X-MEN 3 and mediocritocracy (Extremely Spoilerific)

POSTED BY: HKCavalier
UPDATED: Wednesday, June 14, 2006 21:14
VIEWED: 5818
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I didn't like the latest X-men movie but it encapsulates something that's been bothering me for some time.

I love the setting of these movies, the mutant vs. homo sapien stuff. Comparing Prof. X. and Magneto to Dr. King and Malcomn X has not been (until this latest film) a meaningless exercise.

What struck me about this latest film was that here you have a "go for all the marbles" set up with the "cure" and Jean Grey/goddess/mind control victim and Prof. X. dying, etc. and yet at every last crucial turn of the narative the decisions the characters make are the most mediocre, short sighted, fear driven decisions imaginable.

For all the talk of MLK and Malcomn X, where are the visionaries in this movie?

Take the "cure." Human scientists have supposedly found a way to perminently suppress the mutant X gene. As soon as this plot point is introduced the slogans and talking points start to fly--just as they would in the RW. But no one stops for a moment to question anything.

So this cure is perminent--how do we know? How long could they have possibly been testing it? At the outside, what, 4 years? 2? The boy, Leach, has a decidedly imperminent affect on mutants near him, and yet some scientists have found a way to make it perminent even though they have been unable to test it for any length of time.

I know what you're thinking, but I'm not simply bellyaching about a plot hole. What I'm seeing is a parallel with our real world leaders and how they respond to evolving situations with eronious fears and then jump to thoughtless conclusions. And obviously, the "cure" is deeply frightening to the mutants; I recognize that it's hard to think straight when faced with such terror. But that's exactly what visionary people do: manage to think deeply and with compassion, even in a crisis. And besides, the terror is a lie, the cure is not perminent, of course.

The whole "cure" plotline hinges on people's knee-jerk acceptance of capital "S" Science; if scientists say so, it must be true! If I were Prof X., and knew what he knew about the human psyche and the nature of mutation, I'd hear the news and say to myself, "Oh, really? Perminent ya say? We'll see about that." They're mutants, fer cryin' out loud! Mutation is not simply gonna be supressed once and for all by a dang drug (which is, of course, born out in the film).

And then there's poor Jean Grey. A woman presumably posessed of absolute power, but Prof. X. has blocked this power from her conscious mind, imprisoned it in the subconscious for the good of humanity. Yeah, like that's gonna work! Mutation is really just a metaphor for the power within life itself that cannot be controled or predicted. Charley X. oughta know that but he don't. He still thinks you can control the uncontrolable. What an aweful choice.

Thankfully, Logan/Wolverine ain't buying. Logan is the closest thing to a visionary in the movie, but he ain't a thinker or really much of a leader. He truly identifies with Jean's rage. It scares him, naturally, but he doesn't do anything rash, doesn't hate her for scaring him. He's a mature heterosexual man and respects Jean's power (until the end of the movie, o' course).

The Dark Pheonix story is extremely relevent to our RW. Dark urges exist within us all and have, historically, tended to get the better of us humans globally. And what have we always done about it? We've fought fire with fire and we've gotten burned. Over and over again.

Wolverine had a moment there at the end. Jean asks him, "Would you die for them?" And he answers, "No, for you, Jean. For you." Okay, here we have the ultimate expression of surrender to love. He puts himself at her mercy, mindfully, unlike poor, clueless Cyclops. There's a chance for healing here, but neither of them see it. She merely succeeds in suppressing her darkness long enough so he can murder her. /golfclap

This here's the model of war we've lived with for centuries--we must destroy what we cannot control. As a species we have yet to fully unde

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That was a very well written analysis.

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Firstly all the bad Jean stuff you pointed out, which I agree with totally, I believe is mostly due to the way they chose to represent Phoenix. In the movie, the Phoenix is a representation of what rage embodies jean's omega-class powers. In the comics, the Phoenix force is a completely alien force that can only be activated through a corporeal body. The Phoenix comes to Jean before she dies and completely takes over. That would of made the Proffessor seem smarter. The whole Jean Logan thi ng became stupid. JEAN IS IN LOVE WITH SCOTT SUMMERS! This whole relationship was blown way out of porpotion

johnttf

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Originally posted by HKCavalier:
What I'm seeing is a parallel with our real world leaders and how they respond to evolving situations with eronious fears and then jump to thoughtless conclusions.
Our representatives meddle and meddle and suppress and suppress and control and control and the Dark Pheonix grows and grows and grows.

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As a child I sought out movies that made me question things. Dirty Harry made me see that sometimes you must act independently to be effective. Scorpio showed me that acting independently can lead to good men being targeted by conspiracies. Death Wish demonstrated the self-destructive road self-righteous violence can take you down.
Balance is important, and there is no one way to respond to all things. And violence is like acid; necessary in some cases, but liberal use of it will melt you.

Yet others have taken different things from the movies I just mentioned; The bad guy must GET IT!!

Our leaders tap into that feeling of helplessness and promise swift action. Judge Dredd would be proud.
But even in that movie, Dredd learned that justice must be served by the old ways, with the blind lady...

I haven't seen X3 yet, so that's all I'll say. When I see HK posting a thread, I feel the need to respond; it happens so rarely these days...



My two dabloons Chrisisall

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Originally posted by HKCavalier:
The film has an ugly anti-feminine subtext.

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I've seen other people post this, and I don't really agree. Pretty much everyone in this movie is making bad choices/having their characters undermined, not just the women. I mean Beast of all people stabs Magneto with the cure for crying out loud! Plus, you know, if Jean and Rogue were male characters, no one would be complaining that the film had an ugly anti-masculine subtext... ;)

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Originally posted by HKCavalier:
Jean, the Goddess incarnate must be destroyed, period.

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I don't think this has anything to do with her gender. I mean Jean herself begs Logan to kill her - it's not as though the decision is being forced on her.

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Originally posted by HKCavalier:
Rogue, fearful of her own potential, like a modern Guinevere, chooses subserviance and powerlessness to achieve sexual fulfillment.

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I'm not quite sure how hurting someone by touching them can be considered 'potential'. Furthermore, I think you could make a good case for Rogue's decision to take the cure as being a strong one. She obviously understands that doing so will make her unpopular with other mutants, but she does so anyway because it's what she wants. Having said that, I do think the 'love triangle' thing was a little heavy-handed - they should have focused more on Rogue making the decision herself as opposed to putting a rush on it to prevent someone stealsing Bobby away from her.

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Originally posted by HKCavalier:
And Storm, another veritable Goddess in our midst, must wash her own brain until she spouts platitudes like a mutant Hilary Clinton.

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Let's face it - they've never had a clue how to write Storm.

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Originally posted by Grounded:
...if Jean and Rogue were male characters, no one would be complaining that the film had an ugly anti-masculine subtext... ;)

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Grounded, please, this isn't logic you're using. You imply a symetrical relationship between the sexes when there isn't one in this context. The people in charge of this movie, the writers, producers, director of this film are predominantly men. That the choice was made to disempower these three key female characters in the way they were disempowered is consistent with a centuries old anti-feminine tendency. Simply changing the gender of these three characters would not invert the situation unless you also changed Stan Lee's sex, the sex of the director, writers, producers--and for that matter, the President of the United States, Jesus, God, etc. Any discussion of discrimination must take context into account.

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Originally posted by HKCavalier:
Jean, the Goddess incarnate must be destroyed, period.

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I don't think this has anything to do with her gender. I mean Jean herself begs Logan to kill her - it's not as though the decision is being forced on her.

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Grounded, again you're dropping crucial cultural context. Of course it has everything to do with her gender. Her first act in the film is to consume Cyclops, her ostensible beloved, alive. He believes he is on the verge of sexual gratification and instead the woman devours him. The fear of castration that this reflects does not have an opposite number in the female psyche. Certainly women fear violence from men, but they don't have to dream up vaginas dentatae to do it.

And please, I'm making a point about the male creators of this fantasy. That they construct a female character that begs for her own anihilation is entirely my point. So really it is exactly "as though" the decision were forced on her. And why does she beg for this anihilation? Her only unique crime is that she is too powerful. Hmmmmm.

And who's to say how her Pheonix power would have developed if Prof. X. hadn't violated her as a child? Violated her as a child, Grounded. He feared her power, and that fear lead him to commit a great evil against her.

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Originally posted by HKCavalier:
Rogue, fearful of her own potential, like a modern Guinevere, chooses subserviance and powerlessness to achieve sexual fulfillment.

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I'm not quite sure how hurting someone by touching them can be considered 'potential'.

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If "hurting someone by touching them" where Rogue's only power, you would be correct. But it ain't. For instance, you know, she can touch Wolverine. I'm sure she would be able to touch Jean Grey without troubling Jean too much.

Beyond all that though, I don't know how much of a victim of her mutation Rogue necessarily is. These people all live in a world full of mysterious inexplicable powers that never change. That's not a real world. The writers of these worlds immagine all sorts of physical mutations, but they don't/can't immagine spiritual mutation. As long as Rogue believes herself helpless in the face of her mutation, as long as she only makes decisions out of fear, she is lost. As long as she has to destroy a part of herself in order to be happy, she is living a lie.

Rogue's powers, after all, are a metaphor for real powers that create real fears within ourselves. We all have the potential to hurt the ones we love; according to our natures, it is practically innevitable. So is it right then to take a drug that will suppress our potentiality to harm others? Should we all be taking SOMA like the folks in Brave New World?

Extremely brilliant or gifted people have a real potential for hurting less brilliant and gifted people in intimate relationships. To be close to a really amazing person, you have to have a pretty powerful self-esteme yourself.

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Furthermore, I think you could make a good case for Rogue's decision to take the cure as being a strong o

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