Disclaimer- as anyone subjected to my blog in the last few weeks knows, I love this film. A potentially awkward amount, to be honest. This isn’t about how it’s terrible in all ways or about how you mustn’t like it.
But there are some really problematic elements to it with regards to sexuality, and race, and gender, and all sorts, and they’ve been bugging me. When that happens I figure the best way for me to deal with them is to write them, so here we are.
Now, I don’t think it’s as simple as X-Men being more problematic than most media, though I guess in a way it is. I think it’s actually more that because X-Men willingly surrounds itself in those elements it shows more.
So. Here we go. Fair warning, this is something like two thousand words long, because I am ridiculous.
My friend told me that he had issues with the scene of the movie where Shaw says: “Slavery!” and looks straight at Darwin. I saw it as odd, but at the same time I understood the appeal to the emotions present in most people when confronted with that institution not to mention the Civil Rights Movement and how close to home all of that shit hit for Darwin. Anyway. This essay. Amazing.
