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[tieleen]

I watched the X-Men movie yesterday, and my first instinct was to post a big long post of ranting; I liked a great many things about it, but there were so very many things that made me angry. For one thing, I was prepared for the casual racism, but not for just how much sexism there was in it, or for the 'Look! Like Mad Men, we're extremely aware

Comments

[littlerhymes]

nothing about my backstory explains why I'd be okay with trying to kill a few thousands of people other than the fact that the guy who did that told me I'm beautiful.

+100000

So much potential in this movie! And they did... not much. :/

[tieleen]

SO much potential, my god. They did Erik near-perfectly; there was no reason not to do something more than that with Raven. Even showing how she ended up in Charles' kitchen might have helped -- she's so young and lived such a strange life, I'd be willing to go with them on her motivations a long way. But instead it's all about her relationships.

[girl_wonder]

YESyesyesyesyes. I think that it makes sense for a teenager and a young woman - especially in a time when getting married was what women did and if you didn't, there was something wrong with you as a person. I'm not saying women weren't playing with that idea and frustrated with it before women's lib, but that was when it kind of came to a head this idea of "fuck you if you think I'm going to let myself be defined by who I am to men."

On the other hand, I think what's weird is that the situation is so surreal, I don't think any of the characters would have reacted the way they did. The government tries to nuke you? uh. I definitely wouldn't side with the guy who wants to appease them by making ourselves the most helpful, magic minorities ever.

[tieleen]

I read an article last night that said the approaches in that universe used to be modeled on race rights issues, with Charles as the MLK side and Erik as Malcolm X, and now they've moved to a LGBT issues model. And that makes a lot of sense to me, for what little I know about American

[girl_wonder]

Ha! The E!Online article? I read that same one and it's definitely coloring my thinking.

[tieleen]

Yes, that! I was trying to remember where it was. I didn't expect E! to have interesting things to say.

[cosmic]

Raven was my favourite - when I wasn't having dirty thoughts about Erik, that is - and I didn't see her journey as that ... halting? I thought she was a whole person, and her choosing Erik's side of things was character growth and more of a choice. Charles doesn't see her or her struggles, because she's his sister and somehow his telepathy leaves him completely blind to any and all emotional conflicts.

But I have a headache and can't explain this terribly well, so let's talk when we see online, yes?

[tieleen]

I loved Raven, and really enjoyed her in the movie itself, even with everything that bothered me. Thinking about her after the movie was when I started feeling more unhappy about her arc. But it doesn't really make me like Raven less, it makes me like the writers less, and wish her story was different in some pretty profound ways while still being essentially the same story.

*hugs* Feel better! And absolutely, we shall. I apparently have endless reserves of babble about this.

P.S.

[nogah]

this?

Re: P.S.

[tieleen]

Oh, that's kind of awesome. It also gives me sad thoughts about this and Glee and why being a gay writer and writing queer issues well doesn't automatically give you some more ability to write gender and race issues well (because man, wouldn't that be nice), but let's focus on the awesome.

[harborshore]

Hey, thank you

[tieleen]

No problem! That was a lovely story

[tieleen]

...All of that long-windedly said, that story sounds wonderful. I really, really wanted them to be amazing together.

[harborshore]

:) One can only hope. My inner writer-editor keeps going FIX FIX FIX, like I said above, which seems to be flicking my write-write-write switch. So we'll see