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kajaono · 5 years

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X men master post

I am allways a little bit surprised that the X-men movies are not more popular by „diverse“ people. I can understand why the MCU is favored by many white straight male persons but let me break down the XMCU a little bit for you and why it actually has a lot more depth and diversity then the MCU. And they did important stuff when it came to disability and female representation around 10 years before the MCU did it.

Diversity, with in the main cast:

Logan: While he first appears as a hot wet male dream his character actually has way more depth. He suffers from PTSD and amnesia. While in the MCU Tonys PTSD was (mostly) only discussed in Iron man 3 Logans PTSD is a constant companion in every story that features him. He suffers from sleeplessness and nightmares. He shows sign of affection towards the man who tortured him. And even long after he has got his memory back and found out why he sufferes from PTSD the triggers are still there. And they can be activated at any given moment. Like in Days of future past where one look at a young version of guy who will torture him some where in a distant future was enough to gave him a panic attack and flashbacks. And all of this (nightmares, panic attacks, flashbacks) are happening in every movie and are making it nearly impossible for him to find a home or form stable relationships with other people.

Erik: A jewish man. And being jewish is a big and important part of the character. It is still a superhero movie so we never see him celebrating jewish holidays but he is constantly reminding the viewer that we never should forgot what happend back then in the KZ without reducing him to that. But actually showing how he overcomes his grief and anger by making it a constant companion of him.

Charles: A disabled man. While his disability is never shown as something that stops him from doing stuff (because he has a fancy sci fi wheelchair) there is a whole movie that shows how he tries to accept his life in a wheelchair. And after he accepted the wheelchair it a constant companion of him so we see him going into fights with a wheelchair and noone finds anything “strange” about that (aka making comments about him). Actually people are more confused when he stays at home. But that doesn’t mean that his disability is ignored.

Rogue: A girl that can actually kill by touching other people. She is perfect example how being different scares other people and make you an outcast. Until that point where you are unable to love and accept yourself. And what i found so fascinating about her story. It showed that it is okay to give up. That we do not can win every fight. That giving up is okay when it is what makes us happy and gives us peace

Powerful female main characters:

In the XMCU women where allways part of the main cast. They were never reduced to love interests or sex objects. They were allways in the middle of the fight and kicking ass. Actually 2 out of 3 X men in the first movie are women. They wear the same outfits as there male comapnions and if your name is Storm you get an extra fancy cape. While on the other hand the women are diverse. They are not wet male dreams of hot women kicking ass but actually you have:

Jean: A doctor. Who is really calming. A loving teacher and girlfriend. Also a little insecure about herself. While also being one of the most powerful mutants around and kicking ass. And she is allowed to say: NO!” Something we rarely see in other superhero movies. In x men 2 she shows signs of attraction and affection towards Logan. But instead of cheating with him on her boyfriend she says: No, please do not let me do that.” Because women are perfectly functional human beings who can still decide against a guy when they feel attraction towards him, knowing it wouldn’t be good for her/or when she wants to protect her relationship with her boyfriend.

Storm: A woman of color. Sadly her character never really got fleshed out.... not like Jeans character. (She deserves a solo movie!) But she is this quiet cool woman who somehow manages to stay away from every relationship drama because she never gets a male love interested forced onto her. She is this kind of women who makes you hyped everytime you see her own screen just because her presence alone is so powerful

Rogue: Actually she is still a child and doesn’t know anything about fighting. She is super insecure. Is really closed off from the world (caused by her powerful mutation) But somehow she is allways in the middle of the battle and saving the world with small actions.

Kitty: While her character gets introcuded really late, and she is actually only a side chatacter, the whole plot of xmen 3 and days of future past would not have worked without her.

Queer characters:

Nevertheless this is still a superhero and hollywood movie which means queer representation is of cource not present in text. BUT! That doesn’t mean it is not present at all. 1. The whole plot of x men 2 was a LGBTQ metaphore. There is this whole conversation in x men 2 where a mother sits down with her son after he says: Mum i have to tell you something.” Then he comes out as gay a mutant. Later the mother asked when he first relaized that he is gay a mutant. And if he ever tried not to be gay a mutant. Bouns point that actually this character comes out as gay in the comics. Also it has Ian McKellen who highly supports a gay reading of his character Erik.

Yeah Cherik:

From the very first moment they share a deep lovers to enemies relationship with eachother. Because no matter how much they fight against eachother. They allways end up together again, saving eachother, unable to let eachother go. Their relationship ended really tragical in the first timeline. But the new timeline with Fassbender and Mcavoy did not stopped that. They added 100% more homoerotic subtext. And then they wrote a whole movie for them only to explain how they meet and fall in love. And it was so gay that Fassbender and Mcavoy confirmed that FOX seperated them in later movies to reduce the gay subtext. BUT! that did not stop the writers from make it canon in the last movie. Yeah, it is still a Hollywood movie so not canon CANON but if you watch it you will see that it is canon. A little bit like good omens. They are moving in together and playing chess like they allways did... in Paris... the city of love... they couldn’t have been more obvious. Would have been openly queer representation even better? Sure. But with this little ending FOX XMCU achieved more then the MCU in the last 10 years.

The cinematography is perfect. Many may know the scene where Quicksilver is running through the kitchen in light speed listing to music. The movies have so much more of these moments. Also in the early movies where they had less money and CGI. So they need to invest a lot of time into planning how to film exciting scenes while still saving money and time. That resulted in absolut amazing scenes that make especially X men 2 a bless to watch. Also that most of the movies are PG 13 blood is only used where it is needed but then allways in such an aesthetical beautiful way that it is allways blowing my mind.

Body positivity: is a big topic especially in the first three movies. Sure the main characters are all perfect looking people but what matters here are the children. Most of the storyline is playing in a school and not a single one of the kids is a model type person. They are are super mixed, super chubby, super skinny, tall, small, freckles, curly hair, flat hair etc. And they all dress as bad all children did that grew up in the early 2000s. I think that is especially important for the children that are watching the movies. Becuase they see that all the kids are looking like them and have super powers anyway, no matter what skincolor or body type, so they do need to stress about that

Sexual consent: Especially in the main movies there are never any out of the blue sex moments. And as i allready mentioned Jean says: No” to a kiss with Logan because she doesn’t feel good with it but i think even more important is the scene in x men 3 where Jean goes completly Phoenix and wants to have sex with Logan he first goes along happily because that is what he allways wanted. But in the moment he realizes that Jean is out of her mind and not really there he stop immediatly. He regnoizes her boundaries and says: Let us stop. And let us talk about it tomorrow again.” And i think this scene is so important. It shows the viewer that just because a woman wants to have sex with you it is not necessarily right to use her helplessness as an excuse to actual have sex with her. Instead you should try to get her sober/clean and bring her home.

Up-to-dateness: Escpecially the older movies are still really up to date. There is this whole scene in X men 2 where police forces are storming into the mutant school by night and are arreasting little children by gun power. Just to imprison them later on, with out food, proper cloths or a lawyer. But also the realization that if you are part of a marginalized group you have to fight 10x times harder to be accepted, that you allways have to good, because one mistake and everyone will hunt you down and bully you again. That gets a nice addaition by the scene in x men 1 where Mystique says that she was afraid to go to school when you was young because of her beng different even though noone can actually see it.

Problems. of course there are problems. Here are the four main ones.

Solo movies: Everything i said about the x men movies does not necessarily have to apply for the solo movies. The Wolverine solo movies allways feature a quick female love interest and fights that get more brutal and bloody with every new solo movie released. They do not take their time to explore Logans PTSD and trauma even more and focus more on the action. And also the female love interest do not know how to fight, are weak, are needing protection and are getting killed off easily.

Storm. Her character was more of a side character from the beginning. She had not really much character development but all in all her character still got treated well (okay in x men 3). It gets horrible in the new movies. In days of future past she only appears because of her powers. She is just standing there and fights. She does not share more then one sentence with the three main characters. With all those characters she is actually really close with in xmen 1 to 3. While all “old” characater (those that allready appeared in x men 1 to 3 and survived) get a heartful goodbye she is excluded from it. Then her origin story happens in Apocolpyse. here she not only joins the bad ones first, she also get absolut sidelined again. Why she joins the good ones in the end is absolut unclear because she never says anything. And i do not even remeber if she even was in Dark Phoenix. Because IF she was in there she probably never said more then one word. We never got the Jean/Scott/Storm origin story we deserve

Rasism. For a movie that is so diverse it has surprisingly few persons of color. Beisde of Storm there is actually no POC in those movies. And let you only need to see above to see how bad she got treated at the end. And then there is still this cursed scene from X men First class where the bad guy says: “You can stay here and live like slaves. Or you can come with me and live like king and queens.” and in the moment he says: Slaves.” the camera focuses on the only black giy in the group who gets murder 5 minutes later. “Kings” zoom at the blond white guy who survives the movie. “Queen” focus on the latina woman in the group who joins the bad guys 5 seconds later and gets injured badly at the end of the movie.

Apocolypse. Actually everyting about this movie is horrible. F.e. while the other movies tried to show how Erik over comes his KZ trauma by making it a part of himself Apocolypse reduces being jewish completly to the KZ and kills off his whole family five minutes later... again. A forced straight romance that leads nowhere. Everything about Storm in this movie. This movie is just cursed.

Also x men 3 feels a little bit off sometimes but this is part of another post

So with the Xmen now joining the MCU i can highly recommend everyone to check out the x men movies. Especially the old ones from 2000 who still have the most depth and do not try to be a copy of the MCU.

So all in all i can highly recommend you to watch the X men movies. And the contunity errors that many MCU fans are laughing about are actually really helpful because it makes the movies more flexible then the MCU movies. And that avoid shitstorms and makes the fandom - most of the time - a really relaxed place to be in

#x men #xmcu #mcu #marvel #x men master post #master post

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