Professor X is not Malcolm X
Jun. 9th, 2011 11:13 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
eumeliaI'm not a Marvel fan, so you'll have to live with the Wonder Woman icon.
I am, however, greatly appreciative of "X-Men: First Class", seeing as it was a Hero's Journey and that hero was Magneto.
I'll begin by saying that you should read![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
neo_prodigy's review of the movie, as we touch on points and I think his perspective is a good one.
It is no secret, that the alleged dichotomy between Xavier and Magneto is a false one. I think anyone who has seen the X-Men cartoons knows that there isn't a cut and dried hero/villain narrative when it comes to X-Men and the Brotherhood.
I'm always feeling on edge when I encounter the X-Men, because I see a really big assimilationist streak in them, which I find worrisome. The problem with assimilation, among its many and varied problems, is the erasure of culture, identities and histories.
The movie portrays the dilemma and ultimately shows that the better path is a liberationist one, if not a militantly liberationist one, seeing as no one will be givingJewish Black Queer Women Mutants their human rights... well, there a need to defend our themselves from the harms of hegemonic society that would rather see them eliminated - a greater threat than Communism and Capitalism put together, no less.
I would always rather walk the path of non-violence, but up to a point. And that point is most definitely Nazis.
It's amazing how Nazis continue to be the ultimate evil, because make no mistake "Sebastian Shaw" was a Nazi and his death by Chekhov's Coin was a work of art.
The movie also exemplifies how most people really don't get the whole Jewish thing and how we're not like European white people and that some of us aren't even white. Because, on the outside, there really shouldn't be much difference between Xavier and Erik - both white, both ostensibly straight (I'll get to that) and both able bodied (that changes for Charles as we all know).
Erik is a Holocaust Survivor.
Beyond that, he was experimented upon by a psychopathic megalomaniac.
Charles had a neglectful mother and lived in a mansion in Westchester.
While Erik was Nazi Hunting the globe, Charles was cushioned in Oxford, basically drinking and whoring around.
The two cannot possibly compare their lives.
But their lives touch, because they have something that drives them together. Neo, in his review, focuses on the parallels between the history of Mutants this movie presents and the Civil Rights Movement of our own world. He touches on the queer angle, but I'd like to expand on that with regards to the homoerotic subtext that permeates the movie.
I find the metaphor of queer history and experience very fitting in this movie and to the Mutant story as a rule. We grow up feeling alone, different and out of synch with the rest of society.
We grow up without a community, we go find it, in this way, queers are very much alike Mutants.
Some Mutants/Queers can pass for Human/Straight - Some Mutants/Queers cannot. In the end we all pay the price of being "abnormal".
Charles own privilege in passing is raised when he outs Hank McCoy as a Mutant. Oh, yes, what a lovely *wink-nudge* with "Don't Ask, Don't tell" that was (lovely, as in, played up for laughs and got an ironic smirk from me). Still, Charles outed McCoy when the man quite clearly didn't want to. This is hand waved when his full potential comes to light.
Gay. Very gay. The homoerotic charge between Charles and Erik is amazing. They mind meld multiple times. Erik tells Charles he wants him by his side, they are brothers, but more than that, they are friends.
The movie also has no qualms in showing how much more important they are to each other than any woman. Granted, we never see Erik with a woman until that tepid (in my eyes) kiss with Mystique and it's quite clear that Charles is a love 'em and leave 'em type of guy when it comes to women - he treats Moira with a modicum of respect because he is interested in her information and resources.
Throughout the movie we are supposed to believe that Charles' way, of helping Humans in their war against each other (let me ask you, what about those Soviet Mutants?!) that Mutants will simply be accepted as different kind of human.
But when your humanity has to be earned and there are certain qualifications put upon you in order to "be normal"... well, that's not much of humanity isn't it.
Erik knows this. He lived this. It is written on his flesh. And let me tell you, that scene, in Argentina (oh Land of Non-Extradition) that was awesome. I was feeling a little blood-thirsty myself.
My Parents have no name. It was taken from them. By pig farmers... and tailors and the Nazis die in agony.
Erik is my big damn Jewish hero. Just sayin'.
The movie concludes with Magneto's way being the way we are meant to agree with. Even Charles knows that going underground and down low is the only way to survive in a hostile world, even though he still believes that if Mutants work hard enough, Mutants will be accepted.
If they look like Charles, of course.
I'd say they'd be a mite harder when it comes to Mystique, Azazel and Beast, but hey can't have everything, right? *sigh*.
The movie, with all it's awesomeness, unfortunately undermines itself on several levels.
Its racism and sexism doesn't jive with the story it works around.
The casual sexism of the 60's could have been more poignant were it not for the actual sexism of the movie. Every single female character is at some point be reduced to her lingerie. It really irked me that Moira is American and a CIA agent, when her history as a Scottish woman and woman Ph.D in the 60's would have given her a little more depth, as opposed to being reduced to "proof of heterosexuality" while Charles and Erik flirt and cry in each other's arms.
Emma Frost is said to be Shaw's right hand woman, but basically she's a scantily clad body guard who is pimped out and sold out for his agenda - her own motivations as to why she's in the "Hellfire Club" is unkown, alas, it's only because she's EVIL!
(Also, January Jones needs to step out of the 60's at some future point in her career. We get it, you have a blank face and blonde hair, very era appropriate)
Angel, whose Mutant name is actually "Tempest" - "Angel" is that other guy - was really not used well. She actually felt pretty redundant, along with all the other baby Mutants to tell the truth, only she got the added benefit of being sexually objectified twice fold - by the movie and by Charles and Erik, who were once again placed in a situation in which "proof of heterosexuality" was needed.
As a rule, I feel the women were dressed down to keep the straight boys from panicking - because damn, there was a whole lot of male pretty there, with focus of physique and male bonding.
It's always a shame that female characters get the brunt of script marginalisation. They barely talk to each other, they have no motivations of their own and are reduced to sex objects and are more often than not put aside while the boys do the talking.
Mystique is a waitress at Oxford? Really?!?! Angel is a stripper? For fuck's sake?!?! Women did work in other places you know, at the time, and yes, maybe the point was that women of a certain class and race can't, but this was not the way it was presented.
Alas, another great opportunity lost.
Speaking of class and race. The casual racism - it seems as though Darwin was picked just so he could be killed off in a really cool special effects scene. The camera pan to his face when Shaw says "enslavement" was good, pity he was reduced to canon fodder in order for blondy and freckles can avenge his death.
Do I even need to mention Riptide? Oh, you don't know who he is? He was that dude in the suit and the cyclones coming out of his hands. Yeah, him.
It's no surprise that those Mutants cannot pass for human and have experienced racism to chose the path that gives them tangible power over their lives and doesn't tell them to be patient while Humans and white people wise up and stop being, well, haters.
So yeah. Movie was awesome, could've been better.
For the TL;DR people among you. It was awesome, I really really liked it. It is full of slash. It has problems with the way it portrays gender and race, it could've been better.
I am, however, greatly appreciative of "X-Men: First Class", seeing as it was a Hero's Journey and that hero was Magneto.
I'll begin by saying that you should read
neo_prodigy's review of the movie, as we touch on points and I think his perspective is a good one.It is no secret, that the alleged dichotomy between Xavier and Magneto is a false one. I think anyone who has seen the X-Men cartoons knows that there isn't a cut and dried hero/villain narrative when it comes to X-Men and the Brotherhood.
I'm always feeling on edge when I encounter the X-Men, because I see a really big assimilationist streak in them, which I find worrisome. The problem with assimilation, among its many and varied problems, is the erasure of culture, identities and histories.
The movie portrays the dilemma and ultimately shows that the better path is a liberationist one, if not a militantly liberationist one, seeing as no one will be giving
I would always rather walk the path of non-violence, but up to a point. And that point is most definitely Nazis.
It's amazing how Nazis continue to be the ultimate evil, because make no mistake "Sebastian Shaw" was a Nazi and his death by Chekhov's Coin was a work of art.
The movie also exemplifies how most people really don't get the whole Jewish thing and how we're not like European white people and that some of us aren't even white. Because, on the outside, there really shouldn't be much difference between Xavier and Erik - both white, both ostensibly straight (I'll get to that) and both able bodied (that changes for Charles as we all know).
Erik is a Holocaust Survivor.
Beyond that, he was experimented upon by a psychopathic megalomaniac.
Charles had a neglectful mother and lived in a mansion in Westchester.
While Erik was Nazi Hunting the globe, Charles was cushioned in Oxford, basically drinking and whoring around.
The two cannot possibly compare their lives.
But their lives touch, because they have something that drives them together. Neo, in his review, focuses on the parallels between the history of Mutants this movie presents and the Civil Rights Movement of our own world. He touches on the queer angle, but I'd like to expand on that with regards to the homoerotic subtext that permeates the movie.
I find the metaphor of queer history and experience very fitting in this movie and to the Mutant story as a rule. We grow up feeling alone, different and out of synch with the rest of society.
We grow up without a community, we go find it, in this way, queers are very much alike Mutants.
Some Mutants/Queers can pass for Human/Straight - Some Mutants/Queers cannot. In the end we all pay the price of being "abnormal".
Charles own privilege in passing is raised when he outs Hank McCoy as a Mutant. Oh, yes, what a lovely *wink-nudge* with "Don't Ask, Don't tell" that was (lovely, as in, played up for laughs and got an ironic smirk from me). Still, Charles outed McCoy when the man quite clearly didn't want to. This is hand waved when his full potential comes to light.
Gay. Very gay. The homoerotic charge between Charles and Erik is amazing. They mind meld multiple times. Erik tells Charles he wants him by his side, they are brothers, but more than that, they are friends.
The movie also has no qualms in showing how much more important they are to each other than any woman. Granted, we never see Erik with a woman until that tepid (in my eyes) kiss with Mystique and it's quite clear that Charles is a love 'em and leave 'em type of guy when it comes to women - he treats Moira with a modicum of respect because he is interested in her information and resources.
Throughout the movie we are supposed to believe that Charles' way, of helping Humans in their war against each other (let me ask you, what about those Soviet Mutants?!) that Mutants will simply be accepted as different kind of human.
But when your humanity has to be earned and there are certain qualifications put upon you in order to "be normal"... well, that's not much of humanity isn't it.
Erik knows this. He lived this. It is written on his flesh. And let me tell you, that scene, in Argentina (oh Land of Non-Extradition) that was awesome. I was feeling a little blood-thirsty myself.
My Parents have no name. It was taken from them. By pig farmers... and tailors and the Nazis die in agony.
Erik is my big damn Jewish hero. Just sayin'.
The movie concludes with Magneto's way being the way we are meant to agree with. Even Charles knows that going underground and down low is the only way to survive in a hostile world, even though he still believes that if Mutants work hard enough, Mutants will be accepted.
If they look like Charles, of course.
I'd say they'd be a mite harder when it comes to Mystique, Azazel and Beast, but hey can't have everything, right? *sigh*.
The movie, with all it's awesomeness, unfortunately undermines itself on several levels.
Its racism and sexism doesn't jive with the story it works around.
The casual sexism of the 60's could have been more poignant were it not for the actual sexism of the movie. Every single female character is at some point be reduced to her lingerie. It really irked me that Moira is American and a CIA agent, when her history as a Scottish woman and woman Ph.D in the 60's would have given her a little more depth, as opposed to being reduced to "proof of heterosexuality" while Charles and Erik flirt and cry in each other's arms.
Emma Frost is said to be Shaw's right hand woman, but basically she's a scantily clad body guard who is pimped out and sold out for his agenda - her own motivations as to why she's in the "Hellfire Club" is unkown, alas, it's only because she's EVIL!
(Also, January Jones needs to step out of the 60's at some future point in her career. We get it, you have a blank face and blonde hair, very era appropriate)
Angel, whose Mutant name is actually "Tempest" - "Angel" is that other guy - was really not used well. She actually felt pretty redundant, along with all the other baby Mutants to tell the truth, only she got the added benefit of being sexually objectified twice fold - by the movie and by Charles and Erik, who were once again placed in a situation in which "proof of heterosexuality" was needed.
As a rule, I feel the women were dressed down to keep the straight boys from panicking - because damn, there was a whole lot of male pretty there, with focus of physique and male bonding.
It's always a shame that female characters get the brunt of script marginalisation. They barely talk to each other, they have no motivations of their own and are reduced to sex objects and are more often than not put aside while the boys do the talking.
Mystique is a waitress at Oxford? Really?!?! Angel is a stripper? For fuck's sake?!?! Women did work in other places you know, at the time, and yes, maybe the point was that women of a certain class and race can't, but this was not the way it was presented.
Alas, another great opportunity lost.
Speaking of class and race. The casual racism - it seems as though Darwin was picked just so he could be killed off in a really cool special effects scene. The camera pan to his face when Shaw says "enslavement" was good, pity he was reduced to canon fodder in order for blondy and freckles can avenge his death.
Do I even need to mention Riptide? Oh, you don't know who he is? He was that dude in the suit and the cyclones coming out of his hands. Yeah, him.
It's no surprise that those Mutants cannot pass for human and have experienced racism to chose the path that gives them tangible power over their lives and doesn't tell them to be patient while Humans and white people wise up and stop being, well, haters.
So yeah. Movie was awesome, could've been better.
For the TL;DR people among you. It was awesome, I really really liked it. It is full of slash. It has problems with the way it portrays gender and race, it could've been better.
