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Generation
X-Men
X2:
X-Men United
By
Lucas Land
Ok
so I went to the opening of X2: X-Men United.
Now, I don't go to the movies often, but
this was an experience.
It was the opening night of a much-hyped
movie so the theater was packed and the energy in
the room was buzzing.
Even though I think movies are the
literature of my generation, I am often bothered
by the passive nature of sitting and watching a
movie. There
is not usually interaction, between you and your
friends, you and the movie… but you and your
girlfriend, well, that’s a different story.
But
the intensity of a crowded theater on opening
night was incredible.
The crowd cheered the good guys, laughed at
the jokes and suddenly the movie experience was no
longer passive.
It was like watching a great basketball
game, your adrenaline pumping and you can’t help
but jump up and root when your team scores.
What
I found most interesting was how the movie
reflected the state of our culture today.
There were a lot of mixed messages and
signals. The
movie really was an amalgam of many of the
ambiguities and tensions that make up our culture.
Some of these tensions are materialism and
a longing for deeper meaning, anger at religion
and hungering for spirituality at the same time,
doubting and wanting faith.
As
soldiers are invading the School for Gifted
Youngsters, Wolverine and friends escape through a
series of tunnels.
When the lights come on they are in a room
filled with fancy sports cars.
This morality tale about dealing with
differences is suddenly interwoven with the
materialism of our culture.
I had the sociological luck to be sitting
next to a pair of teenage boys during the movie
that brought the point home.
As the four mutants jumped into the Mazda
MX6, the boy next to me exclaimed, “Awesome!!”
A hushed conversation about luxury vehicles
ensued. Just
like James Bond, the X-Men have access to an
endless supply of cutting edge technology.
This leaves the boy next to me (and myself)
drooling for the “cool toys” and latest
gadgets that will improve our lives.
X2
also touches on how the quest for new technologies
can be abusive, destructive and evil.
William Stryker spends his life developing
technologies for the military and his own purposes
that are used for control, power and greed.
This reflects our own ambiguity about
technology and progress.
Advertisements tell us that the newest cell
phones, palm pilots, software and on and on will
improve our lives and leave us smiling into
eternity, but we see on the news the devastating
effects of military technologies.
We feel uneasy about genetic engineering,
cloning and a host of other issues we face as the
future world of science fiction is now arriving.
The
film also highlighted for me the train wreck
phenomenon our culture participates in so
earnestly. When
the soldiers are invading the school, Wolverine is
trapped. His
admantium claws spring from his knuckles and the
carnage begins.
The initial reaction of the crowd was to
cheer wildly.
Both my fiancé and I felt uneasy about the
crowd’s reaction to such violence. As I ponder the Wolverine character further, I find that our
feelings about violence are almost incarnate in
him. Wolverine is the product of a military that is set on
dominance and power and not benevolence
(fictional, of course). This military uses intimidation and violence as a means to
its end (what that is we’re not sure).
Because of Wolverine’s (and maybe our
own) amnesia about his past, he is uncertain about
who he was and even more about who he is or wants
to be. This
reflects our own ambiguity about the violence of
our culture.
Just turn on daytime TV and you can see
people solving their problems through violence,
outrage and improper control of their emotions on
any number of talk shows, Jerry Springer being the
epitome of them all.
We are both outraged and fascinated by
these displays.
We are both de-sensitized and overly
sensitized to the violence in our world, both in
reality and on screen.
The
tension that fascinates me the most however is the
tension between Storm and Nightcrawler.
The initial interaction between Storm and
Nightcrawler highlights this ambiguity.
Nightcrawler tells Storm about life after
he left the Munich Circus.
He speaks of the compassion he feels even
for those who despise and hate him for being
different. Storm
feels anger and indignation at the way mutants are
treated. The
injustice of the world makes her angry, and causes
her to question the goodness of people and the
world. Nightcrawler
responds to her protests by saying that he has
faith.
This
is the same tension in our culture at the moment.
People have been wounded and hurt by
religion, the institution and the fallible people.
There is distrust among many towards
institutions in general and often religious
institutions.
At the same time, there is also a deep
desire and need for spiritual food.
Even in Storm’s doubt, she is seeking
something more.
Later in the movie, she tells Nightcrawler
that she has “faith” in him to get her into
Cerebro. This may be a misappropriation of the term, and confuse the
meaning of religious or spiritual faith.
It does, however, reveal to us the openness
of people to spiritual realities even while being
cynical and skeptical of the religious
institutions that claim to “own” these
realities.
Nightcrawler,
Kurt Wagner, is portrayed as a devout Catholic
seeking to earnestly live up to his professed
faith. He
scars his body, because of his own sinfulness and
at different points in the film prays the rosary,
the Lord’s Prayer and the 23rd Psalm.
These are classic and clichéd uses of
religion in the film, but they tell us something
about what our culture thinks of religion.
The re-appropriation of religious language,
symbols and rituals outside the context of
religious institutions highlights the distrust of
these institutions.
There is an interesting tension between
distrust of the religious establishment and the
glorification of an almost individual ascetic or
monastic lifestyle in the Nightcrawler character.
People
who are knee deep in our postmodern culture are
comfortable with all these tensions.
They understand them, because they have the
same feelings towards these aspects of our
culture. As these elements of postmodern thought continue to spill
over into pop culture we would be wise people to
listen and see.
“Do
you have eyes but fail to see, and
ears but fail to hear?” Jesus.
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