Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

To: Melas
Suit yourself. You're not the first one who's told me that. Here's an excerpt from an interview with Brian Singer, the director:
(interviewer) It seems that "X-Men" and "X-Men 2" represent your identities as a Jew living in America and as a gay man respectively, because in this one there is a homosexuality/homophobia subtext...
(Singer) Well, yeah. That is also a very relevant analogy because where certain races, even a Jewish boy or a Jewish girl, will be born into a Jewish family, or a Jewish community sometimes, or an African American or whatever minority in any given area, a gay kid doesn't discover he or she is gay until around puberty. And their parents aren't gay necessarily, and their classmates aren't, and they feel truly alone in the world and have to find, sometimes never find, a way to live.
(interviewer) So you're exploring your own situation in these films?
(Singer) Absolutely. And what better way than in a giant, action, summer event movie! I could think of no better place to spill out one's own personal problems and foist them onto the world [laughs]. And for that, I apologise.
Here's a quote from an interview with Ian McKellen:
VN: As a gay actor and activist, did you respond to the X-Men movies' call for tolerance?
Ian McKellen: "That was how [director] Bryan Singer pitched it to me - this is about gay politics. What do you do if society treats you as a mutant? Do you say, I'm sorry, let me join in? Or do you say right, I'm going to take you on - I'm different and I'm proud of it? Do you accommodate people's fears and try to understand them, or do you take on the world even if that leads to a violent confrontation? So it was presented not as a comic fantasy of escapism but as something rather gritty and crucial - not just to a gay director and actor, but also to young gays, young blacks and young Jews who regard themselves as mutants because of the way we treat them."
Unfortunately, even though, I'm straight, I suspect this means my "gaydar" is more finely attuned than some. Both the director and the lead actor state flatly the film is about outcasts, but specifically about gay politics. Singer points out the distinction made between homosexuals and Jews or blacks, in that Jews have Jewish parents and blacks have black parents. The scene I was talking about makes no sense if applied to those groups, as black kids have black parents and Jewish kids have Jewish parents. It would make no sense if the scene was about black parents confronting their son about being black. Both films are clearly about identity politics, specifically homosexual identity politics. I don't think I'm reading too much into those statements.
176 posted on 02/13/2006 8:57:47 PM PST by Richard Kimball
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 174 | View Replies ]


To: Richard Kimball
The problem is that you're reading it all into a storyline that existed before Singer was even born, and decades before Ian probably ever even heard of the X-men.

From what you've posted I believe that Singer's interpretation of the story is what you say, but you have remember that Singer's interpretation isn't THE interpretation.

177 posted on 02/13/2006 9:06:35 PM PST by Melas (What!? Read or learn something? Why would anyone do that, when they can just go on being stupid)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 176 | View Replies ]

To: Richard Kimball

Well, I wasn't sure what it was, but I just didn't like X2. The first one was okay, but the second one didn't sit well with me.

Also, McKellen is a disgusting man who not only admits to ripping pages out of the Gideons Bibles he finds in hotel rooms, but he raged against a 13-year-old girl who told him that was an offensive thing to do. "Well, I find your Catholicism offensive!" Jerk.


182 posted on 02/13/2006 10:10:38 PM PST by Rastus
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 176 | View Replies ]

Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article


FreeRepublic, LLC, PO BOX 9771, FRESNO, CA 93794
FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson