When Incredibles 2 came available for sale we happily added it to our iTunes movies. The superhero saving kept me on the edge of my seat and I loved the storylines that ran through this Disney/Pixar film. (This post does include spoilers, so please stop reading now if you want to be surprised.)

I especially loved the story arch of family running through it. In the movie we see ups and downs. With our family they are the ones we are most comfortable with and they see the more unfiltered us. They see more joy, pain, jealously, anger, sweetness, and grumpiness. Here are the family threads that ran through the movie.

1) Multiple Callings Under One Roof 

In Incredibles 2, Elasta Girl is selected for a mission to have the public fall in love with superheroes. Mr. Incredible makes this possible by staying home to attend to their household.

In a marriage, you always have two callings under one roof. Two people’s unique combination of passion and personality live next to someone else’s unique combination. Add kids to the mix and there’s even more callings to juggle.

I noticed the tension between husband and wife as a theme in the movie. Tension isn’t always bad. Bringing forth good from tension takes intentionality. Growth, maturity, and sacrifice can come from tension.

We watch Mr. Incredible make space for his wife to pursue something. I would like to have seen Mr. Incredible represented as more emotionally supportive, and not jumping to jealously so quickly. But what you do get is supporting someone’s calling takes sacrifice and there’s a tension to manage with two callings under one roof.

2) Family and Calling

The theatre erupted into laughter during the scene where Jack Jack experiments with his powers while battling a raccoon. Suddenly the audience learns that Jack Jack does in fact, have a super power. In fact, he has lots of them!

My kids bring joy, hope, nurture, boldness, and curiosity to our home. My daughter cheers me up when she can tell something has upset me. My son can be strong and silly in one breath. In the movie, we see the kids using their powers now, as children. Even as young as Jack Jack is. Carelessly, sure, but exercising them nonetheless.

What we see in Incredibles 2 is the kids viably participating with serious superhero work as children and succeeding. Just because they aren’t developed into adults, doesn’t mean they aren’t living into their giftings.

3) Family Connection

I love seeing the family bonds in Incredibles 2 in both fast-paced fight scenes and slow regular moments.

I think of the closing scene, when Violet is getting dropped off at the movies for a date she has been agonizing over the entire movie. When it’s finally here but she gets an opportunity to do superhero work with her family and she chooses that. Of course, she will be back to watch the movie before the preview start, but she happily sticks to her family.

I appreciate them showing a strong family bond. The bond wasn’t activated throughout the whole movie, but it was undeniably there.

Dads as Jealous and Dumb

I’ve never crazy about dads being portrayed as dumb on screen. Whether it’s in movies, tv shows, or commercials – this is damaging for our culture.

It boxes masculinity in as the opposite of nurture. While there are distinct differences to how many women and men demonstrate nurture, there’s power in it when a father demonstrates how he does it well.

Just like women, we don’t want to keep seeing women being overly sexualized and the same goes for masculine stereotypes. We can do better in film to not only portray the easy and cheap joke, and go beyond the obvious. There’s a masculine way to nurture, and when we see the caricature of the dumb dad over and over again, we dismiss that it’s possible.

Did you enjoy Incredibles 2? What were your favorite insights? 

If you enjoyed this post, you might enjoy a roundup of my favorite Disney movies for girls (and boys too!).