X-Men: First Class.

[starlady]

X-Men: First Class. Dir. Michael Vaughn. 2011.

Oh, this movie. Oh, this movie.

Okay, first off, as many other people have pointed out: still racist, sexist, victim-blaming and incapable of understanding the Holocaust, Hollywood? Yes? Okay then.

I also have to say, watching this movie, I'm so glad the 20th century is over, just so glad. I'm not saying the 21st will necessarily be/has been any better, but the 20th was the worst in human history by an as-yet unsurpassed margin.

I should note that at this point my memory of the readings I have done about the Holocaust, to say nothing of X-Men comics or even the movies, is not as sharp as it could be. I like to think I have retained the important points about all three, but I am in no way claiming to be any kind of expert.

Things that, having read a bunch of other people's posts, I was surprised by:
- The plot is not as incoherent as I was led to believe. I mean, it's kind of stupid on a structural level, and there are many other things they could have done with the story concept that would have been more awesome and gotten them to the end they wanted without, you know, all the different stupidities and fail on the way, principal of which for the purposes of this sentence is the absolute mutilation of Erik Lehnsherr's character. But that's another paragraph.

- Emma Frost is not as dumb as I had gathered, and nor is January Jones as bad an actress. I mean, I look at Emma and I think, "Oh, another smart woman who has made the best choices she could when the plot society is stacked against her and who doesn't believe the bullshit of the men around her!" I mean, she is a telepath, you guys! There is no way she doesn't know what a horrible piece of shit Shaw/Schmidt is and how much he doesn't give a shit about any of them.

I can't decide whether the movie thinks Shaw is actually a Nazi or not. Or rather, he's obviously the villain, but I think the movie thinks his greatest sins are 1) murdering Erik's mother and 2) plotting World War III for the sake of forcing the hand of evolution, with 3) abusing Erik a distant third, and that him being a Nazi is…a symbol or a symptom of that, rather than a symptom of the fact that he is truly an ethical wasteland? Yes, those are some of his crimes, and he deserves to die for all of them, but he actually was a Nazi, what the fuck. Oh, clearly he fancies himself to be smarter and more advanced, and flatters himself that he was just using the Nazi state system to further his own goals, but neither of those things make him any less of a Nazi. He's augmented the dehumanization of Jews, gay people, and other groups with the dehumanization of humanity as a whole along with those mutants who choose to stand with them, and we all saw Emma's projection of his vision in Charles' mind, right?

On that note, Oh My Fucking God Magneto Is Not That Stupid, OKAY. Here's the thing--both Erik and Charles are right at the end of the movie when they tell each other that all humans aren't like Shaw (who was a mutant anyway, which actually has consequences the movie doesn't realize, but let's just go with it) and that all humans aren't like Moira. (That's not actually the point, either, but the movie doesn't realize that.) And there is no way that Erik, if he's gained enough perspective on his experiences to go Nazi-hunting and to tell the Nazis in Argentina what Nazi Germany was like (and clearly he did!), would be stupid enough to believe Shaw in the submarine, to not see that he's attempting to manipulate Erik into carrying on Shaw's twisted vision: race war by other means.

I mean, Erik clearly knows that he is in a revenge tragedy ("Peace was never an option") and I suppose the movie is trying to finesse the switch from Erik the Avenger to Magneto the Supervillain (the particular to the general, in other words) by having Erik agree with Shaw, but then…either way, it's just not right by Erik's character or by historical reality. Obviously, in canon, Erik is about the whole race hatred calls for race hatred concept, but I just can't see the switch being that sudden. Revengers are supposed to die at the end, but we're supposed to believe that he switches immediately from being completely focused on killing Shaw to "mutants against humans!"? Totally incoherent at the level of characterization based on what we know from the movie. And his putting on that helmet from Shaw is a sickening symbol of all those problems.

The other thing about Charles and Erik on the level of philosophy is that Charles doesn't have a moral leg to stand on. He's just as ruthless as Erik by the end (hello, mind-wiping Moira! but see before, blatantly manipulating Oliver Platt's character), if not before, and he has no problem with killing Shaw or people who, in his own esteemed judgment, deserve it: he keeps Shaw immobilized for Erik even after Erik puts on the helmet! And yes, letting Shaw go would put Erik in danger, but it's not like Charles couldn't have done anything else but keep Shaw immobilized at that point. There's no way that, when he's trying to tell Erik to be the better man, he's talking about not killing Shaw instead of not keeping the helmet on, not taking up Shaw's vision. Urgh.

There are arguments to be made against what Erik claims to believe at the end, but no one seems to be able to put two and two together to make them. And here's the other thing: Erik isn't actually wrong about what he says before, either. In a world with metahumans, humans are right to be afraid, and if humanity has shown itself able and willing to commit genocide against people who are just as human as anyone else, or to turn a blind eye to it happening, it's perfectly reasonable to think that humans won't scruple to commit genocide against metahumans, who are obviously non-human in some ways. And saying "never again" to all of that is a perfectly reasonable, and justifiable, response. Charles can't have it both ways: either mutants are a new species and race war is inevitable, or mutants and humans are just different populations of the same species and hostility between them is human nature, able to be changed, or not. epershand made a lot of these points before I did, more succinctly.

This brings me to my other (well, one of many others) major problem with the movie: I really, really, really hate the reading of mutants as crypto-Jews or crypto-Israelis or crypto-gay people or crypto-black people or crypto-people with disabilities, take your pick. I find allegory to be a really dangerous interpretative or artistic style, because everything is not everything else. The particular is important, differences matter, and you can't collapse every distinct fucking set of issues into a generic plea for tolerance and some pabulum about how hatred is wrong. It's no coincidence that Charles and Erik find Darwin driving a cab and Angel in a strip club, okay, and the fact that they're mutants doesn't change what put them there. Which is one of the strongest arguments in favor of Charles' ideals, really, not that he could see it.

On that note: Oh My God Charles Xavier Is An Asshole, seriously, what the fuck. I did love Moira forever for her calling him on his bullshit pickup spiel in the pub, but seriously, wow, what an asshole. I think the movie does have enough brain cells to realize that Raven is right when it comes to Charles' behaviour in several crucial respects, even though it can't really do anything with that because it's already decided that Charles is the good guy. It says a lot about this movie that Charles is the good guy, really, because personally speaking I was rooting for Magneto right up until he put on the helmet, and even then I felt nothing but satisfaction at seeing him put that coin through Shaw's skull, even if, in-movie, he did it for entirely personal reasons. And you know, multiple international human rights tribunals have established that "just following orders" is not sufficient defense nor grounds for exoneration of crimes one has committed on orders from one's superiors, and I don't really blame Erik for what he does on the beach, either. Fire with fire, even if it burns everyone or gets Charles shot in the back. But that's another story.

You know, for a movie that is, basically, the Epic Romance and High Tragedie of Charles and Erik, there was not that much Charles and Erik! I could have stood for more. And all that being said, I can see why Erik loves Charles, and why Charles loves Erik. Really, I think that sentence right there is the essence of their tragedy, their tragic flaw in the most Aristotelian sense. Because Erik is more than what he's let himself become, and Charles being an asshole is mitigated by all the ways in which he isn't (see: training montage), and their choices obliterate all those things, and all they could have done together. But the movie is at least able to communicate that it realizes what its real focus is; see the ending credits song. I know it's stupidly obvious, but I want someone to make a vid of the movie to that.

Random thoughts: I really wish they hadn't framed the "Charles and Erik capture and interrogate Emma Frost!" as some kind of gang-rape/torture scene. Though, I can see where people were getting the Charles/Erik/Raven OT3 vibes from now, though Charles would have to learn to deal with her walking around in her true form first, obviously. Though quite honestly I don't think Erik's "mutant truth" kink is strong enough to keep him interested terribly long, and I think Charles' mutant kink is more about power in the sense of abilities rather than in the sense of being a mutant per se, and in conclusion, Raven, you're better off without both of them. Finally, I really am not comfortable with the Cuban missile crisis getting the cavalier Hollywood climax treatment, and I can't stand the way the movie sets up 1962 as the pinnacle of American society by quoting that Kennedy newsreel at the end.

I'm choosing to see the Wolverine cameo as the movie crew telling everyone that the Wolverine movie is now non-canonical. I support that. While we're at it, Logan, I'll have another drink too.


Links to other posts much worth reading:

http://seperis.dreamwidth.org/86111.html
http://glvalentine.livejournal.com/307334.html
http://wrongquestions.blogspot.com/2011/06/x-men-first-class.html
http://lcsbanana.dreamwidth.org/2049199.html
http://marina.dreamwidth.org/tag/fandom:+x+men

Comments

[raanve]

This is a really excellent post, and gave me more stuff to think over & chew on! I find myself really wishing that somehow this movie could just get FIXED, because I think the story that it could have told is worth telling. But it's really just not there.

Because Erik is more than what he's let himself become, and Charles being an asshole is mitigated by all the ways in which he isn't (see: training montage), and their choices obliterate all those things, and all they could have done together.

If the movie had been able to really take this on, even in terms of "just" platonic love between the two of them, I could find myself forgiving a lot of its flaws. I'm actually okay with Charles being a privileged asshole, so long as someone In World is like, dude you are a privileged asshole. (Someone he'd listen to; apparently he doesn't much listen to Raven.) But yeah. I would not have previously thought I needed all the Charles/Erik fic in the world, but now I kind of do. So I guess I owe the movie one there.

ETA: And part of why I quote that line of yours in particular is that it distills pretty well what I find most interesting about their relationship. But then, I'm a sucker for the tragedies.

[starlady]

I am a sucker for tragedies too! Two weeks ago I would have told you I didn't care about X-Men at all, and I would have been telling the truth.

Hollywood has a lot of good story ideas, but holy shit it sucks at telling them well.

And, yeah. There are a lot of stories here that could have been really awesome (and, you know, uniting Raven's arc with Magneto's self-realization with his and Charles' relationship would have been amazing), but none of them have justice done to them at all.

[holyschist]

Obviously, in canon, Erik is about the whole race hatred calls for race hatred concept, but I just can't see the switch being that sudden.

This. I was partially on-board up until the end, but....no. I always kind of figured that they tried to work together for years, with Erik's frustration slowly growing as he became willing to make more and more ethical compromises (not that Charles doesn't, but I think his tend to be more on the creepy personal level than the attempted-genocide level).

As someone pointed out, it's super-problematic specifically to use metahumans as an allegory for oppressed minorities, because it implies that people are right to be afraid of those minorities.

I'm choosing to see the Wolverine cameo as the movie crew telling everyone that the Wolverine movie is now non-canonical.

Does it actually contradict anything in the Wolverine movie? I got the distinct impression that this was pre-adamantium, pre-amnesia Wolverine; part of his mutant power is slow aging.

[starlady]

I never actually saw the Wolverine movie. *sigh* And to think, you know, that I was giving the movie people even that much credit.

As someone pointed out, it's super-problematic specifically to use metahumans as an allegory for oppressed minorities, because it implies that people are right to be afraid of those minorities.

Yes, that is the flipside, and it is also wrong.

And ditto the impression of their backstory being years long that I had before this. Not that the movie is inherently more authoritative than any other source in the comics transmedia mix, but it does have a certain…imperative to it.

[holyschist]

I'm not sure why people hate the Wolverine movie so much. I mean, it was super-duper fluffy and pointless, and I guess it changed Deadpool's origin, maybe, but it wasn't nearly as faily as X3 or XMFC. I thought it was pretty forgettable.

Yeah, IDK. I mean, X-Men as an allegory has been vastly vastly important to many people I know who are in those actual minorities...yet at the same time it does not hold up well on examination. But I think XMFC (and X3) went places with it that are extra problematic. I don't know what to think at this point.

[royalarchivist]

Please forgive the intrusion into this conversation, but I had a quick point to support both your thoughts:

Holyschist said, "I always kind of figured that they tried to work together for years"

Starlady said, "And ditto the impression of their backstory being years long that I had before this. Not that the movie is inherently more authoritative than any other source in the comics transmedia mix, but it does have a certain…imperative to it."

In the very first X-Men movie, Wolvy is learning history from Charles. Charles says Magneto has a helmet that can block his use of Cerebro. Wolvy asks how it can do that and Charles says, "Because he helped me build it."

Whether or not this movie's interpretation of the Erik/Charles relationship is more or less canon than any other aspect of the transmedia mix, it does at least partially contradict the canon of the other X-Men movies. There are hints in the original X-Men and X2 that implies their friendship was longer than a few months.

[holyschist]

Yeah, I have been kind of viewing XMFC as a bit of an AU backstory even from the other movies; comics canon aside. It's one of those "can't get from here to there mentally" things (I also can't get from Firefly to Serenity, or from the first POTC movie to the second and third).

[starlady]

No intrusion at all, and thanks for the info! I had the vague impression that the movies were jossing their own canon (hence my hope that the Wolverine movie has been allowed to die a merciful death), but I didn't quite realize it was that massive.

The other possibility, I suppose, would be that they somehow stay friends enough to build Cerebro after this movie, but Hank building the original Cerebro in First Class probably counterindicates that.

[seekingferret]

Huh. It seems the reason I liked the movie and the ending is that I was reading against the text so hard that I didn't notice the text. Also, I ignored Magneto being the Magneto we know from future canon. I watched that movie and read it as a film about Erik, a Holocaust survivor randomly given incredible powers, fighting back to a)get some semblance of vengeance and b)protect his new adopted family. I think not enough has said about the latter. The Brotherhood is, you know, a Brotherhood.

More specific comments:

And there is no way that Erik, ... would be stupid enough to believe Shaw in the submarine, to not see that he's attempting to manipulate Erik into carrying on Shaw's twisted vision: race war by other means.

I don't think stupidity enters into it. Erik isn't agreeing with Shaw here, as his 'but' acknowledges. He's just acknowledging that he is a creature of brutality and war, that the difference between them is not ideology but purpose. Erik is a monster because he was attacked and he understands that fighting back is part of his defense, that he can never be safe unless all of his enemies are dead. Shaw is a monster because he wants to rule the world. But they're both monsters and Erik is saying, "You think this speech is going to work on me because we're both monsters, but you killed my mother, i.e., you were a Nazi, .i.e. the purpose driving your totalistic ideology is not the same as mine and we can never work together."

I can't decide whether the movie thinks Shaw is actually a Nazi or not.

I think it's clear that they think he's not only a Nazi, he's a particular filmic trope of the Nazi, the Nazi official who thinks he isn't a Nazi, he's just made a political deal for the fringe benefits. You know, like we see in Indiana Jones the Nazis who only care about antiquities. Indiana Jones likes to pretend that those people are enemies but not monsters, but this movie spends a lot of time showing that Shaw has bought into Nazi ideology. I think this film overall showed a deep familiarity with media representation of the Holocaust. It was stunning to me how much the Holocaust scenes felt familiar, recognizable, and were constantly being subverted.

Obviously, in canon, Erik is about the whole race hatred calls for race hatred concept

Only in the clumsiest representations of Magneto. At his best, Erik is about the whole race hatred calls for bonding together against a common enemy and we have to fight through preemptive strikes because they're planning to destroy us. Erik is a character who learned as a child that when you're in a minority you're never safe from the majority. That's what drives him, not race hatred but a fear so crystallized and pure that he can't escape it.

Revengers are supposed to die at the end, but we're supposed to believe that he switches immediately from being completely focused on killing Shaw to "mutants against humans!"?

I actually thought Fassbender did a fantastic job of staying a little bit aloof throughout the movie, and I thought this was one of the more fascinating parts of the Charles/Erik dynamic: Charles obviously knew all of Erik's plans from his telepathy and if it was clear to me from as early as the first scenes in the CIA facility that Erik had bigger plans once he got rid of Shaw, it had to be far clearer to Charles. That's how I read the scene where he almost leaves and only returns when he realizes Charles has the leverage to take control of Cerebro.

The other thing about Charles and Erik on the level of philosophy is that Charles doesn't have a moral leg to stand on.

Yes. In my reading of the movie, Erik is the hero. Erik is the strong one who fights back against his enemies while Charles tries to go into hiding. Charles is the douche who isn't proud enough of being a mutant to stand up and show himself, Charles is the one who trusts the US even though his telepathy has to tell him what they're planning, Charles is the idiot who grooms a team of superheroes when superheroes aren't what the situation calls for, but rather heroes- not media-friendly creations but people who will do the dirty work of self-defense. And obviously this is dirty work, there are moral question marks, Erik is not a beacon of light, but it's something.

I really, really, really hate the reading of mutants as crypto-Jews or crypto-Israelis or crypto-gay people or crypto-black people or crypto-people with disabilities, take your pick.

What I liked about this film is that instead of making it about crypto-Jews or crypt-gays, we got a movie about a real Jew. There's a Chanukah candlelighting scene! Which I know marina suggested to me is about his happy childhood memory, not his Judaism, but... it's more than I've seen in movie canon thus far, and more than in almost all of comic canon. It's a really big deal in acknowledging Erik's Judaism. And Erik's Judaism, his encounters with the Holocaust specifically as the Jewish son of Jews, that is a major part of who he is in a way I thought was very organic. This movie is about the specific instead of the general, whereas the movie trilogy, especially the third film, was about mutants as crypto-gays in ways I found a lot more problematic.

Much of my frustration with people writing about the film has been with people saying, "Oh, a Survivor would never interact with a Nazi in the way he reacts with Shaw in the final scene." I don't know how a Survivor like Erik would react in such a scene. The experiences of Survivors are so diverse, their reactions and responses are so individual, and I find it immensely painful to see any response, even a fictional one, dismissed as improper.

starting from the bottom, working back up

[starlady]

In general, you know way more about the comics and the Holocaust and its Survivors than I do, and I think you're way subtler in your reading than the movie actually is.

The experiences of Survivors are so diverse, their reactions and responses are so individual, and I find it immensely painful to see any response, even a fictional one, dismissed as improper.

That's a good point, and honestly something I thought about while writing my post--I really don't like the idea that the there should be/is any one way of reacting to the Holocaust as a survivor, because that's the same sort of flattening, on a smaller scale, as the Holocaust itself. And given that in actual history Erik's experiences were literally impossible, it's doubly problematic to adjudicate about his reaction. But on the other hand, for me personally viewing this movie, I just couldn't square the words coming out of Erik's mouth in those scenes with what we'd been shown before or were shown after. And I do think part of that reaction on my part comes from the way Fassbender played Erik, as so very aloof and so very obviously the guy who's figured out everyone's moves on the board ten turns ahead. For me personally, I could have believed those scenes on the submarine given a different lead-in to them, but…I don't know. Part of it is that I don't think what Erik has done is actually all that monstrous, I think; I have no problem with all the Nazis he kills getting theirs, which says unflattering things about me ethically but is not entirely an indefensible position, I don't think. The Nûrnberg Trials sentenced a lot of people to death, after all. And, relatedly, I found the whole "Frankenstein's monster" and "Jekyll & Hyde" citations to be…off-key for reasons I still can't quite pin down.

In my reading of the movie, Erik is the hero.

Oh, yes. Cutting to Charles in Westchester in 1944 was the worst sort of comic relief, and a real failure on the movie's attempt to convince us.

I don't know about Erik having bigger plans as early as the day after the Florida submarine debacle. I can believe him having them at some point, but I don't think the movie or Fassbender shows us that very clearly, if at all. Or possibly I am being influenced by my a priori knowledge that Charles is going to say no, whereas Erik doesn't think that at all. But on the other hand, Charles seemed surprised on the beach at the end too? I'm not sure.

Erik is a character who learned as a child that when you're in a minority you're never safe from the majority. That's what drives him, not race hatred but a fear so crystallized and pure that he can't escape it.

I think you're right here; my limited knowledge of comics canon is clearly limited.

I think it's clear that they think he's not only a Nazi, he's a particular filmic trope of the Nazi, the Nazi official who thinks he isn't a Nazi, he's just made a political deal for the fringe benefits. You know, like we see in Indiana Jones the Nazis who only care about antiquities. Indiana Jones likes to pretend that those people are enemies but not monsters, but this movie spends a lot of time showing that Shaw has bought into Nazi ideology. I think this film overall showed a deep familiarity with media representation of the Holocaust. It was stunning to me how much the Holocaust scenes felt familiar, recognizable, and were constantly being subverted.

That's a good point about the Indiana Jones movies, because here's the other point about Nazis that Hollywood can't get away from: they sure look good on celluloid in their uniforms staging their mass rallies, don't they! Blech. But I don't know, I don't think the one shot of Shaw's vision that we get from Emma is quite enough to balance out what I saw as the movie soft-pedaling him after the camp sequences. And given that what subversion there is comes from the fact that both Erik and Shaw are mutants (yes?), I…don't know. I was not really comfortable with the way the movie appropriated history to tell its story, and these tropes are part of that, but I couldn't quite frame that clearly enough to talk about it in the main post.

But they're both monsters and Erik is saying, "You think this speech is going to work on me because we're both monsters, but you killed my mother, i.e., you were a Nazi, .i.e. the purpose driving your totalistic ideology is not the same as mine and we can never work together."

See, I really think you are giving the movie more credit than it deserves. I don't think the movie quite makes that leap from "you killed my mother" to "i.e. you were a Nazi;" I think the movie inverts them and forgets about the Nazi part by the end. But maybe not; Erik does say "Never again" on the beach after all.

And, in some respects, I think Fassbender playing aloof actually works against the "fighting to protect his adopted family" interpretation (though I think it's totally correct from a comics canon standpoint). Or is it just that Erik is not capable of demonstrating affection in a socially recognized fashion? In any case, I didn't go there while I was watching it.

But, yeah, the parts of this movie that were about Erik the Avenger, those I really liked the best.

Re: starting from the bottom, working back up

[seekingferret]

I have no problem with all the Nazis he kills getting theirs, which says unflattering things about me ethically but is not entirely an indefensible position, I don't think.

Yes, this is fundamentally why the movie worked for me, in exactly the same way Inglourious Basterds worked for me. This is a movie about a strong Jew asskicking real Nazis, not cardboard cutouts of Nazis whose brutality is glossed over. And he's doing it extralegally, with an aim to inflict as much pain as possible and no regard for collateral damage. And we as viewers don't care, we suspend our moral objections and enjoy it because film is safe and we can escape for an hour. Both movies are built on the way that film is safe to let you do things that in real life are monstrously unethical.

I think these two statements of yours are somewhat at odds: Fassbender played Erik, as so very aloof and so very obviously the guy who's figured out everyone's moves on the board ten turns ahead. and I can believe him having them at some point, but I don't think the movie or Fassbender shows us that very clearly, if at all. I think it's very clear. Erik tells Charles the night before they go to Cuba and Charles basically acknowledges it, that Erik's plans are not the same as Charles and never have been.

But I don't know, I don't think the one shot of Shaw's vision that we get from Emma is quite enough to balance out what I saw as the movie soft-pedaling him after the camp sequences

I don't think it's softpedaling by the movie. I think Shaw is the type who has spent his post-war years staying as far away from that uniform as is humanly possible. And the movie shows, "Look at him, once a Nazi, always a Nazi." I mean, the movie could have given him a Von Braun/Strangelove comically German accent, or shown him with Nazi memorabilia, but honestly it felt more realistic to me to separate him from the tools of the Nazi imagemaking machine and harness him to its ideology. In many ways I think he foils Hans Landa extremely well, Landa being the Nazi whose entire self-image is wrapped up in the Nazi imagemaking machine, in the costume and the logo and the symbols.

But maybe not; Erik does say "Never again" on the beach after all.

Yes, this is essential to my reading of the film. I got chills on that line, horrible, beautiful, painful chills. It so drastically reinterprets Never Again and I think it forces us to read anti-Nazism into Erik at a deep level.

Maybe I should send you the little minifanvid I created to Remedy's "Never Again"... It's a very personal thing that will never get a public posting, but I needed to make it to map out in my head the story I'd seen in the movie. The song and movie make so much sense together for me. Together they explain everything.

Re: starting from the bottom, working back up

[starlady]

I really feel like I need to see the movie again, but I can't afford to on my summer budget.

And okay, I'm glad you brought up Inglorious Basterds, because that is the movie I was comparing it to at the end, and I loved it for the exact same reasons. Both movies are built on the way that film is safe to let you do things that in real life are monstrously unethical.

Yes, and I actually think Quentin Tarantino's film has a bit more complexity to it (there's my review of it somewhere on the movie tag), because it plays on the cinematic elements constantly in a very meta way.

I would like to see that vid, if you wouldn't mind sharing it! I still owe you comments on the CJ one.

I think it's very clear. Erik tells Charles the night before they go to Cuba and Charles basically acknowledges it, that Erik's plans are not the same as Charles and never have been.

I need a rewatch to re-evaluate what I think. You're definitely right that Charles groks that Erik has different ideas, but my impression at this point was that Charles doesn't grok just what those ideas consist of beyond the whole "murdering Shaw" thing. Which either says very clear things about Charles or about the movie, depending on whether you want to be Doylist or Watsonian.

I mean, the movie could have given him a Von Braun/Strangelove comically German accent, or shown him with Nazi memorabilia, but honestly it felt more realistic to me to separate him from the tools of the Nazi imagemaking machine and harness him to its ideology. In many ways I think he foils Hans Landa extremely well, Landa being the Nazi whose entire self-image is wrapped up in the Nazi imagemaking machine, in the costume and the logo and the symbols.

That's a good point too. I think that personally, as an historian, I have been trained to see the ideology and the symbols as on some level indivisible; the symbols were used to sell the ideology and vice versa in fascist regimes the world over. But it's not like the movie is deaf to the appeal of the symbology; note the one Argentine Nazi's knife (and Erik keeping it, ugh).

Re: starting from the bottom, working back up

[seekingferret]

I was not really comfortable with the way the movie appropriated history to tell its story, and these tropes are part of that, but I couldn't quite frame that clearly enough to talk about it in the main post.

I think I would find this a more valid objection if this were a movie like the previous three, about crypto-Jews. By making Erik a real Jew, by making Shaw a real Nazi, they made this a movie about the history instead of a movie that appropriated the history. Although it's probably fair to say this is a movie more about the way Hollywood understands the history than about the actual history, but it's still not appropriative because at some point the X-Men go into the background and this is the story of Erik.

See what I mean about how I read the movie I wanted to so hard I stopped seeing the actual movie? It's ludicrous that I'm arguing that this isn't an X-Men movie, and being honest with myself I'd at least concede that the part in the middle about recruiting the team was an X-Men story, but the beginning and the end aren't appropriating history, they're legitimately telling a story about history. I think that may be why the whole making Kennedy a sorta character thing was pushed as an essential part of the movie's vision.

Re: starting from the bottom, working back up

[starlady]

I'd at least concede that the part in the middle about recruiting the team was an X-Men story, but the beginning and the end aren't appropriating history, they're legitimately telling a story about history.

*nods* Okay, I think I get what you mean. I am still working out what I think about *history* in these sorts of situations. I should probably be thinking of it in terms of the historical imagination, too/instead.

Re: starting from the bottom, working back up

[seekingferret]

History, said Stephen, is a nightmare from which I am trying to awake.

Re: starting from the bottom, working back up

[starlady]

…I need to get that framed.

Re: starting from the bottom, working back up

[seekingferret]

Nobody does it better than Joyce.

Re: starting from the bottom, working back up

[seekingferret]

That's a good point, and honestly something I thought about while writing my post--I really don't like the idea that the there should be/is any one way of reacting to the Holocaust as a survivor, because that's the same sort of flattening, on a smaller scale, as the Holocaust itself.

I've been debating responding to this for a while now and I think I've decided that I have enough distance from it and that I trust you enough to share this response with you.

There is a name for what you just did up there. It's called Godwinning the conversation. And I understand that this is a conversation about the Holocaust, but that doesn't mean that it's acceptable to compare relatively minor things to the Holocaust. In fact, it means that it's likelier that some or all of the people participating in the conversation have a deeper sensitivity to cheapening the Holocaust.

The problem with Godwin's Law, and I've written about this several times before, is that it makes argumentum ad holocaust just a rote part of the language of debate. Someone compares something ridiculously less momentous to the Holocaust, someone else cites Godwin's Law to dismiss it, and the conversation moves on. As if it were just any other logical fallacy. But Godwin's Law isn't just about the fact that comparing something to the Holocaust is a debating superweapon that can't be argued against. It's about the fact that every time you compare something insignificant to the Holocaust, you're rhetorically diminishing the significance of the Holocaust.

Conflating different Survivors' experiences is not bad because it flattens the history of the Holocaust in a way that is like the Holocaust. It is not at all a thing like the Holocaust. It is true that in some ways it perpetuates Hitler's objective of dehumanizing the Jewish nation, but the Holocaust was far worse than just a dehumanization process. It was a systematic and horrifyingly successful attempt at genocide- the eradication of an entire race. Conflating different Survivors' experiences is bad for one simple reason- it hurts Survivors and denies the worth of their experience. There was no need to compare it to the Holocaust. When I reread your sentence I feel a stab in my chest. A smaller scale? An incomparably smaller scale.

Re: starting from the bottom, working back up

[starlady]

…Thank you for telling me this, and explaining it. I was wrong, and I'd rather--rightly--feel like an idiot now than be wrong forever without realizing it. And, I am sorry for any hurt I caused you.

[eumelia]

Oh, Shaw is a Nazi.
The movie had structural problems because it was very very rushed by the end and tried to squeeze a very long time into a two hour event (the movie begin somewhere around 1961 and supposedly ends in October 1962, jesus, what!?).

Are you still interested in betaing my fix-it fic that will pretty much tacke much of what you wrote about? :)

[starlady]

Yes! unrepentanteastcoaster [at] gmail [dot] com.

Someone whose post I read said that they should have made two movies out of this one, and I agree with that wholeheartedly.

[yeloson]

X-men, as a comic, has always been sketchy on it's stand-in for race issues thing - the Prof. X vs. Magneto thing has always been a white person's shitty take on MLK "vs." Malcolm X, with it basically being a story about how Assimilate By Any Means Necessary (TM) is the way to live.

The movie at least acknowledges that, hey, maybe you shouldn't have to change your appearance to exist, though, in actuality, Raven spends most of her time in White Girl Mode and not True Blue Mode for the movie.

That said, what becomes extra problematic for Erik's story is that he spent 15-so years hunting down Nazis, but in the end lumps all humanity together, including Jews? And neither one has any kind of thoughts/connections to the Civil Rights Movement?

It's almost 50 years later,do we really need to repeat the glaring omissions/problems of the comics based on the "discomfort" of whiteness? I guess so.

[starlady]

That said, what becomes extra problematic for Erik's story is that he spent 15-so years hunting down Nazis, but in the end lumps all humanity together, including Jews? And neither one has any kind of thoughts/connections to the Civil Rights Movement?

Yes, this, definitely. Or to the concept of human rights tribunals or even just plain old trials, like Abigail Nussbaum said in her review.

It's almost 50 years later,do we really need to repeat the glaring omissions/problems of the comics based on the "discomfort" of whiteness? I guess so.

And very much this too.

I suppose, inasmuch as Charles is all about assimilation in this movie, they did get the essence of his character as portrayed in the comics, but blech. Dear Charles, society can change too.

[swan-tower.livejournal.com]

I think the movie does have enough brain cells to realize that Raven is right when it comes to Charles' behaviour in several crucial respects, even though it can't really do anything with that because it's already decided that Charles is the good guy.

My reaction to this line is sort of like my reaction to Jim Hines' comments about Torchwood, and how the good guys do all these terrible things: wait, I'm supposed to see them as the good guys?

I don't know if this is my reading being influenced by the original movies, or whether the script itself leans on that context, but I felt like I was watching the story of how Charles Xavier was an arrogant little berk who completely failed to get why people like Raven can't just assimilate (and shouldn't have to), and furthermore hadn't really worked out the ethics of being a telepath yet -- but who might, as a result of his failures here, do better in the future. (Whether he does do better depends largely on which canon you're looking at, since my understanding from comics-geek friends is that how ethical he is about the telepathy etc. varies wildly from story to story.)

The test of that reading, of course, will be what they do with him in the future of this canon.

[starlady]

Yes, definitely, definitely. And it's not like Xavier doesn't have massive issues too (though obviously, apples and oranges, candles and suns), though the script mostly left them understated in favor of focusing on Erik.

I mean, in some respects I'm completely incapable of viewing movies the way I think the average moviegoer does (if such a person even exists), so I don't know what the hell they thought they were trying to say about Charles really. If I were on that beach I would have walked away with Magneto too (just like the rest of the female and chromatic mutants).

I definitely think that Charles can change, and hell, Erik too for that matter; but I think the choices they've made in this movie are going to determine the range of their future changes. And honestly from what I recall of the earlier movies I don't think Charles ever gets over his conviction that he really does know what's best for everyone. Or for his complete inability to examine his own behaviour according to any defensible ethical standard.

[lian]

Yesssssss. I mean, I can only interprete the movie as "Charles is an asshole whose obtuseness and arrogance get in the way of developing his very worthwhile theories convincingly and getting people on his side" and "Eric is totally awesome. Look at Erik being badass and awesome! Look at Erik being the smartest guy in the room despite there being, oh, a telepath in that same room! Look at Erik being essentially right -- err, oops, wait, he's supposed to be the bad guy, let's make a quick badly developed turn here uuuhm oh, and let's put Erik in an even sillier costume to make him look moar evil, phew, done, film ends."

["except you killed my mother" was...what? That made no sense whatsoever.]

I mean... how else can one interprete the film? Didn't everyone root for Mystique [as the #1 vessel for the viewer's sympathies] going with the guy who actually appreciates her as a fully realized human being? And didn't Charles' mindwiping totally position him as just as fundamentally flawed (but with LESS excuse) than Erik in the end?

(I don't -- I mean, maybe it's because I'm super-sensitive to consent issues, but did the film really position the midnwiping as *defensible*? I'm not sure -- I don't want to think it did!)


ETA: and because today is my day at talking at you, sorry -- I think I did suspsend my disbelief about the portrayal of Nazism in the film until Erik's "you killed my mother, prepare to die" comment shot that tho hell. I mean, I was like, there's no way Erik doesn't understand the systemic nature of fascism/Nazism *when he lived through it* (and yes, even as a sheltered superhero in training) and sees it *exclusively* as a personal injustice done to him. Because that's just...fundamentally stupid. And historically wrong. But the film really just is that stupid @-@ aw damn.

(I wouldn't even mind him having his priorities so fundamentally selfish -- as in, "Nazi Germany = my personal tragedy first, systemic dehumanization second, because that's how I experienced it as an isolated superhero boy" -- but him not even realizing the larger picture? That just...idk! How can you live through that and then fundamentally agree with its ideology? Not in anyway that the film is able to present credibly, to me. Maybe I'm just that wee bit too educated and too German to be able to handwave that, though >_<;)

[starlady]

I mean, I was like, there's no way Erik doesn't understand the systemic nature of fascism/Nazism *when he lived through it* (and yes, even as a sheltered superhero in training) and sees it *exclusively* as a personal injustice done to him. Because that's just...fundamentally stupid. And historically wrong. But the film really just is that stupid @-@ aw damn.

Yeah, that was my response basically.

How can you live through that and then fundamentally agree with its ideology? Not in anyway that the film is able to present credibly, to me.

Yes. It is a possible reaction, but the movie did not sell me on it as Erik's reaction.

[littledust]

Here via marina! I enjoyed all of these thoughts! Because yes, Erik at the end of the movie is kind of, um, a leap from "I'm going to kill Shaw" to "DEATH TO ALL HUMANS." But of course the movie isn't pushing the reading of Shaw as a Nazi, it's all about Erik's personal revenge tragedy, and thank you for using the term "revenge tragedy," because it's perfect.

I find allegory to be a really dangerous interpretative or artistic style, because everything is not everything else. The particular is important, differences matter, and you can't collapse every distinct fucking set of issues into a generic plea for tolerance and some pabulum about how hatred is wrong. It's no coincidence that Charles and Erik find Darwin driving a cab and Angel in a strip club, okay, and the fact that they're mutants doesn't change what put them there. Which is one of the strongest arguments in favor of Charles' ideals, really, not that he could see it.

AND

Emma Frost is not as dumb as I had gathered, and nor is January Jones as bad an actress. I mean, I look at Emma and I think, "Oh, another smart woman who has made the best choices she could when the plot society is stacked against her and who doesn't believe the bullshit of the men around her!" I mean, she is a telepath, you guys! There is no way she doesn't know what a horrible piece of shit Shaw/Schmidt is and how much he doesn't give a shit about any of them.

I would like to marry both of these quotes. In New York!

[starlady]

Thank you very much! I should be clear that I got the "revenge tragedy" idea from oliviacirce.

Because yes, Erik at the end of the movie is kind of, um, a leap from "I'm going to kill Shaw" to "DEATH TO ALL HUMANS."

Yes, this.