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Feminist review: X-Men: First Class
Jul. 17th, 2013 12:39 pmI think I'll start a series of "feminist reviews" of movies and video games. These reviews will primarily look at the way gender and race (and anything else, if applicable) are portrayed in the narrative. I should add at this point that the term "feminist review" is not the best one to use, but for lack of a better one, I'll be using it for the time being.
X-Men: First Class
This movie has serious problems with gender (and race).
Of all the mutants/X-Men introduced, only three are female: Emma Frost, Angel, and Raven Darkholme/Mystique. Emma Frost is a villain with barely any characterization, and she's treated as little better than a lackey/servant by the main villain. (She's also wearing super skimpy clothes in several scenes, including walking around in her lingerie in one, although I guess that's a legacy from the comics, but still.) Angel is a minor character, also without much characterization, who is the first of the X-Men to defect to the dark side, making Mystique the only female member of the X-Men from then on (until the end). Mystique gets the most screen time and characterization, but considering she defects to join Magneto right after her childhood friend (Xavier) is shot in the back, she comes off as an uber-douchebag. True, Xavier doesn't seem to make much of an effort to understand her struggles and point of view (another problematic element here), and you could argue that her decision in the end to walk around in her "natural" form, without clothes, and without another woman's form to look more beautiful, is her way of taking agency and subverting gender expectations...but she only comes to that decision because of Magneto, and she's still kind of unsympathetic in the end.
Of the non-mutant women, there's only Magneto's mom (who of course is Fridged in the beginning of the film to provide Magneto with angst) and Moira McTaggert. Moira is admirable in that she's a CIA agent, but of course she has to strip down to her lingerie to infiltrate the villains' Las Vegas club room, and of course she has to have her memories erased at the end of the film by Xavier, the dude she was in the middle of kissing. There's even a sexist comment thrown at her at the end, without further comment.
So yeah, X-Men: First Class does pretty terribly in its treatment of women. It does equally bad with its treatment of race. There are a grand total of three mutants who are people of color (PoC). One, Darwin, who had the absolute coolest power ever, gets killed off early on, fulfilling the "Black Person Always Dies First" trope (even though his entire freaking mutation revolves around adapting to dangerous situations). Angel, as I mentioned before, has close to zero characterization and is the first to defect to the bad guys. The third is Riptide, I think, another villain with basically zero characterization.
Aside from feminism/race representation, I didn't find X-Men: First Class to be particularly well written, either. So, in sum, it's a really problematic movie that isn't even that entertaining aside from the special effects.
X-Men: First Class
This movie has serious problems with gender (and race).
Of all the mutants/X-Men introduced, only three are female: Emma Frost, Angel, and Raven Darkholme/Mystique. Emma Frost is a villain with barely any characterization, and she's treated as little better than a lackey/servant by the main villain. (She's also wearing super skimpy clothes in several scenes, including walking around in her lingerie in one, although I guess that's a legacy from the comics, but still.) Angel is a minor character, also without much characterization, who is the first of the X-Men to defect to the dark side, making Mystique the only female member of the X-Men from then on (until the end). Mystique gets the most screen time and characterization, but considering she defects to join Magneto right after her childhood friend (Xavier) is shot in the back, she comes off as an uber-douchebag. True, Xavier doesn't seem to make much of an effort to understand her struggles and point of view (another problematic element here), and you could argue that her decision in the end to walk around in her "natural" form, without clothes, and without another woman's form to look more beautiful, is her way of taking agency and subverting gender expectations...but she only comes to that decision because of Magneto, and she's still kind of unsympathetic in the end.
Of the non-mutant women, there's only Magneto's mom (who of course is Fridged in the beginning of the film to provide Magneto with angst) and Moira McTaggert. Moira is admirable in that she's a CIA agent, but of course she has to strip down to her lingerie to infiltrate the villains' Las Vegas club room, and of course she has to have her memories erased at the end of the film by Xavier, the dude she was in the middle of kissing. There's even a sexist comment thrown at her at the end, without further comment.
So yeah, X-Men: First Class does pretty terribly in its treatment of women. It does equally bad with its treatment of race. There are a grand total of three mutants who are people of color (PoC). One, Darwin, who had the absolute coolest power ever, gets killed off early on, fulfilling the "Black Person Always Dies First" trope (even though his entire freaking mutation revolves around adapting to dangerous situations). Angel, as I mentioned before, has close to zero characterization and is the first to defect to the bad guys. The third is Riptide, I think, another villain with basically zero characterization.
Aside from feminism/race representation, I didn't find X-Men: First Class to be particularly well written, either. So, in sum, it's a really problematic movie that isn't even that entertaining aside from the special effects.
