fifty frenchmen can't be wrong (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
some_stars) wrote2011-06-13 10:46 am
some_stars) wrote2011-06-13 10:46 am
(no subject)
I just keep wanting to post ALL MY X-MEN FEELINGS. You guys are lucky; I wrote a post on telepathic sex last night and then I realized it was just a bunch of sentence fragments repeating TELEPATHIC SEX YAY for like a page, and did not post it.
BUT. Okay. Having now read a couple dozen fics, and rewatched parts of the movie on a shitty cam version, I am tentatively coming to some thoughts. The first is that I don't think I'm giving the movie enough credit for what it does with Charles, although I do think I'm right that most viewers won't pick up on it, and my general misanthropy and bitterness is interfering with my perception. *g* Which leads me to my other thought--because, okay, the three characters that I'm most interested in all have multiple facets, but a few leap out at me as the most compelling and the most defining, at least today--it'll probably change tomorrow.
For Charles, right now it's the loneliness--the need to find and befriend all mutants, to be loved, to be not alone. The scene where he first meets/rescues Erik just pulsates with his frantic need and when he finally has him, his utter joy. "I'm like you...you're not alone." I mean, all the mutants have an element of that, even Erik right there in that scene, "I thought I was alone"--but with Charles it's so intense. And it eventually contributes to the ruining of everything--it's that need to stop being lonely combined with his inability to see past his own privilege, except I think they're connected because what he can't/is unwilling to do is understand that other people, especially other mutants, aren't completely known to him. They must be like him, and he resists understanding the differences he can't understand, even as he's right there in people's heads. I mean--this requires more thought. But it feels to me like the emotional touchpoint for his character right now.
Erik--while I have a harder time pinpointing one quality that stands out as the most important, at the moment I'm especially interested in the core of absolute self-hatred he shows. I mean--we see him smile twice, once at the beginning of a certain scene, once at the end of said scene. He's delighted when he's telling Charles to shoot him in the head, excited and grinning and animated and excited. And yeah, as he says, they both know Erik can deflect it...but as Charles says, Erik knows he's not really challenging himself, that's not why he wants to do it. And that level of emotion from someone who's shown almost none besides "cold rage" until now demands much more explanation that the explicit text provides. So there's that, and the way he reacts during the final showdown with Shaw, when he realizes he needs to let Shaw throw him around some more for strategic vengeance-enabling purposes. I mean, that expression was also, probably even primarily, satisfaction at gaining the upper hand without Shaw knowing it. But there was something in his face--and of course, the way that showdown ends, "the weapon I am today," "you are my creator," "I agree with everything you just said" and then killing him--there's an overwhelming undercurrent of displaced self-destruction. It's not, again, the only or even the main motivation going on there or in the rest of the movie, because of course the characters can't be simplified down to one driving force. But it's there, and all the more fascinating to me because it never quite makes it up past subtext. (And then there's the literal self-erasure of changing his name, rejecting his self and identifying only with/as his powers. Which is not just him--is it Raven who first suggests the codenames, to the other kids? Because man, that's so--so. And most of them really respond to the idea, but it seems like Raven and Erik are the ones who really go for it--an interesting way in which Raven leads and he follows.)
I'm still trying to figure out what Raven's defining quality is for me. Obviously some of this is the movie's fault for not caring nearly as deeply, but there's more than enough Something there that I should be able to see it. I think part of my problem is knowing so little about her pre-1962, even less than the other two. A lot of self-loathing, clearly, and loneliness--she reflects (and also draws, she's not just an echo) Charles' and Erik's emotional worlds which is why a central drama of the story is her choosing to switch alliances from one to the other. She stays emotionally younger than Charles even though she's only a few years younger than him, but she's grouped and groups herself with the teenagers who are--well, I'm assuming she's at least 7-8 in 1944, so the kids would be 5-10 years younger than her, and that gap is bigger of course since they're younger. And yet when we first see her and Charles as adults, she seems much younger than him emotionally, and she connects to the kids. Is all of that because of the way Charles treats her? I mean, obviously a whole lot of it is. Either way it's interesting.
BUT. Okay. Having now read a couple dozen fics, and rewatched parts of the movie on a shitty cam version, I am tentatively coming to some thoughts. The first is that I don't think I'm giving the movie enough credit for what it does with Charles, although I do think I'm right that most viewers won't pick up on it, and my general misanthropy and bitterness is interfering with my perception. *g* Which leads me to my other thought--because, okay, the three characters that I'm most interested in all have multiple facets, but a few leap out at me as the most compelling and the most defining, at least today--it'll probably change tomorrow.
For Charles, right now it's the loneliness--the need to find and befriend all mutants, to be loved, to be not alone. The scene where he first meets/rescues Erik just pulsates with his frantic need and when he finally has him, his utter joy. "I'm like you...you're not alone." I mean, all the mutants have an element of that, even Erik right there in that scene, "I thought I was alone"--but with Charles it's so intense. And it eventually contributes to the ruining of everything--it's that need to stop being lonely combined with his inability to see past his own privilege, except I think they're connected because what he can't/is unwilling to do is understand that other people, especially other mutants, aren't completely known to him. They must be like him, and he resists understanding the differences he can't understand, even as he's right there in people's heads. I mean--this requires more thought. But it feels to me like the emotional touchpoint for his character right now.
Erik--while I have a harder time pinpointing one quality that stands out as the most important, at the moment I'm especially interested in the core of absolute self-hatred he shows. I mean--we see him smile twice, once at the beginning of a certain scene, once at the end of said scene. He's delighted when he's telling Charles to shoot him in the head, excited and grinning and animated and excited. And yeah, as he says, they both know Erik can deflect it...but as Charles says, Erik knows he's not really challenging himself, that's not why he wants to do it. And that level of emotion from someone who's shown almost none besides "cold rage" until now demands much more explanation that the explicit text provides. So there's that, and the way he reacts during the final showdown with Shaw, when he realizes he needs to let Shaw throw him around some more for strategic vengeance-enabling purposes. I mean, that expression was also, probably even primarily, satisfaction at gaining the upper hand without Shaw knowing it. But there was something in his face--and of course, the way that showdown ends, "the weapon I am today," "you are my creator," "I agree with everything you just said" and then killing him--there's an overwhelming undercurrent of displaced self-destruction. It's not, again, the only or even the main motivation going on there or in the rest of the movie, because of course the characters can't be simplified down to one driving force. But it's there, and all the more fascinating to me because it never quite makes it up past subtext. (And then there's the literal self-erasure of changing his name, rejecting his self and identifying only with/as his powers. Which is not just him--is it Raven who first suggests the codenames, to the other kids? Because man, that's so--so. And most of them really respond to the idea, but it seems like Raven and Erik are the ones who really go for it--an interesting way in which Raven leads and he follows.)
I'm still trying to figure out what Raven's defining quality is for me. Obviously some of this is the movie's fault for not caring nearly as deeply, but there's more than enough Something there that I should be able to see it. I think part of my problem is knowing so little about her pre-1962, even less than the other two. A lot of self-loathing, clearly, and loneliness--she reflects (and also draws, she's not just an echo) Charles' and Erik's emotional worlds which is why a central drama of the story is her choosing to switch alliances from one to the other. She stays emotionally younger than Charles even though she's only a few years younger than him, but she's grouped and groups herself with the teenagers who are--well, I'm assuming she's at least 7-8 in 1944, so the kids would be 5-10 years younger than her, and that gap is bigger of course since they're younger. And yet when we first see her and Charles as adults, she seems much younger than him emotionally, and she connects to the kids. Is all of that because of the way Charles treats her? I mean, obviously a whole lot of it is. Either way it's interesting.