This Man Is Reading Way Too Much Into X2. "It's all about homosexuality."

[jdavis]

Uh, no. When one writes an essay, one should state an unequivocal thesis statement, and then argue to back up that thesis. There is no requirement--in fact it's not a good idea--to come up with a wishy-washy, "Well it could be this, kind of sort of," statement; why bother to write anything. You don't like his argument, fine. Thinly veiled homophobic attitudes don't provide one bonus points for shouting down someone's thesis statement, though.

(Wondering if I should be offended or not right now?) I have nothing against anything homosexual or not, I am no way insinuating anything is wrong with a view or a interpretation, I have several very good gay friends that I have known for years.

My problem was this is a statement article from the Los Angeles Times put up on the Chicago Tribune website. This isn't a thesis, this is a published article. He states certain scenes definatively mean something based on his interpretation, instead of doing some very simple research. I don't care what the point is it's a questionable stretch that shouldn't of been stated as fact. Nobody is saying that there are not homosexual references in the X Men or in the X Men movie, but the point of this article was this was only about homosexuality.

As far as the Claremont statement, I was just pointing out that I was being told:

to say that he doesn't have a good grasp on the main concept, themes and plots of the x-men and their history is WRONG. he IS their history.

and:

Chris Clairmont himself has said that the X-Men are supposed to be metaphor for homosexuality, that when you're reading about the X-Men, you're reading about gay people.

and:

the x-men's troubles are symbolic of any and all prejudice in the world. for ANY minority. this includes homosexuals. for those who "still" didnt get it, the legacy virus storyline was one of the most thinly disguised aids stories ever printed.

so what do I believe? Nobody here ever stated that Homosexuality wasn't one of the themes of the X Men just that it was not the only theme, aparently Claremont said otherwise.

As for the rest of it, well it just isn't that important and it's getting a little too close to some personal insults flying around here. So I'm just going to step out of this one, I learned alot about the X Men here and I will just step away. no harm no foul.

 

[Mallus]

My problem was this is a statement article from the Los Angeles Times put up on the Chicago Tribune website. This isn't a thesis, this is a published article....snip....but the point of this article was this was only about homosexuality.

Well, I guess that depends on how you classify the article. Where it was published doesn't effect what kind of writing it is. Would a story about telepaths be considered contemporary realism if it got published in Esquire?

I took the essay to be of the kind you often find in literary criticsm and cultural studies: a highly slanted look at a popular work using a specific set of interpretive tools. These kinds of analyses aren't really supposed to explain/define a work completely. They're supposed to point out things that at first seem counter-intuitive, but in the end {hopefully} can be justified accroding to the authors' central thesis.

I remember a class in college where the prof. did wildly Freudian readings of War of the Worlds and 1984. Were they definitive, no {and they weren't intended to be} . Were they cool, absolutely.

 

[Henry]

When one writes an essay, one should state an unequivocal thesis statement, and then argue to back up that thesis. There is no requirement--in fact it's not a good idea--to come up with a wishy-washy, "Well it could be this, kind of sort of," statement; why bother to write anything. You don't like his argument, fine. Thinly veiled homophobic attitudes don't provide one bonus points for shouting down someone's thesis statement, though.

I agree - which is why his article didn't hold water, to me. Many of his references were quite stretched, in my opinion. While the theme of the comic book X-Men has been about tolerance and integration (thinly veiled by butt-loads of action and villain-whopping), it was never solely one theme. In the beginning, its primary theme was concern over racial intolerance, as Stan Lee has said in several interviews in the past. As time went on, the theme broadened to incorporate many different themes, as the concept of "protected groups" in socio-economic terms has broadened significantly over the past thirty years.

To me, the movie clearly and unambiguously works on the same level, emphasizing themes of group registration, of homosexuality, of peer ostracism, and of starting wars on the basis of genetics. Each theme works on more than one group, and to single out one over all others as being the "correct one" is the premise of Essman's article. Essman's article has a flaw - it opens with the statement, "...one need only look slightly below the surface to discover the horde of homosexual references that director Bryan Singer and company have laid into the foundation of the film."

However, after looking at his article, the numerous references he implies cannot be logically applied to the film X2. It appears to me that Essman wishes to co-opt the movie's messages for one specific cause, rather than to recognize its message as open for any "protected group" - be they a person of color, the handicapped, females, homosexuals, etc. In this singling out, he seems to imply that one group's cause is "more important" than another - which is what I disagree with.

I'll stop there, because to be more specific than that opens the doors in far too political a direction. But manufacturing examples of a work of art to reinforce an argument is something I always try to call out when I see it, and Essman's article is no exception.

 

[kingpaul]

I showed this article to one of my friends who double majored in English and Anthropology. Said friend, not being able to find a job, is now back for his 3rd bachelor's, this one in Computer Science. Anyway, this is what he had to say:

It's amazing that someone can be that close and yet so far off the mark. The homosexual subtext was realized in the first one. This exists because Bryan Singer is himself gay. That's why he wanted to tell the story. He's intending it as more a message against intolerance in general, but naturally takes it from his own vantage. So yeah, in a sense, it really is about homosexuality. But the examples this guy chose to illustrate that have to be the stupidest ones I've ever heard. This is someone who failed English class and didn't realize why.

 

[Dinkeldog]

I'd agree, kingpaul. I'd've left the Jean thing out of it and concentrated on the "should we be part of mainstream society" and the "should we allow ourselves to be segregated out of mainstream society" camps, instead. There's plenty of material there that fits homosexuality better than most other minorities (except maybe for some religious minorities on points), but the writer chose some pretty weak ones.

 

[Mark]

Religious minorities, ethnic minorities, the economically disenfranchised, even the gender majority could lay claims to paralels in the plot. It's certainly possible that Claremont, with the stories, and Silver, in his spearheading of the films, wished for the X-Men to be a mataphor for homosexuality but I do not think that Stan Lee had only that in mind nor do I think Silver wished the lessons to be that narrow.

 

[JacktheRabbit]

Why bother.

 

[S'mon]

I'd say 'X-men' overall is about teenage alienation, of whatever type. Mutation as a metaphor for homosexuality is one idea (possibly encouraged in the reviewer's mind by the casting of Ian McKellen as Magneto), but hardly the only possible one. Wolverine has always been the classic moody adolescent, hence his popularity with the fan base.

 

[Bricktop]

Hey Ankh-Morpork Gaurd, when you and jdavis go dancing, who leads?

 

[WizarDru]

I think the fact that the comic was originally created, co-written and drawn by two Jewish gentlemen who needed to change their last names to work in the comic book business, i.e. Mr. Stanley Levy and Mr. Jacob Kurtzberg, might illuminate their mindset, somewhat. They WERE outsiders, and the X-men were, in some small part, an expression of that.

Never mind the fact that all teenagers feel like outsiders...the X-men's original vision merely extrapolated that to the nth-degree. Does it apply to homosexuality? Sure it does. Was the movie about that, and merely a subtext for it... I don't think so. Bobby's 'outing' was clearly an inspired parallel..."Can you try not being a mutant?"

It's merely a pity that it can apply to so many different situations in this world that we can actually argue about which disenfranchised group it serves.