What movie spent cultural capital more effectively — The Incredibles or Shark Tale? All The Incredibles images © 2004 Disney Enterprises Inc./Pixar Animation Studios. All rights reserved. All Shark Tale images courtesy of DreamWorks.

What does an animated movie (in fact, any movie) truly have to sell to its audience besides attractive and talented stars? Easy question, right? There is an underlying story reflecting some universal human conundrums; a plot that structures this story in a meaningful and coherent way; credible characters guided by an equally credible script; and direction that establishes a specific mise en scene that is logically and sequentially maintained throughout the film. In the case of animated films, one might also expect a certain degree of artistic proficiency (in addition to cutting-edge presentation of special effects). A more difficult question is: how does the movie make its pitch? This is not a question that concerns marketing, publicity or industry buzz. There is a deeper process taking place, one inherent in a given film’s choice of aesthetic and how that aesthetic is extended to particular audiences.

One device that films utilize in order to attract viewers can best be described as “cultural capital.” Cultural capital can be roughly defined as popular symbols and codes that can be universally identified by an audience. A high degree of commonality is assumed by the filmmakers; there is always an element of audience involvement in the story simply by knowing the conventions and codes of their own popular culture. The more an audience recognizes them, the more successful a film might be. Cultural capital is an elusive commodity that does not always translate well among all mediums.

To give an example, sometimes filmmakers guess correctly when translating literature to film, creating legends such as The Godfather or the Tolkien trilogy. Sometimes they do not, as when Stephen King’s wildly popular novels have been produced for the big screen. Even so, both the tales of the Corleones and the Fellowship of the Ring have traded in on earlier cultural capital since the gangster and fantasy genres of both film and literature preceded them.

The amount of cultural capital a film may actually possess is often a guessing game between the filmmakers and the corporate suits; it can and does go wrong. A stultifying effort such as the live-action version of Josie and the Pussycats was based on the conception that this idea had a good deal of capital: Audience recognition of a cult TV show coupled with the casting of hot young starlets who are at the height of celebrity. In many recent American animated films, cultural capital is figuratively the coin of the realm. The past year saw many highly profitable animated films reach the marketplace. Two very strong performers were the Pixar/Disney collaboration The Incredibles and DreamWorks entry, Shark Tale. Had these films not been successful in offering something to their audiences they would not have been profitable at all. One reason for their success was the judicious use of cultural capital.

Brad Bird’s opus, The Incredibles, gains its cultural capital from several sources: First, it is a computer-generated film, and such animated films are currently in ascendancy. Second, it is a Disney/Pixar production, and brand recognition figures into the equation, since audiences have specific expectations based on prior experience with this studio’s films. A great deal of the cultural capital accrued by The Incredibles, however, originated in comicbooks. Superhero comicbooks are in turn an extension of mythologies formulated over centuries of human history. Wonder Woman is an Amazon; Captain Marvel invokes the powers of six Greek gods with the cry “Shazam!;” the Flash is Mercury in red and gold; Thor and Hercules (among others) actually made transitions from myths to comicbooks. Brad Bird appears to have drawn his inspirations from more recent permutations.