Groovy <3

[tsukinofaerii]

I love you all~

And yes, I'm completely and utterly toasted. I can't feel my nose or my fingertips, which means writing legibly is almost impossible. This is how much I love you all. I'm spending more time fixing drunk typos than I am writing them, because I want you to be able to read my love. So there.

Tonight, I shot off explosives (some of them homemade by other people) and drank lots of alcohol. FOR AMERICA. I have soot marks. It's amazing. There was also meat cooked over an open fire, which (now that I think of it) is kind of freaky and weird. The entire scope of human evolution has been to get away from that, but we do it for fun? WTF? It's like camping. WE USED TO LIVE IN THE WILDERNESS. WHY DO WE GO BACK?

Still hacking from being sick a few weeks ago, but I'm finally hacking up things, which is good. I'm kind of worried that it might have been something serious (well, more serious than the strep which started this whole spiral of illness), and any day I'll wake up dead because I couldn't afford to go to a doctor. :\ Ah, well. I sort of plan to die young from something treatable anyway. Que sera sera, welcome to only-technically-not-poverty in the USA.

My cat says HI.

I have... nothing else to say, actually. :\ Bang seems to be on a roll (-ish, always -ish, because I have no confidence in my ability to ever complete anything), but I am not so drunk that I think writing it is a good idea right now. A couple other things seem to be on the burner, but my writing is just weird at the moment. I really have no excuses for it. :\

One of these days, I should do a post about X-Men: First Class, and how much I love it, even if they did... Well, spoilers. D: IT HAD SOME FAIL. SERIOUS FAIL. But someone (Jazzy?) linked an article on Twitter that kind of sort of made it sound like this segment of the movieverse is aiming at portraying mutants as a parallel of the gay rights movement instead of the civil rights movement (racial rights? civil rights doesn't seem accurate for some reason, even though it's the accurate wording as agreed upon by people who make money writing about these sort of things), and I can almost buy that. Not quite, because the waffling makes it pretty clear that the X-franchise is still trying to be all minorities ever. But there's a fairly obvious parallel between the way some mutants can pass and some mutants can't that seems more Gay Rights to me than Civil Rights. I could be wrong, but I don't think there's an equivalent when it comes to racial minorities? (If I'm wrong, someone please tell me, I would love to know.) But at the same time, it's pretty obvious that the movies (and comics to an extent, though I'm clearly much less involved in those since I've only poked the Avengers) invoke the symbols and feel of the Civil Rights movement. Maybe I'm naive, but you can't really invoke one while drawing from the other. Yes, the Civil Rights movement was powerful and is so easily recognized, which makes for an amazing tool from a writer's standpoint, but it's lazy, because the shoe doesn't really fit but they shoehorn it on because it's easily recognizable. And it just sort of drives me up the wall wanting to build these castles in the sky comparisons, only to have them shot down because canon is so god damned fucking heteronormative and pulling from the wrong angle. And it's even worse when they have so much to work with. I mean, even aside from Erik/Charles or obvious gay couples in canon (which I wish they'd have, but aside from those), there's no reason not to touch on the whole concept of passing, and what it means to find out you're one of them and learning to belong or not belong and what about Mystique? She could completely and utterly blend into human society if she wanted, and she chooses not to, and the possibilities there are so amazing and (IMO) not all that unlike a bisexual fighting to not pass while its still so damned easy to and... GAH.

(flails)

As Erik says, "You want society to accept you, but you can't even accept yourself." I can't even BEGIN to start on how that statement hit me. I just sort of choked up and stared. IDK if the screenwriters even know what they did there, but it's beautiful and heartaching and just beyond words.

And that's why I would have gone with Magneto.

I just have a lot of feelings. :(

waterofthemoon is in AIM right now, and she says HI. IL her very much. ♥ She's listened to my drunk all night and been terribly nice about it.

Sober ETA: This makes it clear that DW needs some sort of sobriety check. ♥ Thank you all for not teasing me about my navel gazing and swiss cheese like attempts as philosophy.

Comments

[waterofthemoon]

ILU2 very much. And your drunken ramblings about important issues. ♥♥♥ MUTANT AND PROUD, BB.

[tsukinofaerii]

lol YOU DO. I'm surprised I didn't get even more maudlin at you. ♥ Thank you for listening, BB.

Mutant and proud. (fistbump)

[waterofthemoon]

*fistbumps* Any time, darling. Always happy to listen. :D

[derryderrydown]

(If I'm wrong, someone please tell me, I would love to know.)

There was definitely a thing where fair-skinned Black people could, with effort, pass as white. This usually involved cutting all contact with their family and could be very painful for all involved, but it did happen.

(Damn, I know there was at least one movie where it was a secondary plot and I wish I could remember what it was called.)

[tsukinofaerii]

There was definitely a thing where fair-skinned Black people could, with effort, pass as white. This usually involved cutting all contact with their family and could be very painful for all involved, but it did happen.

now that I think of it sober it sounds familiar. I think waterofthemoon may have brought it up sometime last night. D:

humans suck.

[waterofthemoon]

I did make that point, briefly and possibly incoherently, but I also pointed out that (speaking, as always, from my white cis female standpoint) for most people of racial minorities, they don't have that option. Which is why I tend to lean towards mutant-issues-as-gay-rights, especially in these recent years when GLBT civil rights have been more in the forefront of our social consciousness--finding out you're a mutant is something that can affect anyone, no matter where you come from, just like any kid from anywhere can grow up bi or trans or what have you.

*shrugs* I am probably also missing large parts of The Point, and I haven't even been drinking, but that's a couple cents worth of my thoughts.

Loads of movies have that as plot

[jazzypom]

Hollywood tends to coach it along the lines of the 'tragic mulatto'. Like Imitation of Life (Lord, I cried over that movie. All my CREYS), and The Human Stain with Anthony Hopkins and the lead from Prison Break. Um... Wentworth something another.

For me, I do read Erik Lehnsherr in X-men: First Class as passing, but he's aware of it, which is why he's all not so eager when Charles is all, "Let's go and find OUR people!" That's when he's all, "That's how it starts, Charles, first identification, then they are rounded up and destroyed." I liked the tension in that - the fact that he knows that with his skin and eyes and hair he doesn't look stereotypically Jewish, but he doesn't forget who he is, and at the end of the movie, he does what he can for his people.

[duc]

I like your drunken rambling.

You lit homemade firework? This is awesome! :D


On the mutan=Civil Right/Gay right, I think what makes mutant the most like the Gay Right movement is not so much passing as the fact that mutants come from every ethnicity and class background, a lot of them from human parents. not to mention a lot of them get their powers and discover they are mutant at *puberty*.

In X-men 2 Iceman *came out* as mutant to his parents!

It might have been created with the Civil Right movement in mind but nowadays it resembles the Gay right movement the most. (that may have been unintentional)

[tsukinofaerii]

♥ Thank you.

We did! Someone else made them, but they were both homemade and incredibly groovy.

Yes! And I definitely remember Young Avengers arcs where Teddy and Billy are trying to come out as mutants to Billy's parents, and instead the parents home in on the other closet.

I think maybe it has to do with the acceptability of the movement. Racists in the modern era try to hide behind "I'm not racist because _____", because outright racism isn't considered acceptable, which has sort of changed the nature of the struggle in a lot of ways. Meanwhile, in a lot of place it's still considered perfectly legitimate to fly your homophobic flag.

Sober, it's a lot more obvious to me that the parallel isn't really perfect in either case, and I think what was frustrating me through the vodka was that what parallel is there doesn't get more obvious play. Because people are dumb, and sometimes need to be hit over the head with the point. Somehow, this translated into the Wrong Parallel.

Clearly I should think on this more while sober.

[muccamukk]

Did you have smores? Those are very important to the drunk and exploded feeling of the July long weekend.

While I think that mutants have been made to stand for a lot of things over the years, Stan Lee said that Xavier was supposed to be like MLK, and the writers of this movie said that as well, and that Magneto was supposed to be like Malcolm X. Obviously they have some civil rights parallels in mind.

Mystique could just as well be a reference to passing as white, and "You want society to accept you, but you can't even accept yourself" reminded Jazz strongly of Malcolm X talking about hair straightening and internalised racism.

I would buy the argument the other way for X2 because it was more of a Singer (sp?) film, and there was the "Have you tried not being a mutant" conversation.

Could go either way. In either case, they treated the movement their aping like shit. Take your pick I guess.

You already know how I feel about going with Erik.

[tsukinofaerii]

There were smores! I picked up some of those campfire marshmallows that are the size of fluffy baseballs and they were delicious.

Without Vodka, the subtleties are much clearer. I should not be allowed to wax philosophic while intoxicate. I miss entire fields worth of The Point. There's a lot of value in the X-men having something for everyone. I think I just got frustrated because that wide-open series of possible angles means that a lot of people who might need a whack with deep thought are going to walk away missing the point. But people always do that anyway. Lead a horse to water and such.

Hmm

[jazzypom]

I think I've already touched on my issues with the movie and the whole allegory with Civil Rights movement. As in, since Stan Lee has said that Magneto and Professor X are supposed to be a nod to MLK Jnr and Malcolm X.

On paper, that makes sense, in that Magneto was pretty much all for 'separate but equal' - people forget that Magneto went and got an asteroid for his neophytes to live in peace -whereas Charles Xavier is all for softly, calmly, gentle integration. That however, works to a point.

In the glossing over MLK Jnr, people tend to forget that he was speaking hard truths as well. For instance, in his Letter From A Birmingham Jail when he calls out white allies and liberal whites for telling people of colour to 'wait', just 'wait' when for certain things you have to agitate and push for. But I understood his peaceful movement and the fact that with the optics of the TV with fire hoses against poc and their allies (I think there was a heavy Jewish involvement in this) made a lot of white people think. Also, it helped that there were politicians who saw the winds of change and decided to ride them. But in the comic world - there are Sentinels, and Senator Kelly and a lot of politicians who score points against mutants - well... I don't know re: Professor X. What are his optics, you know?

In addition I think Malcolm X got mellow when he discovered Islam and went on a trip to Mecca. He found a sort of peace that Magneto is still looking for.

But all that is me just waffling. I think that it's poor form to talk up Civil Rights allegories and then do the optics with the poc that they did. I think the only thing that makes me stay my hand (and why I haven't flayed the movie as much as I think I would have done) is the fact that Magneto is a minority. That he is passing, but he knows that he is, and his history is writ on his body and drives his being. That he gives Raven confidence to go blue and not a blue eyed blonde and be proud of her own form.

As much as I know that fandom tends to wail about Erik and Charles separating, I think for the discussion re: mutants and how they choose to interact with the world, it is necessary. If Erik and Charles had been on the same side, it would have stifled the conversation re: mutants and what they needed to have. Should they stay and fight for a world that hates and fears them, without any conceivable bench marks of success? Or should they go forth and take theirs, because authority doesn't fall down to reason, but in the face of the greater show of power that Erik has. Erik, as Magneto has shown in the comics that he can do that. He can rip Sentinels apart, can create his own asteroid for his people.

In addition, the great thing about Erik and Charles X- the very best thing- is that they can sit down and converse. That if a mutant wants to deflect to either side, Charles or Magneto will accept them.

Man, I do have meta about this movie, it seems, but I want to bring that with some recs.

Re: Hmm

[tsukinofaerii]

I think that, in a direct 1:1, Xavier as an MLK figure stops working precisely because mutants are such a minority. In America, POC have always been a fair sized chunk of the pie, but mutants never measured over the thousands. Peaceful demonstrations don't work when your group is that small. MLK recognized that there was strength in numbers, and in that strength, there's a voice. Xavier and his group just don't have that.

I wouldn't really say there's a conversation between the Xavier and Magneto ideals (though there clearly is between the people involved). They're two extremes, and they both know it. I think that just might be the heart of the tragedy for me—together they might have been able to find that sweet spot between too militant and too passive. Or they could have ended up too much one or the other, but within their own groups it's accepted that the other side is wrong, and so there's no pressure to self-correct.

Of course, it's all hypothetical at this point. Things might have been worse if they'd worked together. I just can't fight the feeling that Charles' methods aren't enough by themselves, and even being the Good Mutants to Magneto's Bad Mutants doesn't do enough. :\

[cookinguptales]

You're kind of a cute drunk, ngl.

[tsukinofaerii]

D'awh thank you. ♥