“Oh wow, WOW, Elastagirl there you are … Hi, my superhero name is Voyd, I just wanna thank you for being you! I felt like an outcast, before. But now with you being you, I feel like [hug] yay me!”
The simple reading of this scene from “The Incredibles 2” (2018) is that Elastagirl, by daring to be a public (female) superhero, serves as a role-model for other young (female) superheroes, inspiring them to be themselves. Sure, it’s a kids’ movie, yay good themes about confidence, growing up, and it’s OK to be yourself. [But it needs to be taken seriously, because it has a massive audience while being very forward with its politics. For the record, overall I think the film and Voyd’s contribution are valuable and positive, though a bit cliché.]
Here’s the problem — diversity is in conflict with representation, how we talk about them doesn’t match how representation actually works. And if what we say doesn’t match what we actually believe, everyone gets mislead (including ourselves), so let’s be clear here.
Voyd embodies diversity, being minority (superhero), female, likely queer (half-shaved dyed hair, masculine jaw), and speaking impeccable pop politics.
Elastagirl embodies representation, being minority (superhero), female, and bold enough to live openly as a superhero in a society that oppresses them. It isn’t stated explicitly, but the fact that Elastagirl is a superhero and female doubles her relatability for Voyd. [Inverting the gender roles from “The Incredibles” (2004) was cool and good, making all the male characters easily duped wasn’t.]
‘Diversity is Inspiring’: Voyd says ‘You doing you’ will ‘inspire me to do me’. Other people authentically being themselves inspires me to be myself. Yay representation and diversity, our differences empower everyone.
‘Representation is Inspiring’: Voyd means ‘You doing me’ will ‘inspire me to do me’. Elastagirl is only a role-model for Voyd because Voyd relates to her. That’s because:
Representations of diversity can only be inspiring when they’re relatable. [Logic:
I→R If someone is inspiring, then they must be relatable.
¬R→¬I If someone is not relatable, then they cannot be inspiring.]
Here’s how role-models work: someone who’s like you manages to be successful, and this encourages you to believe that you can make it too. [For the record I believe everyone needs positive role-models, diverse representation is good.] My point is, they’re only inspiring if they’re sufficiently similar to you that you can realistically empathize with them. Successful and authentic, but not relatable, does not a role-model make.
For example, plenty of 2016 presidential hopefuls were authentically ‘you doing you’, but the biggest (token) role-model for young girls was Hillary Clinton, not because of her success (being a lawyer, former secretary of state, and having already lived in the White House), but because she was a successful woman.
[For another post, is the obvious tokenism problem here. The focus of pop diversity-representation is too narrow, focusing more on traits which are outside people’s control (sex/ethnicity), rather than things everyone can make an effort to improve (confidence/moral integrity). Also, it’s trendy to believe that all aspects of identity are willful performances, but identity has non-performance elements too.]
If what Voyd says (“with you being you, I feel like [hug] yay me”) was literally true, seeing anyone authentically being themselves would inspire “yay me”. If simply diversity itself is what’s inspiring, it souldn’t matter how un-relate-able and different normies are to her.
But the fact is, Voyd only feels welcomed among her own people (superheroes). She clearly isn’t inspired by non-superhero normies being normies — they make her feel “like an outcast”.
Therefore what Voyd says (‘Diversity is Inspiring’) is false. Normies ‘You doing you’ do NOT ‘inspire me to do me’, that only happens if it’s a superhero doing it. [Hence this post’s title.] Pop diversity implies “all authentic people inspire me”, but what’s meant is “only my people’s representation inspires me”.
So how do we inspire people to be confident and dignified? Being relatable is a start. If you’re too garishly obstinate, and base your identity on being proud to stand out, you pre-filter. The only people who’ll get past your defenses are those who are already as outlandish as you. [This deserves its own post]
Unfortunately even ‘Representation is Inspiring’ isn’t guaranteed to be true, someone can be relatable without being inspiring. If our focus is too narrow (only on the diverse differences), that will prevent us from relating to a potential role-model. [Logically we only have I→R, not I⇔R, so the entailment backwards R→I doesn’t hold.]
A pro athlete may be ‘doing me’ (e.g. has the same sex/ethnicity as me), but if I only focus on the differences between us (e.g. how much better they are at sport), I’ll be daunted and feel they’re un-relatable, their prowess unattainable. There is some common ground, there’s a potential to relate, but it takes some extra effort to actually relate.
We need to deliberately focus on what we have in common, rather than defining ourselves by our differences. When reconciling different groups (e.g. the French and the British) let’s focus on what we have in common (e.g. both loving cheese) and the places where the channel dividing us is narrowest (the best places to build a bridge e.g. Calais and Dover), rather than how far-apart are our capitols (e.g. Paris and London).
The things that link us go deeper than the skin. We all share humanity. Everyone has a name, dream, laugh, and smile … dignity and rights, strengths and weaknesses, a story and a future. We have so much more in common than what divides us. We can discover how to relate to each-other. Even find unlikely role-models and be inspired by people who look nothing like us. Let’s surpass our differences, and be united despite them.
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