[weegee]

But the X-Men series of films is tainted too.

It tries to draw allusions between "mutants" and "genetic homosexuality" (specifically the scene in X2 where the kid comes "out" to his parents and says he didn't ask to be like this).

I've seen ads for X3 with the gay actor playing Magneto saying "what makes you think we want to be cured"?

Magneto and the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants are TERRORISTS.

And for all the talk of "human rights", the trivialized attitudes to such concepts as identity theft (impersonating a politician occurred at the end of X2) and reading minds (invasion of privacy), the series is really a call for a new dominant group of superhumans. The "next" generation with the rest of humanity as a sub-class.

But it is just a movie. And a piece of pop-revolution rubbish.

[discostu]

X-Men has been a platform to discuss bigotry for a very long time. You can see whichever subgroup you want in mutants because Claremont (and to a lesser extent previous writers) put parallels to every subgroup he could think of.

Yes Magneto is a terrorist, he's also the villain, but he's a villain with a point. Remember he's a Holocaust survivor, he's this stuff before, or at least he's pretty sure he's seen it before. In the comics they develop that stronger with some character popping in from the future, a future in which everything Magneto fears has come to pass. As well as fear of Holocaust 2 Magneto is also driven by ego, he really likes being a really powerful mutant, which is really the thing that pushes him over from being someone merely concerned (like Charles) to a terrorist.

I don't think any of that makes it tainted, because he's the bad guy. The bad guy is supposed to do and say things that are wrong, that's why they're bad guys.

[Al Simmons]

Funny, but not having gone into the movie with any predisposition about seeing political messages, I didn't see any.

I think you are spending wayyyy too much time obsessing. This was a comic book brought to life. If there was a political message it flew right over my head (which means its in the stratosphere for most sheeple)..

P.S. Yeah, I am no more approving of Sir Ian McKellen's very open deviancy than you are, but as an actor he is impossible to take your eyes off of - a pleasure to watch. Patrick Stewart - an excellent character actor in his own right - looks downright wooden next to McKellen.