had to adapt to suddenly.

Throughout the entire world there are issues with our societies brought upon by the lack of clear thinking and/or compassion. Many of these issues may not be problems necessarily but just topics discussed when the word “issue” is brought up. One can clearly compare our society to the society described in Aldous Huxley’s novel Brave New World. In this novel the society Huxley has created is meant to be a utopia, made up of a hierarchy known as the caste system. Social classes in both societies create issues due to the fact that everyone has always had different standings in society.

"They were great contributors in restoring hope in America after the Great Depression, and are an effective communication tool of inspirational messages." They revived America, gave them hope and showed them a new way to dream. They helped us find meaning in loss and trauma, discover our strengths and taught us to use them for a good purpose. "Without superheroes, there would be no true depiction of justice, no portrayal of hope - heroism and not a single painting of the good in humanity, and the world would've lost a big part of itself," - Gerard Jones.

The portrayal of superheroes in films has changed in terms of their character, appearance, style and strength. Superheroes has been a popular theme in hollywood films since its inception. They are what peoples imagination can only think of. A perfect human being who saves the world .The first time superhero appeared on T.V was “The Adventures of Captain Marvel” in 1941. Superheroes was on the rise within popular comic books in 1930′s to the 1940’s as well in which they were considered the ‘Golden Age of Comic Books’ . Comic books became widespread and popular which translated into making films about them.

The physicality and violence of the hypermasculine hero is emphasized in the character of Edward Blake, the costumed crime fighter known as The Comedian, but this emphasis serves not to glorify him but to expose our acceptance of vigilante violence, especially when abstracted from morality. Many superheroes

There is a direct correlation between the education received by today’s youth, and the controlled education in Brave New World. The thought of education has changed in recent years. We no longer are teaching children to think, but we are teaching them to know that a, b, c, or d will be the answer. The children in Brave New World have to go through conditioning, a process in which they are taught (without choice of their own) what they will like or will not like. We as a society in whole, need to realize that slowly we are working our way from having an opinion of your own, to thinking what the masses think.

We create superheroes not for just the sake of it but to make the point that we are the real superheroes as we have the capability of creating them. They are those who provide us with great example of virtues over vices and goodness over evil. An ideology of a superhero is worldwide known, it is known by people so much that the definition of an Anti Hero is swept under a carpet. If we talk about general people then they refer any character who is having a supernatural or superhuman ability and who stands for the good cause is a superhero. Today the ideology of an anti hero is created on such a way that it has become difficult to distinguish between the superheroes and the anti heroes.

A superhero’s main characteristic is to be able to a unique individual which will separate them from being categorized with the typical other “heroes”. Coogan states that a “superhero” is an individual that exemplifies the three main characteristics mission, power and identity. A unique superhero must have a mission that involves the main motive to save civilians without there being any personal gain from this experience. Coogan states that without this personal mission that this “superhero” would just be a ordinary person that would be an extremely helpful in the event of a dilemma. A unique superhero must posses these extraordinary but mystical powers that reflect their human identity or personality. These powers have been greatly exaggerated

The play focuses on the idea of “Ubermensch”, which is German for “superman”. Shaw gives his “Ubermensch” qualities such as superior intellect, intuition, and self defined virtues. The theme of the play is the barriers that the evolution of the superman encounters, one of which according to Shaw is marriage. The institution of marriage is a barrier as it strengthens the division of social classes and hinders copulation. It was also heavily influenced by power and property acquisition. It is criticized in the play as Violet keeps her marriage a secret from her family and others because her husband is of a lesser social class. Furthermore, the inclusion of the Don Juan dream that Jack encounters is also criticism as Don Juan tells Jack that

The superhero is different from a regular person in their society in that he has powers like no other human, he’s an official government agent, and that