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As children, it happened to imagine how superheroes could face life once they retire, when they hang up their cape and they have a family. By behaving as humans, struggling with ordinary problems, a little sad and melancholy, remembering the good times and looking at photo albums. From this idea builds on the animated movie by Pixar: “The Incredibles”, written and directed by Brad Bird in 2004.

Beginning with Disney to Pixar, the creators found a renovated approach to the their movies and they made them more relatable to reality, by using powerful narratives. According to Eric Csapo, myth is “a narrative which is considered socially important, and that is told in such a way to allow the whole social collective to share a sense of this importance”. This is the case of The Incredibles, in which children are driven into an apparently unreal world, and adults are the main characters leading the plot. But also the case of Finding Nemo, written and directed by Andrew Stanton in 2003.

Indeed, the movies go fairly beyond the representation of a family. “The Incredibles” and “Finding Nemo” use gender roles and relationships to breach into people’s minds and hearts. In this paper, I will focus on these narratives by analyzing the presentation of families and how Pixar has the means to reproduce reality’s stereotypes and make the movie so engaging for adults.

In “Finding Nemo”, Marlin, a clown fish, has experienced a trauma and the little Nemo, the only surviving son of Marlin, in which he pours all his phobias and insecurities, makes him becoming an overprotective and apprehensive father. This presented is the problematic narrative of the only child and the untraditional role of a single father, who gets to evaluate his behaviours with ...

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..., but for their parents. “Kids are not alone in Pixar movies—indeed, they are not even the protagonists.” (Garson) Lastly, The Incredibles, is a movie about a super dad going through his mid-life crisis, which he overcomes by struggling for his family as the source of his strenght. (Gillam, Shannon, 7) There are children in this film, but they are not the main heroes; also if they have super powers, they spend all their time being rescued by adults, and obeying their parents’ rules. On the same hand, Finding Nemo is a movie about an ordinary father going through fatherhood crisis, in which the movie’s journey helps him understanding how to deal with his son. The movie title is just a trick to put emphasis on Nemo, as he is captured within the first five minutes of the movie. Hence, Pixar just tries to give the impression of targeting children and their stories.