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X-Men: Sexist Men
I saw X-Men: The Last Stand over the weekend and was sorely disappointed. I didn’t like the first X-Men movie; it seemed to never really get started. But I thought the second one was really awesome, so I had similarly high hopes for this one. Instead I was treated to a pretty vacuous plot line, some crappy acting and horrible writing. Now okay, it’s a comic, I recognize that. Doesn’t mean it needs to suck though.
But anyway, there was one very interesting thread that I saw winding it’s way through this movie. Perhaps this is common to all the X-Men movies, and maybe even the comic books themselves. I’d have to go back and check. But one of the underlying mythic themes that I saw rearing it’s ugly head the most was an outright fear of the female.
Let’s look at some of the minor threads before unravelling the most obvious one: Jean Grey: Phoenix.
- Mystique - She’s a naked female character who often kills opponents by wrapping her legs around their head or breaking their neck. Pretty obvious. More than that though, she is a shapeshifter. She can become anyone or anything at any moment, and thus there’s no trusting her.
- Rogue - Another female character whose ability - if I’m not mistaken - is that she zaps people (ie, males) of their powers through physical contact. Could almost be seen as a sort of nouveau vagina dentata.
And then of course there is Jean Grey, the star of the show who is barely even fleshed out at all as a character. All she is is an object to be battled over. The troubles start with her as a teenager, going through puberty, coming into an “unimaginable power,” which can only be regulated by two authoritarian male figures: Prof. X and Magneto. Xavier wants to “help” her by enabling her to control the (female sexual) energy coursing through her. He talks later on about how he built psychic walls around her innermost core so that her mind wouldn’t be overwhelmed by what essentially amounts to her libido. As a result, her mind splits into two personalities, the normal Jean Grey and this highly eroticized uncontrollable figure, Phoenix.
Phoenix, of course, runs like a wrecking ball through male characters. She destroys Scott/Cyclops by convincing him to lower his guard (removing his sunglasses, which control his ejaculatory energy release). Scott is then evaporated, leaving only his sunglasses. Later, back at the mutant mansion, Phoenix comes alive by coming onto Wolverine/Logan - who himself is a “caged beast” because of implied psychic patterning laid by Xavier. But Wolverine extricates himself from the situation by keeping his defenses intact and restraining the raging beast of his libido.
We also have the different ways that Xavier and Magneto treat Jean Grey (and the rest of the characters). Xavier takes the Freudian approach of restraining and controlling psychic and sexual energy. While Magneto takes the more 1960’s approach of encouraging his devotees to fully express and release that energy. Both directions lead to control though. And if you’re interested in how this question has played out in history, I highly recommend the BBC documentary, the Century of the Self, which chronicles the push and pull of these philosophies and the control systems that develop around each. Especially relevant since the original X-Men series developed out of the culture at the time most of these issues were being worked out publicly.
Finally, there’s the ending of the movie - the “climax” if you will. [SPOILER ALERT: don’t read any further if you don’t like knowing what happens in movies before you see them.] In it, we see Wolverine and Phoenix paired off again. Actually, before that we see the X-Men hypocritically using the same weapon - the mutant “cure” - that they’ve been railing against earlier in the movie. And Magneto is right that this does indeed tip their hand. Anyway, back to the part where Wolverine approaches Phoenix. He is the only one who can do it because of his mutant healing factor - that is, his extreme life force. Her energy is wholly destructive, and his male life force is the only thing that can stand up to it. But how does he neutralize her threat? Only by penetrating her (with his claws) just after uttering his love for her - that old sex-death connection.
I guess part of the reason I found this movie so unsatisfying, then, is that they are drawing on deep issues of psychology and mythology - but they choose to simply reinforce boring traditionalist male-dominant power fantasies. The whole point of the X-Men, according to the movie itself, is that they are the next evolution of humanity and consequently human consciousness itself. So how is it that the values they espouse are nothing more than a throwback? Psychologically, their mutations are regressive rather than progressive. But perhaps that’s more what the movie is about: people achieving new heights and new possibilities to being human, but not really being ready to fully embrace everything that transformation could and should mean.
May 30th, 2006 at 3:43 pm
Excellent analysis, Tim. I was disturbed the character of Jean Grey was not written in such a way that she could fully realize her power and integrate her different selves. It was unethical for Xavier to put up those walls in the first place. It would’ve been interesting to see what would have happened if, after Wolverine “saved” her with his love, he, oh, let her live. Of course, that would’ve made for a more open-ended and complex story, and that’s not good cinema.
May 30th, 2006 at 5:21 pm
Interesting stuff … I think you’re very right … the empty characterization of Jean Grey and the complete lack of exploration of the Phoenix saga were just despicable to me
May 30th, 2006 at 5:36 pm
I agree with Kylark excellent analysis indeed! I have never really seen any femininst mutant films though. Funny that the word analysis has anal and sis in it, kind of a gross word.
Anyways the guy who directed X-men went to School of Visual Arts in NYC. I dropped out of the school, I wonder how many art school drop-outs visit this site?
May 30th, 2006 at 9:48 pm
It almost makes sense to me to see the “mutants” devolve psychologically while they evolve physically (or psychicly). Because of the whole mind-body interaction, if the body (including the brain) evolves, the mind is going to suffer until the evolution reaches a balance point. Like if the world started going through drastic changes, we’d try to find the safest, and probably lowest, points to wait out the changes. The psyche can do the same thing. It will retreat from the ego and the superego, and it will focus on the survival mechanisms inheirent in the id.
As for the movie itself, I haven’t seen it yet, but I will shortly.
May 30th, 2006 at 10:53 pm
I could barely make it through either of the initial two x-men movies without gagging on the teenage sexual angst. “I have… powers?” sounds a little too much like “I have… pubic hair?” And the anti-mutant thing sounds too much like the anti-gay thing. etc. I thought it was just me and a few cynics, and wondered whether maybe my literary theory had completely destroyed my ability to enjoy the movie, and whether my theory was valid at all, and didn’t have any desire to see the third one on account of my malignancy. But in an underhanded way, I’m glad to see, that someone else got this reading of the damn thing. You are not alone! Sorry about the $10.
May 31st, 2006 at 7:55 am
i wasn’t expecting much, becuase the movies mostly mirrors the plot of the comics, but in the comics jean kills herself becuase she can’t reassert control over her homicial other persona.
i agree in general the x-men ought to be about consciousness evolution not just physical evolution, but it rarely has been, except perhaps during the period where grant morrison was writing it.
i do admire how the movie doesn’t really draw a clear moral distinction between magneto and xavier if anything the x-men come off a lot worse. too bad the brotherhood are all characterised as hoodie-wearing battle of seattle style street hoodlums, with tatoos and piercings. their psychology is the closest thing to radical in the movie and they all get killed.
May 31st, 2006 at 11:44 am
Waitadurnminute! What about the ending and Wolverine’s display of violent male domination, under the subterfuge of so-called ‘love’?? So sure … he loves her enough to die for her … but instead he-kills-her. He killed her out of love? Probably she deserved it, in fact, she was begging for it! In the end the woman looks to the man for salvation. Even Rogue gets her ultimate injection to settle her man lust! Finally Mystique ends in with the de facto “hell hath no fury…” now that’s the real reason to fear women! Keplunk! The staus quo remains!
June 1st, 2006 at 11:56 pm
Another post I found on this subject:
http://impatientgirl.blogspot.com/2006...x-men-3-sexism-contains-spoilers.html
June 2nd, 2006 at 11:45 am
I havent seen the movie myself but from what you have written it does seem like there are gender issues present in the plot. I’ts probably not intentional, but maybe subconscious. While it may have nothing to do with it, I was watching t.v one morning and the 700 Club featured a man who worked on the movie and claimed there are Christian themes worked into it. I don’t have more information on that. Again, it may have nothing to do with it, but it should be concidered anyway.
June 2nd, 2006 at 12:54 pm
Frankly, I don’t see how it could *not* be intentional. But I think the question for me becomes, are they just being true to the original comic books? I never read the X-Men series too much though so I can’t really say.
I would also be curious as to what this fellow thought were the Christian themes in the movie…
June 2nd, 2006 at 4:27 pm
Hi. I found this through “When Fangirls Attack.”
What a wonderful analysis. After the movie, I managed to think some of these ideas in a rather sad, half-formed way, but you hit the nail right on the head. This was a pleasure to read.