Rated X

If you came into this blog looking for a review on pr0n, you came to the wrong place! Instead, you'll find a journey into Xavier's Institute for Gifted Youngsters, because I will be taking this ideology business and slapping it together with a small group that has a big budget film known as X-Men. For those of you that don't know who the X-Men are, they are a band of mutants that are trained to fight and protect humanity blah blah from evil mutant terrorists and other threats that usually take the form of giant purple robots. But that may be getting a little too specific.

I chose X-Men because it takes the whole "race" issue into account, though it gets rid of the skin colors and replaces them with genetics. From beginning of the film, we learn that mutants are quite different than humans, as they tend to possess wild and outlandish powers... or abilities that make them "better" than normal humans. Thus the coining of the phrase Homo Superior, which happens to be something that Magneto (That Helmet-Wearing Loser) feels very strongly about. We get a glimpse into his past, seeing that he was directly involved in concentration camp era, thus knowing full well about oppression and persecution at the hands of a society or culture that deems itself superior to others. This depiction comes across very well in the movie, as different characters have different reactions to the messages that are sent flying from one end of the spectrum to the other.

As an adult, Magneto believes he's fighting and doing the right thing, but wanting the mutants to rise above and beyond the humans to rule and control them with his "godlike" ability to control magnetism. On a deeper level, I think the film is trying to get across this idea that it takes monsters to create monsters. Rather than grow up weak and unable to deal with life, Erik Lensherr grew up to be Magneto and thus, in a way, the fear and racial tension that he was subjected to as a child created the man he is today. Scary food for thought, in a way.

I don't think X-Men had any specific message beyond the obvious. That people are different and nine times out of ten people are going to fear whatever it is they don't understand. They're going to always want to outdo or take over. There will always be this constant battle for superiority between groups of people, no matter what they are. It's human nature. It's mutant nature. It's fictional reality in a form that's so outlandish and fantastic that while you're watching and thinking it's just a really cool action flick... it's actually a mirror into what happens in Real Life every day.

Now. Let's all hold hands and sing We Are The World. I call Michael Jackon's part...

- Jason "Iceman" Newbern