X-Men: First Class

[rivkat]

Loved it!  Am largely in agreement with Abigail Nussbaum's review, except that I think the heroes of the movie are Erik and Mystique, and that the movie (absent metatextual expectations that Charles is the good guy because of all the other canon) validates Erik's viewpoint and makes Charles out to be an idiot who thinks he's smart and thinks that his privilege will protect him. 

And by the way, where does the guy who's willing to mindfuck humans not just to carry out secret spy activities but also to protect his own ass get to have the moral high ground?  Also, he must have mindwiped all the people who met him the first time around at the CIA, given that McTaggart specially requested to go meet him in particular, which meant there were records of who he was, but I'll just assume he had the brains to do that because that doesn't involve an iota of emotional intelligence.

I mean, how epically dumb do you have to be to make your plea for the survival of hundreds of sailors be "they're just following orders" when you are talking to a Holocaust survivor?  Especially when the truer "hundreds of men on those ships have no power at all and they'll be dying for the actions of a few" is also available?

I appreciated that the theme of "saying just the wrong thing" was consistent, though.  While Xavier walked away with the gold, bronze goes to Havoc for calling Hank "Bozo," and silver to Hank for telling Mystique that she was only beautiful when she wasn't herself.

But this is why I loved it!  There was character momentum and Erik was a badass Mossad agent without an agency to back him up.  And the great powers did what they do, which was unite to face an apparently greater enemy (the Soviets were our friends while we fought the Germans; then the Germans were our friends while we didn't directly fight the Soviets; allying against an apparently greater threat was perfect Cold War logic).  

Could've done with Darwin surviving and Emma Frost having an actual motivation, to be sure, but overall I am now wholly invested in Mystique/Magneto(/Xavier or any combination thereof).  What abbreviation are we using, and is the fandom eligible for Yuletide?  I hear there's a kink meme, but I haven't gone looking to find whether there is good stuff there.

Comments

[sorrel]

I think they actually did have a comment or two about Xavier's Rich White Boy privelege- Erik said something about "oh, how did you cope" when Charles first dragged them there for training, so there was some awareness. And on a larger, metatextual level I do see what you mean about Erik being the hero of the piece, in the sense that he was choosing to fight back against the oppressors and Charles was choosing, essentially, to conform. But Charles, for all of his numerous flaws (mindwiping Moira holy shit), at least wasn't advocating racial superiority. So that's a point to him. I mean, I get the headspace that Erik was in, where you have been made worthless because of something in your genes that is no fault of your own, and I get the "turn the tables" temptation of the victimized. But he was, essentially, a Nazi hunter that grew up to BECOME A NAZI, because I can't separate this movie from the ones to which it was a prequel. And I don't find that particularly heroic at all.

[rivkat]

I agree with you that the movie made it easy to see Xavier's privilege relative to Erik--and even a bit relative to the women, though that was much more submerged--but your last comment is what I mean when I say that I don't think the movie on its own does anything to take Erik out of the hero position. I'm not disagreeing with you about Magneto becoming the villain once he does decide to get rid of humans, nor do I think there's anything troublesome/unusual with bringing in that metatext--I am a fan, after all--I'm just saying that I experienced this movie without feeling that later (earlier?) Magneto's racial superiority stuff was present.

[sorrel]

Ah, I see what you're saying. And I... halfway agree with you? It's hard for me to separate this narrative from later events, but even so, I think they made Magneto's goals fairly clear from his conversation with Shaw. As he said, he agreed whole-heartedly with Shaw's speech about mutant superiority. He may not have advocated nuclear war to wipe out most of the planet's population, but that only means he's not crazy. And even earlier he made it clear that he thought that mutants were naturally superior. (The whole chess scene with "we already are the better men," and a couple others that are escaping me right now, drat.) So while his shift to "war upon the humans and creating a comic-book science machine to forcibly change the race of the world leaders" isn't present in this movie, his ideals of racial superiority, I thought, definitely were. And even if I didn't know how Magneto ended up the implications are still pretty clear. My mom saw this without any other knowledge of the X-Men, for example, and even she twigged to it.

[rivkat]

Interesting! I heard him agreeing with Shaw in the sense of "you made me a strong monster," not him agreeing with Shaw's goals of wiping out humans just yet, and likewise I thought "we are the better men" was "we haven't tried to kill anyone for what they are instead of what they've done." Paranoia yes--though objectively fairly well justified paranoia--but superiority no, except insofar as it is superior not to have committed genocide.

And I think we're talking about the same stuff Abigail Nussbaum saw, and she's more on your side--because what is a victim supposed to do, in this narrative? Is it monstrous not to forgive? I haven't seen anyone worrying about him killing the Nazis; I think Charles was right, for the wrong reasons, that he shouldn't have tried to kill the Soviets and Americans--a show of ability to harm combined with an offer to negotiate would have been much smarter--but I don't think it's monstrous to shoot the same weapons that were shot at you first back at the people who shot them. Where should Magneto have stopped, and isn't Xavier naive at best to think that he shouldn't have started? (Xavier implicitly decided that killing Shaw was better than the alternative when he failed to release Shaw from his control so that Magneto could kill him.)

[sorrel]

Huh! It actually never even occurred to me that interpretation of his words; I think this is a case of my knowledge of his later character tainting my reading. So I guess I should have prefaced this whole discussion with "actually I'm not sure I can look at the movie as a lone entity."

I don't find his failure to forgive those who trespassed against him, so to speak, monstrous at all. And I honestly don't think, unlike the essayist, that Erik killing Shaw was the point of no return, because I think that Charles had pretty much accepted that Shaw was going to die, even though he tried to argue against it. But while I found Xavier's "following orders" line grotesque in the extreme (which was pretty much the point) I don't think that single-handedly destroying an entire fleet full of human beings is acceptable morally or even strategically. I mean, they walked in there to stop a war, even Erik was on board with that- what, exactly, did he think that blowing up all those American and Russian fleets would do? He would be single-handedly condemning his fledgeling race to a witchunt that would soon become global in scale. I think that scene rendered him unheroic not because of his moral choices, which were sketchy but understandable, but because of the sheer idiocy of his moment of rage. Charles Xavier wasn't flawless, and he certainly wasn't guiltless, but I do think in that context that for all his sense of privilege and naivete he did genuinely have a better grasp on both the politics of the situation and the predictability of human nature.

And a side note, because hey it's not like this comment isn't epic already, another thing I see Erik lauded on in comparison to Charles is his treatment of Raven. And yet his campaign of "self-acceptance" instead feels deliberate and manipulative; the scene where she comes to his bed and he kisses her before sending her away skeeved me right the hell out. And not just because of later movies- although what he did to her in the third movie, when she takes the shot meant for him and is turned human against her will, and he walks away from her like she is no longer of any importance, definitely colored my reading of all of his interactions with her. I couldn't help but see all of his actions toward her as predatory and self-serving.

[rivkat]

I think we agree that actually destroying the fleets would have been boneheaded. Tactical error, absolutely. I think we let many heroes have equally boneheaded moments without losing their heroism (though usually it's the reverse bonehead move of letting the irredeemably bad guy live so he can do more damage later).

I didn't feel Erik was manipulative--again, this is probably because I didn't feel influenced by the later/earlier movies in this one. He told her what I think he honestly believed, that she was most beautiful as herself, and I thought the kiss was something she wanted and was old enough to want for herself. He had more experience of the world than she did, certainly, but I think she was old enough to choose who she wanted to experiment with--and I don't think he slept with her, which would've been over the line. But even Xavier acknowledges her as a fully developed moral agent right after, when he tells her to go with Erik. I guess I didn't find him any more self-serving than any leader who says "follow me and I'll do good things."

[ceares]

Hmm, I'd argue though (sorry for butting into the thread)that his words, at least at that point were more along the lines of any minority embracing that attitude as a coping mechanism to being constantly told you are less than, worse than less. Saying no,I'm not what you are and never will be, but what I am is better. I mean Mutant and Proud, Black and Proud, Here and Queer... all fall along the same lines.

Over the years, yes he grew into a monstrous version of that, but I think if things had played out differently he could have come to believe in humans and mutants living together. Nearly every human he dealt with lived down to his expectations by the end of the movie, cementing his path.

[sorrel]

Saying no,I'm not what you are and never will be, but what I am is better.

I guess it comes down to the fact that I'm not okay with that narrative either? Take it as a metaphor for gay rights, for example- I'm deeply not okay with the kind of activist who refer to heterosexuals sneeringly as "breeders." I mean, obviously mutants are more powerful in a personal, exertion-of-strength sort of way, but that doesn't automatically make them better people, any more than being black or gay or Jewish makes one better than one's neighbor white or straight or gentile neighbor. If it was "mutant and proud, because we're all just as good as each other!" then that would be a different thing, I feel. But that's not... quite what I got. Though this I think is a YMMV sort of thing.

but I think if things had played out differently he could have come to believe in humans and mutants living together. Nearly every human he dealt with lived down to his expectations by the end of the movie, cementing his path.

Upon this, we agree completely.

[ceares]

I understand that but for me it still me it still reads more as an overcompensation thing, a 'fine, I'll show you' response to whatever group of people that are trying to negate you rather than an actual hardcore belief in the superiority of whatever you are over what they are.

It's self defense mode of someone with less power trying to build their power and self esteem up. If we're all the same and you still don't except/include/respect me then it's hurtful and confusing but if I'm better than you, then it doesn't matter because I don't need that from you.

For some people it's been drilled into them that they are not equal enough that they believe it. It's been written in laws, it's been written in blood. So their options are to pretty much accept that they are less than, or hold onto that they are better than.