(no subject)

[sour_idealist]

Dialogue from the family on X-Men: First Class:

My youngest brother: All the superhero girls in that movie were evil or turned evil, though!

This was after five minutes of gushing, but the dude is ten - if he's having that thought process at that age, I'm keeping him.

Further thoughts on the movie include that it could have been a truly incredible story about oppression and intersectionality and how a lack of privilege in one area does not mean you can't be a total asshole in other areas, particularly by combining the mutant stuff with the real-world stuff and making the gay text, so you'd have the mutants and the presence or absence of visibility and also being gay or Jewish or non-white or female or any and many combinations of all of it, which sounds really dull on paper but could just HURT SO GOOD on screen. It'd be about both those moments when someone says "I understand" and you know they don't and can't, and those moments when someone tells you their story and you love them incredibly in that moment because you've felt the exact same thing and finally someone else does, and most of all about the incongruity of having both of those moments with the same person.

And I'm not sure that that sounds any more interesting because it's a hard thing to sum up, but if the movie had gone there and been that story I would be flapping my hands and shouting "MY BOOOYYYSS, MY GIIIIRLS" for about six months. As it isn't, I really want someone to write fic about that, one that leads up and builds up to a satisfactory conclusion where they all understand as much as they can and grasp that some things they can't understand and everybody builds the school all together all at once and a lot of people get married.

For those who don't feel like reading or writing an epic novel but got annoyed by Charles's smarmy arrogance and its general acceptance by everyone who wasn't a villain, have Strategy by apiphile, which dives into those, explores it, and ends up quite terrifying.

Comments

[simply-shipping.livejournal.com]

OMG, you found a fic about that! *goes to read*

Also, now I totally want to write an AU with the whole premise you laid out with intersectionality, but I have so much on my plate already and still haven't even finished the Sophos fic and ARGH, BRAIN STOP IT.

[sour-idealist.livejournal.com]

It's not about him getting called out exactly, but it is about that tendency exaggerated sli-ight-ly - not enough to make him out of character, just enough to make him CREEPY AS HELL when combined with the mindreading powers. I don't want to spoil it, but read the end carefully.

It's a pretty daunting prospect, I gotta admit. I've been basically staring at the screen going WHAT AM I GONNA WRITE, with several prompts open and my already-existant WIPs and basically overload.

[simply-shipping.livejournal.com]

It did take a couple of readings to fully process it, and then reading the comments to confirm it, but yeah. Wow. Thanks so much for posting the rec. <3

Creativity overload. I'm torn between calling it the best thing ever and the worst thing ever. XD

[sour-idealist.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I got to "game he has just won," stopped, blinked, reread the last two paragraphs, and then picked my eyeballs off the floor as they had mysteriously bugged out of my head.

Definitely the worst when it doesn't extend to the things you are supposed to be doing.

[wake-the-dragon.livejournal.com]

I really want to debate the "all the girls were evil thing".

Emmma Frost was probably the most evil of them all (though in the comics she eventually becomes good and an anit-hero even running the Institute at one point) but I really want to debate Mystique and Angel. I think "evil" is the wrong term as it oversimplifies Magneto's side of his and Charles' debate; those on his side believe that they will never truly be accepted by humans as humans will resist against them. Yes, they want to be superior to humans but they don't believe that humans will ever treat them as anything other than a threat.

Magneto obviously believe this because of his childhood and everything he had to go through; Angel lived a hard life, working at a job which objectified her but she'd rather be objectified than hated as a mutant which is why she fell for Shaw's you can be kings and queens line (she said as much in the scene before Shaw came in; she'd rather men stare at her lustfully than with disgust over her being a mutant); Mystique as felt isolated her entire life because of the way her mutation showed itself, loved Charles but was frustrated by his lack of understanding, and fell in with Magneto because he even though he looked normal like Charles, he understood better than Charles the hardships of mutant life, and agreed more with him. I have to say that I'd pick Erick's side over that idiot Charles' anyday.

Sorry for how long this post is; I just get so annoyed with people when they try to simplfy the conflict between the X-Men and the Brotherhood as simply good and evil, when it has much more shades of grey. (I was so pissed with Grant Morrison's run on X-men when he simplfyed Magneto as a "mad terroist bugger".)

I really think they wanted to show Charles before he became the wise Professor X; I was annoyed by him but at the same time glad he wasn't always as good a leader as he was in the X-Men movies.

Also sadly even the comics don't always get the whole mutants are supposed to represent minorties and other oppressed groups. In the comics they were becoming a real minority until Decimation, an event where reality-warper Scarlet Witch took away the powers of all but ten percent of the mutant population; this event utterly destroyed the idea in Marvel comics of the mutants as a minority. Damn you Quessada, you hack!

[sour-idealist.livejournal.com]

I actually agree with you there! The thing is that my brother is ten; he's not going to be doing an especially in-depth analysis of the various sides. I'm just plain thrilled that he's actually noticing the way the female characters are portrayed, that having all the girls end up on the side of the antagonists would ping an alarm bell with him. Especially when he's so little.

I do agree that Raven and Mystique are sympathetic and that their reasons are completely and entirely understandable; I'm honestly very much with them and love them to pieces. Still, I don't think the story treated them well.

But basically what I was trying to communicate isn't "BURN THE EVIL WITCHES," it's "Awesome, my little brother is actually picking up on problems with how women are treated in movies!" I'm sorry about not making that clearer.

[wake-the-dragon.livejournal.com]

It's really cool that a ten year old would notice things like this when there are adults who wouldn't.

I just felt like going on a rant on my disastifaction with certain Marvel decisions and reader reactions than anyting in your post. Also, I didn't realize your younger brother was that young.

I was annoyed that the female characters were either not on Charles' side or mind-wiped (the mind-wipe still really bugs me especially as the scene right after trys to play it off comedicaly; this was a violation)

[sour-idealist.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I'm pretty pleased with him. That said, I do entirely understand the urge to defend the characters; I do get the frustration there.

And UGH YES THE MINDWIPE THING WAS AWFUL. Jackass move there.