posted
Hmm. I thought I understood what you were getting at, but maybe I'm not.
They way that I understood it was that you were concerned that the heroism being displayed in the movie was self-centered first and dealt with what you would consider actual heroism to be as a secondary item.
In the specific example of Dash and his entering the track meet, I had thought that you were concerned that since the movie considered him to be superior, then he deserved to win.
quote:The great problem is that he-- the family, and presumably the audience-- probably thinks he deserves to win, and that's when all of the political implications come in. Nobody was thinking about the other kids.
I disagree. At this point in the story, I was just happy that he got to run in the race. And despite Dash's talk about "being able to kick their butts," he found that he was happy to just run the race - he was grinning so widely his head was about to fall off. As far as his placement in the race, I'd say that's more a case of him still not having 100% control over himself yet.
In my opinion, coming in second place under these circumstances does make it better. He wasn't winning because he was superior and this gave him a right to win. He made a choice to not crank it up to full throttle, and he made an honest effort to enjoy the race (which he did) and begin the process of balancing himself.
The key to being happy, for the Incredibles, was to find a balance between the two lives that they had led. That's what I think they're getting at in the ending and throughout the movie.
Posts: 753 | Registered: Mar 2001
| IP: Logged |
posted
I don't think he should be in the race. I think he should be happy that he is ot in the race. If he wants to play sports, let him be an archer.
I may recuse myself from judging. I spent a very important five years of my life committed, racking up second place track medals. I have a shoebox full of red. I've also played second oboe in some of the best orchestras I'll ever be lucky enough to play in, and I don't like the idea of someone cheating, especially when in an orchestra, there usually isn't a third.
posted
So, wait.... you don't think it's fair for gifted people to use their strengths in competition? Because you always came in second?
What if YOU had been naturally gifted in track and oboe? At 8 years old, would you have decided that your natural talents gave you an unfair advantage, and quit?
posted
Zeugma, what if you inherited millions from your parents? Should we tax those millions extra?
In other words, being exorbitantly gifted in some way and yet still engaging in competition with others who lack those gifts seems inherently unfair to many people.
Posts: 37449 | Registered: May 1999
| IP: Logged |
posted
Tom, I don't think anything involving cash falls under "natural talents".
I'd say about 90% of my 13 years in public education were WASTED, because of the mindset that everyone needs to be treated exactly the same, and that being gifted was an "unfair advantage".
If I end up having a daughter who's really good a swimming, and a son who's brilliant at the violin, you bet I'm going to encourage them to do their best. And if they're better than other kids? Fine! Let them be! There's nothing wrong with that!
Posts: 1681 | Registered: Jun 2004
| IP: Logged |
posted
I agree with Poly. The point is not to make everyone feel good, but to encourage EVERYONE to do their best. For some people, their best considerably better than anyone else's. For some people, their half-hearted attempts are better than anyone else's best, but that's competition. If someone beating you feels bad, don't compete.
Posts: 26077 | Registered: Mar 2000
| IP: Logged |
You are right. Being gifted is not cheating. Being a superhero is. You guys trying to tell me that Dash isn't cheating is like Clinton saying that he didn't have sex with Lewinsky.
Really, I think this goes back to that American morality that I just don't get. If he wanted to compete, let him become a competitive skeet-shooter.
Scott,
quote:The race, as relates to the family, isn't between Dash and the other children.
You can't separate the other kids from what it is to race. That's like saying, "The Iraq war doesn't have to do with Iraq. It was about us."
As it is a race, it's always already going to be about Dash, his family, and all of the other competitors. This is where I wish he understood religion and understood the bonds between himself and other people. Dash didn't have to understand it, but at least one of the people in his family should have, then explained it to him. The kid can run on water, is asking expecting him to sit out a race that he doesn't properly belong in really asking too much? Is it really an affront to his dignity?
This lack of understanding is the genesis of our white guy economics, and why we let loose our transnational corporations because think that everything that invovles us is about us. This race isn't merely about Dash. The first clue that he shouldn't have been there is that he had to hide his powers. It's my experience that anytime you have to hide something, in government or competition, from the governing body, you are doing something you shouldn't be doing.
quote:The point is not to make everyone feel good, but to encourage EVERYONE to do their best. For some people, their best considerably better than anyone else's. For some people, their half-hearted attempts are better than anyone else's best, but that's competition. If someone beating you feels bad, don't compete.
If that's the point, how come they didn't let Dash loose? He wasn't in there to do his best, he was in there to strut, which is distinctly unsuper.
posted
It's a race to see who can run the fastest. Dash could run the fastest, naturally. No machines, no drugs, no bribing the judges. He wasn't cheating; he's just better.
Posts: 26077 | Registered: Mar 2000
| IP: Logged |
It is a matter of the limits (explicit or implied) of participation. Just as I would not enter into a spelling contest for third-graders, so should someone with abilities that lie far far outside the norm not engage in any competition with those he supercedes to the point of, essentially, being of another type. When you are that far outside the norm, then the term "competition" loses its meaning.
I also wouldn't enter into an essay contest for non-native speakers, or into a race for persons with neuromuscular disabilities. (Mind you, many of the serious contenders in Special Olympics would kick my bum. I am speaking of a subset of a particular ability.)
Moreover, and perhaps more importantly, I wouldn't crow over beating them.
[ November 18, 2004, 01:03 PM: Message edited by: Sara Sasse ]
Posts: 2919 | Registered: Aug 2004
| IP: Logged |
posted
Then he has no peers. There's no place for him to go, no place to compete, no way to take part in the normal little boy activities.
It's rejecting him because he doesn't fit. It may be that he doesn't fit because he'd wipe the floor with everyone, but he's still being rejected. It's cruel to deny him a society without providing another to take its place.
Posts: 26077 | Registered: Mar 2000
| IP: Logged |
posted
I guess it boils down to whether you think competition is about making you a better person through the striving, or measuring talent. Dash is obviously a talented runner -- but running, for him, is not something he'll ever need to COMPETE at; he'll always win, generally without effort. As Irami points out, Dash would be really competing at skeet shooting or something similar; when he runs, he's merely competing against his own sense of ambition -- which makes his involvement in any race inherently selfish, as the race ceases to be about the other runners in any way.
Posts: 37449 | Registered: May 1999
| IP: Logged |
posted
I'm on the "he shouldn't have been in the race" side.
It was in no way a competition. Even if coming in second was a wonderful milestone in his own development, it wasn't fair to everyone that placed after him. For it to have been a competition, they should have had him, say, lap the track a hundred times, appearing long enough in a logical place for the audience to "see" him, and see if he could still cross the finish line before the other kids can get there once. And even then it's suspect.
He doesn't have to prove himself against the other kids. If he wants to compete, let him pick something he would actually have to work for. This is the same reason it bugs me seeing Clark Kent as football star on "Smallville."
As for Bob's "hero" quotient, here I think Irami's utterly wrong. I'll grant that a big part of what Mr. Incredible did he did for the fame and fun of it, but he also helped people when he didn't have to and when he would in fact be punished for it.
What I'm curious about, Irami, is what would constitute heroism for you? It's not simply doing right, I think we can agree on that. But I submit that heroism comes in when doing right will cost you something and you do it anyway. That's probably the relative part you've already dismissed but if that's the case, are there any heroes in your world? Aren't they all just doing what anyone should do?
Posts: 7790 | Registered: Aug 2000
| IP: Logged |
posted
I have read that when Dorothy Day heard that people were beginning to prepare a case to have her declared a saint after her death she said, “I don’t want to be a saint. That would make it too easy to dismiss me.” She didn’t think that what she did was anything “super” – it was the type of thing that every Christian should be doing. Elevating merely doing the right thing even when it’s inconvenient or dangerous to yourself to being a hero works if your thesis is that everyone should strive to be heroic. In fact, I used that idea in my sermon on All Saints’ Day. But combined with the motto “If everyone is special then no one is,” and the implied superiority of the “Supers,” it sends a very different message – morality isn’t expected of everyone, only of those who are extraordinary.
I hadn’t considered Tom’s point that the movie was trying to show a society that actively discouraged both kinds of heroism -- the extraordinary and the daily -- and that kind of redeems the story for me. But I certainly see Irami’s point as well. (Still loved the movie, though.)
Posts: 9866 | Registered: Apr 2002
| IP: Logged |
quote:There's no place for him to go, no place to compete, no way to take part in the normal little boy activities.
It's rejecting him because he doesn't fit. It may be that he doesn't fit because he'd wipe the floor with everyone, but he's still being rejected. It's cruel to deny him a society without providing another to take its place.
Let him join little kids theater. Not only do I think that he shouldn't compete in track. I think that he should understand why he should not compete in track.
quote:1)You aren't a little boy (right?), you can't expect him to make the same sacrafices an adult would be willing to make for others.
Yes I can.
Maybe being a superhero forces you to grow up faster, but when your super power makes you so fast that you can run on water, I don't know if I'm going to shed tears because you have to sit out a track competition. The most appropriate analogy was made by Sara about the special olympics.
Chris,
Here is what see about heroism. To be a hero, you had to have questioned what it is to be a person. That's one of those questions that you don't figure out, but in the thinking about what it is to be, what's trivial appears as trivial and what is precious appears as precious, and the understanding that arises from the honest questioning of what it is to be, allows heroism to be possible.
It's kind of a hand-wavy answer, but that's what I see. A person can do everything that a hero would do, but if it doesn't come from that initial questioning and the subsequent understanding, then I don't know if it is heroic.
I don't know if it is the sacrifice that matters nearly as much as one putting everything at stake in this questioning.
posted
dkw, I agree with you that everyone is special. However, I disagree with society's all too frequent attempts to make everyone special in the same way.
My sister is a brilliant artist. I'm good at math and science. My gifts in no way take away from hers, even if it means I made honor roll more often and she won art prizes when I never would.
I guess I just don't view personal gifts the same way as most of the posters. Dash being fast doesn't take away from the speed of the other kids. They're just as fast as they always were. If that isn't fast enough to win the race, so what? Losing gives you something to work for. Winning at something you're good at doesn't take that level of commitment. Sure, losing doesn't feel nice, but what's good for you rarely does.
Posts: 2283 | Registered: Dec 2003
| IP: Logged |
posted
(Edit to add: written while AvidReader was posting, didn't mean to overlap)
I'd agree. (Yes, that sounds like I'm backtracking, but I'm not. I don't think.)
I would argue that Bob was heroic, for the reason I provided (doing good despite adversity). I don't know that I'd call him a hero, for the same reasons Dorothy Day declined sainthood.
One of my personal hot-button topics is the whitewashed sainthood bestowed upon historical figures, such as our founding fathers. History bored me to tears in school, it was mythology writ small. Paragons of virtue and wisdom stalked my civic textbook, and as such they were banal and unimpressive to me.
It wasn't until years later when I started reading other history texts and found out that the founding fathers were humans, with faults and foibles. Suddenly their accomplishments amazed me, when they hadn't before. I mean, of course gods-on-earth would create a new shining beacon of democracy on earth. That's what gods do. But these were humans, like me, and they did it anyway.
Such textbooks also make our present times look worse, because they imply that despite a few gaps here and there we've always supported our presidents and behaved like Americans, when in fact bitter partisanship has been a mainstay of American politics since before they existed. You think the last year has been bad, go look up some of the editorials written about Abraham Lincoln sometime...
However, I heartily disagree with the statement: "If everyone is special, then no one is." Doesn't follow. The only way that works is if everyone is special in the exact same way.
Is Dash special? Sure. Say one of the kids he beat was a chess whiz. Is he special? Sure. If both of them are special, does that take away from the abilities or accomplishments of either one? Nope.
I firmly believe that everyone in the world, everyone, knows something I don't. It might be how to survive in the Serenghetti, it might be how to get grape juice stains off a hassock, it might be the name of all the people in Matchbox 20. It helps keep me from getting too cocky or dismissing other people for what I consider ignorant opinions. They might be wrong in one instance, but there will always be some subject in which they'll know better than me.
Believing, really believing that everyone is special doesn't drag everyone down. It raises all of them up.
[ November 18, 2004, 02:10 PM: Message edited by: Chris Bridges ]
Posts: 7790 | Registered: Aug 2000
| IP: Logged |
Maybe being a superhero forces you to grow up faster, but when your super power makes you so fast that you can run on water, I don't know if I'm going to shed tears because you have to sit out a track competition. The most appropriate analogy was made by Sara about the special olympics.
Is it even slightly possible to see the situation from the kid's view? He's f***ing ten years old, and regardless of his physical abilities, he's still mentally a ten year old.
Posts: 2489 | Registered: Jan 2002
| IP: Logged |
quote:My sister is a brilliant artist. I'm good at math and science. My gifts in no way take away from hers, even if it means I made honor roll more often and she won art prizes when I never would.
I guess I just don't view personal gifts the same way as most of the posters. Dash being fast doesn't take away from the speed of the other kids. They're just as fast as they always were.
I don't think the degree of difference between you and your sister in anything is remotely similar to the degree of difference between Dash and typical kids regarding track events.
quote:He's f***ing ten years old, and regardless of his physical abilities, he's still mentally a ten year old.
What would you say to this child if he were a typical kid who wanted to compete in a Special Olympics race for kids with neuromuscular problems? (Again, note that many Special Olympians could kick most of our heinies.)
What if that were the only game in town? Would it be appropriate, or would you have a talk with him -- for exmple, a talk about choosing a more appropriate competition to enter, as he would have other skills to develop, too?
After all, the kids with muscular dystrophy could still run just as fast.
[I have no problem with people competing with those inferior or superior in skill to them. I do think the expectations and qualifying criteria should be clear in advance, though.
If this competition was expliciting for typical kids and superheroes (I understand, it could not be, but the point stands), then I wouldn't have a problem with it. But to pretend that those other kids believed that they might be competing against a superhero is just silly.
Same as if I wanted to compete for a Julliard slot. I haven't a snowball's chance of doing anything but miserably failing, but I would know that when I entered. However, if I were to enter a competition for the best beginning adult piano students at my local community college, and the ranks were seeded with Julliard graduates who needed the ego stroke, then I'd be a bit miffed. I would certainly find them to be odious and greedy buffoons.
Yet still -- the difference between us would not be at superhero level. Regardless, it would be tacky and inappropriate to compete in an event clearly geared towards persons of much much lesser abilities.]
[ November 18, 2004, 02:34 PM: Message edited by: Sara Sasse ]
Posts: 2919 | Registered: Aug 2004
| IP: Logged |
posted
He doesn't want to compete against people he could easily whoop, the kid just wants to compete. They tried not letting him do anything and he started acting like a bully, he needed something to put out his competitive energy in. And if he competes against people other than kids his age, as i've said before, his secret identity will be blown.
Posts: 2489 | Registered: Jan 2002
| IP: Logged |
posted
So why not a different event, MEC? Why not gymnastics or diving or downhill skiing?
If he only wants to compete in the one area where he is (and yes, he is) guaranteed to win if he wants to, then he isn't wanting to compete. He is wanting to win easily.
Looks like a teachable moment for some developmental skills to me.
Posts: 2919 | Registered: Aug 2004
| IP: Logged |
posted
So if I enter a science fair and get my butt whooped by the next Einstein, I should be upset since I couldn't have had a chance of winning? I guess I'm not competitive enough to understand this obsession with doing something to win. I thought we were supposed to do things we enjoyed because it helped us better ourselves.
My science fair project is just as good, even if it doesn't hold up against a kid as smart as a research scientist. I fail to see how I would be degraded just becuase someone else is better at something than I considered reasonable.
Posts: 2283 | Registered: Dec 2003
| IP: Logged |
Not because he exerted himself, or tried really hard, or gave it his all, or pushed himself beyond any boundaries whatsoever. He did not compete. He entered the race and chose how it would end.
Posts: 7790 | Registered: Aug 2000
| IP: Logged |
If you can decide unequivocally what the results of a competition will be, then it isn't a competition for you. It may be an exercise in vanity or in ego-stroking, but it isn't competitive. Competition is an engagement of peers, and these were not peers.
[ November 18, 2004, 02:55 PM: Message edited by: Sara Sasse ]
Posts: 2919 | Registered: Aug 2004
| IP: Logged |
posted
He wants to be allowed to excel in the area he excels at. I think you hit a key point, Sara, with "the only game in town." Not just from the perspective that there is no other event for him to compete in, but from the perspective of using his natural talents. We generally don't take an interest in things we are no good at.
The question the whole movie brings up is "why isn't it ok to be better at something?" and I think it's a good one. At the same time, it's important to have the class and kindness not to rub things in.
I don't think the final race is intended as some kind of approved solution, but rather that the family is trying to strike some kind of balance between allowing Dash to excel and not hurting the feelings of the kids he's running against. It shows exactly the opposite of what Irami suggests it's showing: it shows they don't have the answer, but they are thinking about it.
There is a word for being made unhappy by the gifts, talents, or good fortune of another: envy.
I think an important point of the movie is that we would do well not to leave this word out of our vocabularies and not expect 10 year olds to act more mature than most grown ups or men not to have mid-life crises because they have a particular gift which makes a part of life much easier for them. Chances are, they have the same human problems as everyone else.
Posts: 3846 | Registered: Apr 2004
| IP: Logged |
quote:He wants to be allowed to excel in the area he excels at. I think you hit a key point, Sara, with "the only game in town." Not just from the perspective that there is no other event for him to compete in, but from the perspective of using his natural talents. We generally don't take an interest in things we are no good at.
Okay, JimMe. A serious question:
Suppose you have a kid who thinks his only natural talent is in running. He really really wants to compete this summer, but the only competition is a Special Olympics event for kids with muscular dystrophy.
Would you support him entering if he promised to hold back and only finish second?
quote:There is a word for being made unhappy by the gifts, talents, or good fortune of another: envy.
I don' think envy is the real problem here. Unfairness might be.
Posts: 2919 | Registered: Aug 2004
| IP: Logged |
posted
Okay, you too, Avid Reader. I really want to know:
Suppose you have a kid who thinks his only natural talent is in running. He really really wants to compete this summer, but the only competition is a Special Olympics event for kids with muscular dystrophy.
Would you support him entering if he promised to hold back and only finish second?
Posts: 2919 | Registered: Aug 2004
| IP: Logged |
posted
It is unfair. It is unfair that Dash doesn't have a place to compete or be social.
He isn't skipping the SuperHero Olympics to make he can win against normal humans. He's trying to figure out a way to excel at what he's good at and still be part of society.
Posts: 26077 | Registered: Mar 2000
| IP: Logged |
posted
I'd submit that if any kid thinks he has only one natural talent, then he has been done a disservice by the adults in his life. A severe disservice.
I'm also not sure why we prioritize competition against others over competition against oneself. Dash could still keep pushing himself to better his own time, on his own. That would seem to me to be a remarkably useful skill to learn. As it is, he doesn't want to better his time. He couldn't, not in this race.
Posts: 2919 | Registered: Aug 2004
| IP: Logged |
posted
katharina, I'll put you on the spot, too. (I really am interested in the answers, not just trying to antagonize.)
Suppose you have a kid who thinks his only natural talent is in running. He really really wants to compete this summer, but the only competition is a Special Olympics event for kids with muscular dystrophy.
Would you support him entering if he promised to hold back and only finish second?
Posts: 2919 | Registered: Aug 2004
| IP: Logged |
quote: Suppose you have a kid who thinks his only natural talent is in running. He really really wants to compete this summer, but the only competition is a Special Olympics event for kids with muscular dystrophy.
Would you support him entering if he promised to hold back and only finish second?
There is no force out to get this kid if he enter's a competition on his level. If there was no reason for dash to be worried about losing his secret identity, then hell no, He shouldn't be allowed to compete with the kids, he should be competing in races against cars breaking the sound barier.
Posts: 2489 | Registered: Jan 2002
| IP: Logged |
posted
I think it's also important to remember that this was only one instance of them "letting him compete" against his classmates. I'm willing to bet that the Parr family (by way of Brad Bird), would be quick to realize that track isn't exactly fun for Dash if it's not a challenge, and decide that another, non-running sport might be more enjoyable for him and the other kids.
I don't think they were really presenting footracing as a be-all-end-all solution to Dash's need to compete, but more using it as a way of showing that the Parr family was going to make more of an effort to let their kids be who they were, rather than tell them that their powers were wrong.
I also love that a kids movie is sparking this kind of discussion.
posted
Isn't that just what they were doing, though? Asking him to hide what he likes about himself and try to be something he isn't?
Posts: 26077 | Registered: Mar 2000
| IP: Logged |
posted
It wasn't the only game in town. It was just the only game that would allow him social prestige at school.
What they should have done is create a fair race. Let him wait until a jet flies over and race it to the next state.
Let him pit himself against sound waves, or photons, or the space shuttle. Encourage him to race against something that will challenge him. Find other speedsters and let him race them. Give him obstacles, conditions, handicaps.
Letting him compete in a school footrace made as much sense as letting someone enter on a motorcycle.
Posts: 7790 | Registered: Aug 2000
| IP: Logged |
posted
Sara, I think for that situation to be equivalent, you also have to allow that the special olympics kids are the norm in your town, that the only other kids who are NOT burdened by physical handicaps are your two other children.
If my kid was the only fully healthy kid in town, and all the other physically challenged kids were holding racing competitions... I'd have a hard time telling my kid he couldn't, just because he happened to be a minority. Maybe I'd let him race if he tied his legs together or something. Posts: 1681 | Registered: Jun 2004
| IP: Logged |
posted
Sure. We can add that constraint to the hypothetical.
But Zeugma, why would you make him "tie his legs together or something"? Why not just let him promise to subtly and unobtrusively hold back enough to place second?
[I really want to know, not just poking at you. ]
[ November 18, 2004, 03:18 PM: Message edited by: Sara Sasse ]
Posts: 2919 | Registered: Aug 2004
| IP: Logged |
posted
Because then he's not racing. If he's temporarily handicapped enough to slow him down to the level of the other kids, then he can race his heart out and still let it be somewhat fair.
Posts: 1681 | Registered: Jun 2004
| IP: Logged |
posted
Making him start much later would also work. They already do that in some races, don't they? Or like in golf, where the better player starts with a worse score?
Posts: 1681 | Registered: Jun 2004
| IP: Logged |
quote:Because then he's not racing. If he's temporarily handicapped enough to slow him down to the level of the other kids, then he can race his heart out and still let it be somewhat fair.
I think the unfairness was what troubled me about this part of the movie, too.
Posts: 2919 | Registered: Aug 2004
| IP: Logged |
posted
I would tell the kid in that situation that according to the rules he's not elligible for that, and help him figure out that it would be unfair.
Posts: 2489 | Registered: Jan 2002
| IP: Logged |
Printer-friendly view of this topic
![[Confused]](confused.gif)
![[Roll Eyes]](rolleyes.gif)
![[Dont Know]](graemlins/dontknow.gif)
![[Smile]](smile.gif)
