Monday, January 26, 2009

X-men, Triggers and the world at large

I'm watching X-Men with some friends right now, and I'm realizing why I prefer X2 so strongly to the first or second movies (aside from the fact that, you know, it's the best of the three). In X2: X-Men United, the villain is a whack-job, manipulating everyone else to his hate-filled agenda. In X1 and X3, the mutants aren't fighting against one villain, but against the outright hate and fear of the world at large, and that's just too much like real life. It's one thing to watch a movie where the world at large fears the protagonists - the characters you as a viewer are supposed to identify with - but you can believe that it's because they just don't know any better, and the hate is coming from a clear villain. It's something altogether different to see mobs of people protesting against the very existence and basic human rights of your protagonists. It's something altogether different to watch a movie telling you to identify with characters fighting against a mob of people saying that they should be round up and shot, when 40 years ago the same thing could very well have been happening to you, when 40 years ago the same thing happened to the people who raised you. And it's damn difficult to watch a movie telling you that the right thing to do is to forgive these people, to work with these people and wait for them to come around to seeing you as human when they want to lock you up, invade your home and/or take away everything that makes you who you are so you're less threatening to them. It's especially difficult to watch a movie where the only people fighting for your rights are painted as crazy and willing to kill everyone else to do it.

I love X-Men. It's my favorite superhero universe. I understand that the positing of mutants as the hated minority is deliberate and meant to elicit sympathy for the protagonists and that the tactics of the Brotherhood are meant to keep readers/viewers from sympathizing too heavily with them. Doesn't make it any less of a triggering issue for me.

That said, I can't wait for X-Men Origins: Wolverine. I'll just have to focus on fights, explosions and Gambit, and try to sublimate squicky oppression issues until I'm within reach of my computer.

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ETA: Yes, I was once excited about the Wolverine movie. In my defense, I think it was before the reviews came out. All I knew about it was exploding helicopter and Hugh Jackman. I wish that were still all I knew about it.