The Caucasia Syndrome Coda (or the Caucoda, if you will)

Ah, as Google the guru has just informed me, Caucasia IS in fact a real place (too bad, I was about to start labeling myself a "Narnian"). It's located in the Caucasus mountains between Europe, Russia, and the Middle East and has upwards of 27 and a half people living there. Well, that puts me in my place. So I guess since a few people live there with the same basic skin tone as me then it's okay to label all Asians as "Chinese" and all Hispanics as "Mexican" right?

Didn't think so (nor should it be so).

Caucasia is also where Prometheus of Greek mythology was chained to the rock where his liver was eaten every day by an eagle and regrown every night so he could again be tormented. All this because he brought fire to mankind. How apropos.

I know my tongue is even farther in my cheek than usual with these two recent posts, but unlike most of the stuff I write about I actually do care about this one a bit. The way I see it, we're the only people who can be labeled as sexists or racists. We're the only people who have to worry about offending other people (basically everyone else in existence). And we also have to just take it because society views this as our comeuppance. I realize that white guys make up the vast percentage of powerful positions both in government and business, but it's not like they have a special Caucasian Decoder Ring that elevates them to those positions (and if they do I'd like to know where mine is). If the best person to run a company is a woman who's black, jewish, and a quadropoligic, then I say give her the job. But don't automatically assume that a white guy who gets the job did so by making the company "an offer it couldn't refuse" either.

The Caucasia Syndrome

No one cares about white guys. I can come right out and say that without fear of retribution because why? You guessed it, no one cares. No one wants my opinion on anything, we have no months of dedication, not even a day. People can say whatever they want to me and I'm supposed to grin and bear it. Sigh...

Well ordinarily this doesn't bother me all that much (my vast DVD collection keeps me in a relatively good mood I suppose, it deadens the pain of my increasing superfluousness) but today I was taking a survey. I was invited to this survey site last fall semester, and it's by invitation only, because of the obscene amount of money I spend on the aforementioned DVD collection. It's pretty cool, for filling out a survey on consumer type stuff you get points, and once you reach a certain point level you get a gift card. Sounds pretty good right? Well that's only if you're in the group they're looking to survey at that time (then you get 40-75 points) and if you're not you get fewer points (remember when I said "fewer points" a second ago? Well that "fewer" was a hyperbolic understatement because they give you 2 points). And every time they tell me they don't need me, it's after I check the "Caucasian" button. Well, I'm usually only twelve seconds or so into the survey so I don't really care.

BUT

Today, they had me watch the pilot for a new show called "Defying Gravity." It has some slight potential, but because of what they've done to me this day it's now on my vengeance list right along with "Grey's Anatomy" and the orthocons (but hey, if they all want to go the way of DHL that's fine with me, I can't be responsible for what my retribution will bring once they open that door). I watched the WHOLE FREAKING PILOT EPISODE and then answered what must have been a BAZILLION nitpicky questions that I would have had a hard time answering about characters on "24" (which I've been watching since 8th Grade, and every episode of which I've seen anywhere from 2-5 times). And yet, after devoting an hour of my life to watching the pilot and answering the questions (an hour that could've been spent doing more productive things like watching TV, playing video games, or counting blades of grass) they suddenly told me, "Oh we've got enough of (your kind) on this survey already so here take 2 points, put them on a good horse." (slight exaggeration)

Umm, excuse me, but the last time I looked, the demographic that every TV show tries to reach is who now? Oh yes, white males between the ages of 18-34. That's me baby! At last, someone cares. And I do my part, I currently watch something like 25 shows and I've seen every episode of 70+ shows. And yet, even though we're the most influential, still no one wants my opinion. Why is it that within a 30 second clip for a lot of shows you see an explosion, a scantily clad woman, and maybe four total seconds of exposition about the plot? Because they're trying to reach all the 18-34 year old white guys who have nothing better to do than watch all of their shows (this is also why there's always a male character who is single and who beats down lots of bad guys every week, we can imagine ourselves as him and save on therapy bills).

But no, instead my opinion, which has done much for the studios, has gone the way of Moses. It's led an entire people (most of my friends) to the Promised TV Land (of bilking money) and yet it's left to rot on some mountaintop alone with its 2 opinion points (the last part stretches the allegory a bit). Doesn't my opinion deserve more? Haven't I spread the word enough? Haven't I given them enough money? Nope, much like 4 out of 5 commercials for household products, the one rule is the white guy comes out last.

You know what would make me feel better? I don't even need a whole month (even though they're starting to get as specific as "Trinidad and Tobagoan awareness month"), I'll take a day. And don't tell me that "every month is white guy history month" because that's like saying that every day is steak day at Vegan club. Is our history discussed every month? Certainly, but people only seem to focus on the negative stuff. Examples include:

"Well sure, George Washington may have set the standard for leaders in this country by refusing to be a king and instead becoming a short-term elected representative, but he stole a kid's lunch money once!"

"Yeah you know, Abraham Lincoln brought the country back together and everything, but you know he was way taller than his Homecoming date Junior year and everyone thought she was a freak!"

"Okay, maybe Teddy Roosevelt was instrumental in preventing war between Russia and Japan but that big stick he was always talking about carrying was a mutilated limb from an innocent tree!"

So as you can see, teachers are starting to ignore anything good done by white guys because some of them did very bad things back in the day (it's a well known fact that only white men are monumental bad guys, Kim Il Sung and Idi Amin were actually white guys with big budget prosthetics). And so we're all lumped into the same category: Caucasian. Has anyone ever been to this Caucasia place? Because I'm pretty sure I haven't. People are rightfully upset when they're marked down as being from Nigeria when they're really from Tanzania (I'm from Maryland and I certainly wouldn't want to be marked down as being from one of the Dakotas, does anyone even live there?). However, I do suppose that since all white people are exactly the same, with the same background and religious beliefs, it's okay to lump them all together into the same pile. Why, just look at Ireland.

Just one day out of the year is all I want, to maybe tell the story of the Alamo where Davy Crockett doesn't surrender (that's the way it happened, go ahead and challenge me on it). To tell the stories of Thomas Jefferson's genius inventions, instead of harping on the fact that he had an affair with one of his slaves (doesn't that make him progressive? He wasn't a bigot when it came to attractive women, that's more than a lot of people could say back then). I'm not saying we should all go out and watch "Birth of a Nation" or anything crazy like that, I think telling some stories that shed a positive light on white men would be nice for once, to talk about what precious few of us weren't power hungry Lex Luthors.

Let's Take a Break from Fictional Villains and Focus on a Real Villain: Red Tape!

Good news readers! It's study day and I don't have an exam till next Monday.
Bad news readers! I have three exams on Monday.

That's right, this is the first semester since my time here at (information classified, I don't want to make it easier for the orthocons to find me in the night and implant microchips in my teeth) I finally don't have every exam at 8AM. I'm better at waking up early than most, but come on people! Didn't they learn their lesson from the SATs? If you want someone to do well, you should probably hold a test during hours where my brain is at least a little more than reconstituted lilliputian tapioca (which thankfully still gives me an edge over most college students). In fact, there are more than a few problems with college courses/testing in this country, which I'll of course be more than happy to share with you.

First off, I'm here for Criminal Justice (though I'd really love to be making movies/TV shows someday, I'd be more than happy to toss some drug dealers in prison if that opportunity never arises) and that means that I am not here for (insert inane elective here, my favorites include: Female Caribbean First Person Writers of 1825 and their Continued Influence on the Hallmark Channel, and Mapmaking with Macaroni and Maniacal Mucilage). If I'd been taking only Crim. classes since it became my major, I'd have been in the business years ago and such international villains as Kim Jong Il, Fidel Castro, and Lindsay Lohan would be behind bars already (Fidel has a nice full beard and good old Kim Jong had a nice soliloquy in Team America but what has Lindsay done for the world since The Parent Trap?). But instead we trudge along and write paper after paper about a bunch of sociological junk, which may well be interesting, but that really has nothing to do with anything. A little bit of that should be part of the game plan, but my 120 credits will consist of 40 credits for Criminal Justice, 40 credits for CORE classes, and 40 for electives. Useless. Utterly useless.

Interlude: I know what you're thinking: "But Domenic! What if there's a serial killer whose M.O. is offing people according to their relation to Dante's Divine Comedy?" Ah! I am way ahead of you, I enjoy literature classes because books are actually useful for improving your writing skills (way more than English 101 and Junior English ever could) and helping to catch said serial killers with a flair for the classics.

I don't think all extra classes are useless, but I think we have to draw the line somewhere (somewhere around 40 credits instead of 80). And I understand that not everyone knows what they want their major to be from the beginning, well they can feel free to stay as long as they want and sample as much as they want. I say that each degree should have a set amount of credits, and once you hit that, you're done. If you want to take some other classes and delay your graduation for unknown reasons, go for it. But if you'd rather be deterring hostile takeovers and locking up would-be terrorists than trying to remember which sociologist first postulated that kids who play on playgrounds eat less red meat than those that don't, you should be able to do so. Plus, didn't we learn about a variety of subjects in, oh I don't know, 12 years of schooling? And yet by the time I get to college people are still trying to tell me what a freaking preposition does or what the Bill of Rights entails (if you don't know by now you never will!).

On another note, let's get back to the aforementioned English classes. Now, I don't like to go around making myself look good all the time (that's a filthy lie) but I'd like to think that I write papers that are quite excellent. Nay, my papers are incredible. Mostly because I use a lot of trickery and deceit to cover up the fact that I'm saying pretty much the same stuff everyone else is (I got a higher grade on a Waiting for Godot paper than the rest of my high school english class simply because I compared it to It's the Great Pumpkin Charlie Brown! I still feel a bit bad about that, but one must do what one has to in order to receive high marks). I also like to use slightly unusual vocab words (superfluous and juxtaposition are my favorites). However, the only two classes I've ever had that directly reflect writing prowess have been English 101 and Junior English. Both of which contained a major group project. I hate group projects. I was lucky with my group this semester, both guys were really good and helped out a lot and I'll probably end up with a B in the class. BUT, my 101 class was a disaster. I ended up with a C+ in the class with a 79.4 or something crazy (a mere decimal away from a B!) and I probably could've gotten an A if our group project (which was worth way too much) had gone according to my plan instead.

Papers can be the silliest assignments of the whole shebang. Consider this, on a research paper the assignment is as follows: 1)you're not smart enough to come up with your own idea, so use someone else's 2)find evidence from multiple sources to support your chosen theory 3)don't put down exactly what they said, pretend you came up with most of it because otherwise that's plagiarism. Then for other papers we're told: 1)don't be colloquial 2)don't be boring. So find a way to interest you without speaking as though I'm interested in it? It all reads like one of those mind game Tree-Falling-in-the-Woods/One-Hand-Clapping nonsense! We're so busy jumping through all of the hoops that at the end of the day we're not even sure what our paper was talking about in the first place.

It's like they're setting us up to fail! When reviewing for tests, instead of telling us what all of the relevant information is, they want us to study everything and hopefully the things we'll remember are the facts that show up on the test. On that note, I can accept this: "It's all relevant information and you should be able to deduce what I'll ask based on the core ideas of the semester." This helps us learn deductive reasoning, so that's okay. What I find unacceptable is when professors give us a whole slew of information, some of which is just fun to learn and some of which is actually important (without making a distinction). I fail to see the logic in this, which I think might be the point. They want me to fail, so I can keep coming back for more schooling (hence more funding! I'm so glad we put a lot more money into adding onto our football stadium, now more people can come watch us lose).

Well, after years of being frustrated by these very things, I finally learned what it's all about: red tape. College prepares you for red tape that you'll experience in real life. Why make it such a pain to write a report according to set guidelines when you can write a better one while being more creative? Because that's what you'll be forced to do in real life. So why not quell the hopes and aspirations now? Well I think the whole red tape thing is an imagined phenomenon (like peer pressure, not once has one of my friends given me crap when I told them I don't drink, some other people have but I don't like them anyway) that is facilitated by circular reasoning:

"Why do I have to write it this way Mrs. So-and-So?"
"Because that's how you'll have to write it in college!"

"Why do I have to write it this way Professor What's-his-Face?"
"Because that's how you'll have to write it in real life!"

"Why do I have to write it this way Boss It's-on-the-Tip-of-My-Tongue-but-I-Can't-Remember-Your-Name?"
"Because that's how we all learned how to do it in high school and college and I can't understand or deal with anything else!"

So maybe if someone just sat down and thought about it all for a second, we'd see that the whole system is junk. Because the opposite is true too, everyone assumes in high school that you'll read Dickens in college, and everyone in college assumes you read Dickens in high school. Hence, I've never read one of his books! Instead I read a bunch of random stuff, which is relatively new and won't be passed down through the generations for good reason. Maybe if professors only told us to study the things that will be on the exam, we might accidentally remember them after the test is done with, and coincidentally exceed expectations on the exam. Perhaps if everybody learned to write an essay that succinctly (what's with these page minimums junk? Are you telling me that if I can get my point across just as well in 2 pages instead of 5, that wouldn't be mutually beneficial for both the student and the TA?) and thought-provokingly (not sure if that's a word, but you get my meaning. While simultaneously showcasing my point. Boom!) proves a solid thesis. That should be the assignment. Who gives a crap if you use the first person in a paper? As long as the reader understands what you're talking about, that's all that should matter.

So do I think everything about the system is dumb? Not exactly. But a lot of it is needless nonsense that brings heartache and not much else. The only thing that I find useful about the college experience is learning how to cater to your audience. Get to know your professors, and then write a paper you know they'd enjoy (or the TA, or the high school teacher, or whatever). If I was teaching a class I'd give extra points to students who referenced Batman and Star Trek, because they're clearly the only ones smart enough to cater to their audience (a nicer term for sucking up). But as for tests, I say keep it simple unless you're trying to put them all through a gauntlet that will tell you who is the most worthy of wielding the Sorcerer's Stone.

My 5 Favorite Villains Ever: Volume 2

On an opening note (and there'll be a full blog of this to come) if you haven't seen the new Star Trek movie yet then what are you waiting for? It's freaking amazing! Whether you're incredibly nerdy like me and know that Sulu's fencing skills were a reference to the season 1 episode "The Naked Time" (not a made up example) or you can't tell the difference between a Vulcan and a Ferengi, you'll love it either way. Now then, on to the next installment of my villains countdown...

4. Hannibal Lecter from The Silence of the Lambs. This film won the four main Oscars back in 1991 (picture, director, actor, actress) and for good reason. It really is quite an incredible feat, and though I learned recently that Anthony Hopkins' bone-chilling/likeable/repulsive performance as Hannibal "the Cannibal" Lecter takes up a mere 27 minutes of the film (not sure if that counts the whole end credits sequence where he's walking away from the camera) the whole movie essentially centers around him. The overall plot is really nothing you don't see every week on Law and Order, CSI, and every other crime show on TV. Basically, rookie FBI agent Clarice Starling (Jodie Foster) tracks a serial killer with the help of a former serial killer. And in the end she catches him. Shocker. The real fascination obviously comes from her relationship with Lecter.

Initially, the filmmakers were looking to cast Robert DeNiro or another such actor in the role. I think that would've been terrible (as much as I love DeNiro) because then he might've seemed imposing. Instead, when we first turn that corner (the camera in the film often shows us Clarice's point of view, thus making ordinary scenes more intimidating and Hannibal's subtle seduction all the more potent) we see an unassuming little man, who's maybe a little creepy, staring at us. He seems a bit quirky, but certainly no one that would get together for pot lucks at Jeffrey Dahmer's house (there's a scary thought). Until he starts talking of course, at which point you feel the almost overwhelming desire to cling to your mother and a stuffed animal (apologies to mom for that fright-filled Tuesday night). However, as the film moves along, Hannibal slowly seduces Clarice and the audience along with her, often with his face filling up the entire camera, looking right at you. His voice is still about the creepiest thing you've ever heard, and yet you're fascinated by him.

So what do we think of this man? Well, he eats people, so that's pretty messed up. But you know what? The man is brilliant. If he applied his mind to solving crimes he'd give Batman a run for his money. Hannibal knows exactly who the killer is for the entire movie, but he makes Clarice guess the whole time. Is this to feel power over her? To help her learn? Both, neither? The answer remains unknown, because who would be smart enough to figure Hannibal out aside from Hannibal himself? In a different time, Hannibal might have been on par with the general of the same name, or even Caesar. But that was another life, and in today's civilized world he is simply a monster.

So how did he turn out to be a sociopath? Well his incredibly disturbing (and thus not printed here) origins are explored in the (interesting but not great) 2007 film Hannibal Rising, from which we can summarize that he had a traumatic childhood. Mix that with a sense of rampant narcissism and you've got yourself a serial killer. As explained in the (excellent, almost as good as Silence) film Red Dragon which actually takes place prior to this story, he only kills people that he "thinks are boring." Here's where his character becomes especially fascinating, don't we kind of see his basic point? Though 99.9% of us are certainly not deranged enough to kill people who we feel are hindrances to society, don't we find ourselves thinking that maybe we'd be better off without them? This is the essential dilemma we come to with the Joker (a character who sadly will not be on my list, but only because in the future I'll be writing a whole rundown about his character being the mirror image of Batman, along with some other inane ramblings about the Batman rogues gallery), isn't a lot of what the Joker says true? This is what makes villains so appealing: we could become them easily. For instance, I myself tend to be quite narcissistic at times (hence the mostly tongue-in-cheek title of my blog) and it's possible that very little is stopping me from being like The Riddler (who enjoys exploiting the fact that he's smarter than other people). So though we should condemn Hannibal's actions, let's remember how much like the rest of us he is, even if we don't want to admit it.

On a side note, though I feel that the film Hannibal isn't a terrible movie, it's not particularly good either. Because it makes Hannibal out to be less of a disturbed psychiatrist and more of a superhuman Dracula-esque dude (his coat whooshes kinda like Batman's in one scene, he saves Clarice from the bad guys in the end, it's all a bit ridiculous. Plus lots of the movie is unnecessarily gross, whereas Silence thrives on understated violence). Okay, back to the analysis.

Throughout the film, Hannibal is really the only reason Clarice solves the case. His distorted tutelage led to the saving of lives (though his motives were obviously his own it's still an interesting note). And he really does genuinely care about Clarice, possibly because he's in love with her, possibly because he respects her, possibly because she reminds him of someone from years past, it's never really discussed (nor should it be). And since it's well into the movie before we see Hannibal exact violence on anyone (and by that time we already kinda like him) it's even easier for us to see him as more of a consultant than a villain. But a villain he is. In my previous post, I referred to a comic book author's quote about how a good villain "thinks he's the hero." Well I think there's a second category of good villains: people who know how bad they are, and want to prove that everyone else is the same way. Because then they won't have to hate themselves so much. And that is why Hannibal Lecter made not only my list of villains, but everyone else's too. He's a dark reflection of our own psyches. He shows us that in reality, you're just a third-degree burn away from being Two Face, a vat of acid away from being the Joker, and an unfortunate surname away from being Dr. Doom. And it is only through this recognition that the Batmen of the world can ever rise above their inner darkness to become heroes.

P.S. For those of you finding yourselves terribly depressed or disturbed after reading about my first two villains, it just means you're still human. But fear not, I'll give you another jaunty entry before too long.

My 5 Favorite Villains Ever: Volume 1

Two blogs in a row about crazy nerdy stuff? I know, I'm sorry. But it's been an unusually good week this week, there's not much to complain about. So instead I decided to share another aspect of my near limitless knowledge with you: the psychoses of famous (or near famous) villains. The villain is always the most interesting character for me. The reason being that anyone who's not actually a sociopath understands why Superman does what he does. Because it's the right thing to do, and your own altruism would cause you to save people (if not threat of guilt from not saving them at the very least, since Superman is near invincible, if he didn't save people he'd be a jerk). But why do the bad guys do the things they do? Well, let's explore this idea as I waste away the remaining internship time for the week (it's not my fault they haven't given me an assignment). This will be the first of (obviously) five entries about my favorite villains.

5. Michael Corleone from The Godfather: I know, you're probably thinking, why would I put the main character from one of the greatest (if not the greatest) films of all time at number 5? Well, first off, Michael's not really portrayed as a villain in the classical sense, but also because he doesn't really do a whole lot in terms of villainous activity as compared to the rest. However, the character is still quite fascinating. He avoided the "family business" for years, until finally becoming the most notorious member of the family. This is quite interesting in that he almost avoided the business like an alcoholic avoids alcohol. I think that Michael knew, deep down, that he could very easily become as bad as his father, if not worse. I think that the environment that he grew up in (strong family loyalty, when the family deals in illegal activities) mixed with the good old-fashioned Italian temper was a recipe for disaster. And so Michael joined the family business, in order to avenge the attempted murder of his father ("just this once" as it were, much like the line in the classic film about alcoholism The Lost Weekend where the bartender remarks that "one is too many, a hundred's not enough").

Of course, it appeared that he'd be left with a happy ending. He moves back to the homeland, Sicily, and weds a beautiful young woman. Unfortunately, the sins of his past caught up with him. Michael's right hand man turned on him and detonated his car, with his wife inside. Once he took that small step into darkness, it would forever follow him wherever he went. Once he killed the men responsible for his father's death, it was too late for him and always would be. Accepting his fate, Michael returns home to order the execution of the crime leaders threatening the Corleone empire.

First off, the scene where Michael is being anointed the godfather of his nephew at the same time that he's becoming THE Godfather (when the aforementioned executions are taking place) is probably one of my favorite scenes in film history. However, there's an even more important scene earlier in the film, which I never paid much attention to until recently. It comes when Michael is having his final conversation with his father, Vito (the former Godfather, played by the incredible Marlon Brando). Vito explains that he always wanted a different life for Michael. He wanted him to be a politician, someone who could "pull the real strings in society." And herein lies the true tragedy of Michael Corleone: he can never seem to do exactly what others expect of him. He felt like an outsider in his own family so he joined the business, only to discover his father wanted him out of it. He ends up alienating his own wife, and his children are taken from him as well.

The end of The Godfather Part II really illustrates this perfectly. Upon having his own brother killed (he was a snitch and a weasel, but still, it was his brother!), Michael ponders his life. At this point we're treated to a flashback that takes place a few years beforehand. During this scene, Michael (about to leave for WWII) and the rest of the family are planning a surprise party for their father. Around the table are several people who met tragic ends in either of the first two films. It was back at a time before the tragedy, and yet in the scene Michael is largely ignored and ultimately left alone. This seems to be his fate: whether he's the good son or the ruthless crime boss, he is inevitably alone. The film then returns to Michael in the present day, alone, thinking about what he's become. And that's where the second film leaves us. It was a low key ending, but powerful.

The third film isn't as bad as people make it out to be, but it's certainly nowhere near the quality of the first two. The ultimate point of it, however, is the perfect ending to the series, which illustrates my overall point. In the end, Michael reflects on the happier times of his life (through a series of images from the films that show him dancing with the three women he loved: his wife from Sicily who was killed, his wife in America who left him, and his daughter who was killed by a bullet meant for him). It is at this time, that Michael dies quietly in his courtyard, a piece of fruit falling from his hand (they say it's an orange, but I prefer to think it's an apple as through the series Michael "flew a little too close to the sun" as it were, a.k.a. "ate the fruit from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil"). One can either view the scene as incredibly sad, or perhaps even redemptive depending on how you interpret other aspects of the film. I say it's a bit of both, but the fact remains that Michael Corleone is one of the most fascinating villains in film history. Because at the end of the day, he's just a man in search of peace and acceptance, who got a little lost along the way. If you find that incredibly depressing (and it's probably a good sign that you're human) then Francis Ford Coppola really did his job. Still, I'd recommend watching some Seinfeld reruns to balance out your mood.

Well that's number 5, stay tuned in the upcoming weeks for the rest (number 1 may surprise you!).

X-Men: More Than Meets the Eye

I know, I stole the slogan for Transformers but the X-Men deserve it more (Michael Bay's Transformers is exactly equal to what meets the eye, which is of course 2+ hours of awesomeness, but still relatively shallow as the genre goes). The X-Men, on the other hand, has always been a profoundly interesting series. Whether it be the series of excellent films (X2 being the best, but the rest are great as well) or the unusually great cartoon from when I was a kid (I got the first two volumes of it for my birthday yesterday and it's just as good, if not better, than I remember). The series was created in the 60s by Stan Lee (the same verifiable genius who brought you Spider-Man, the Hulk, and virtually every other superhero that you've heard of from that time period) who wanted it to subtly reflect the Civil Rights movement. He wanted kids to see the harsh treatment of the Mutants in the comics and hopefully draw a connection between that and the issues at hand during that time period. The series has since come to reflect such issues as genetic engineering, the holocaust, and more. And you thought it was just about spandex-wearing wisecrackers.

Since I have an especially large amount of time on my hands today, I thought I'd touch on (at least briefly) each of the X-Men films a bit. Why? Because a lot of people my age have seen them, and I want them to view the films again with some deeper things in mind than "Wolverine's claws are cool" and "Mystique is really hot" (both true).

So to begin with, the first film (not surprisingly titled X-Men) sets up the major characters and establishes the fear of a possible war between humans and mutants (for those who don't know, i.e. those born more than 21 years ago or those 21 and younger who lacked a childhood, mutants are the heroes and villains of the story who have genetic mutations that cause them to have powers and are thus separated from society). The most interesting character in the whole bunch is the main villain, Magneto. As a wise comic book writer (I forget which one) mentioned, "the best and most realistic villains think of themselves as the hero." This is exactly the case with Magneto, a holocaust survivor (this is especially apparent at the beginning of the second film when he's seen reading an exact representation of how he views himself, T.H. White's famous King Arthur story, "The Once and Future King"). He witnessed firsthand the senseless killing of his family and a large portion of his entire people, simply because they were different from those with power. The way he sees it, mutants are doomed to experience this at the hands of humans.

Professor Charles Xavier (founder of the X-Men), on the other hand, believes that humans and mutants can peacefully coexist. He and Magneto were once friends, and to some extent still are, but their ideologies differ to such an extent that they inevitably become enemies. As the viewers, we follow the story of the X-Men, and all of our heroes are the X-Men, but one can see Magneto's point. Because a lot of humans in the film want to send mutants to internment camps, experiment on them, etc. This obviously hits a bit close to home when considering the holocaust. And still on another hand (the X-Men series requires a three-handed thought process, not surprisingly) you can see the humans' point too. If there was a guy like Magneto walking around who can control magnetism, and thus all metal, whether he was an extremist nut or not I'd probably still want to lock him up. And Mystique, a character who can turn into anyone? For all I know, she could be in the oval office tomorrow. I'd probably want to lock her up too. Not because it's right, but because it might be necessary. And therein lies the dilemma. So who do you cheer for when you see everyone's point of view? Well, the side with Wolverine of course (he's the man). However, one must wonder how we would feel about the story if it was told from a slightly different point of view, and with characters that weren't quite as openly heroic (ala The Wire). Would we still feel the same way? I've always said that the power of film and television could make you feel pity for Stalin or think George Washington was a jerk. Throw the right musical score in there, get the right actor, and you can make the audience feel whatever you want.

Ideologies aside for a second, X-Men has one of my favorite endings of all time. It involves Magneto, locked away in his plastic prison, playing a game of chess with Professor X. This is brilliant in the fact that the entire series is essentially a chess game between the two men (in fact, in the third film Magneto states, "the pawns always go first"). They have a conversation concerning the eternal nature of their conflict, possible future problems, etc. Then Magneto knocks over his king as Xavier leaves. Xavier won that round, but the pieces can always be set up again. Still, at the end of the day, here are two men who highly respect each other and do not wish the other one harm, but who are at odds.

Now, let's look at the second (and best) film: X2. The movie is subtitled on the DVD but not within the movie (for unknown reasons) X-Men United. The reason for this is that for a large part of the film's finale, Magneto and his band of mutants have teamed up with the X-Men to fight a common enemy. The common enemy is looking to eradicate all mutants, and thus must be stopped by any means necessary. However, as soon as the sinister plot is foiled (and it makes a lot more sense than just "I want to kill all mutants because I'm evil because the script says so" but this is going to be a long enough blog entry as it is) Magneto turns around and tries to use the same machine to eradicate all humans, and thus must combat the X-Men in the process. This is all of about twelve seconds after they fought side-by-side. Kind of crazy, and yet it sounds a whole lot like what happened in the wake of WWII between the U.S. and Russia. The film even has a defector in the form of Pyro, a young member of the X-Men who feels that Xavier doesn't recognize his talents and ergo joins up with Magneto.

This brings me to another interesting aspect of the series: personal identity. This is especially true in the case of Wolverine. Is he simply a rage-filled animal or is he a man? In the newest installment of the series, X-Men Origins: Wolverine, we see the reasons why he chooses to volunteer for a dangerous procedure that bonds an indestructible metal onto his bones. I won't talk about this film too much, since not everyone has seen it yet, but it's quite good. And I feel comfortable talking about the "Birth of Wolverine" scene, as it's more than slightly shown to us in X2. In the scene, Logan (Wolverine's human name) flatlines for a little bit before he starts to come back to life (his predominant mutant power is accelerated healing). In this scene, Logan (the man) dies and quite literally returns to life as Wolverine (the beast). It's appropriate that he experiences this procedure when submerged in water, because it's evocative of what I like to call his "Baptism by Rage." This is the start of a personal conflict that exists within him, which resolves itself a little bit at a time over the course of all three original films. It's not until the end of the second movie, when Wolverine chooses not to kill Stryker (the man who made him an animal) and instead leaves him and rejoins the group (thus becoming a man once more). And it's really not until near the end of the third movie, X-Men: The Last Stand when Wolverine is the one to make the pre-battle speech and refers to himself for the first time as part of the X-Men, that he really becomes a leader (it serves as a nice bookend to the scene in the first movie where he scoffs at the title "X-Men").

And finally, in overall terms the whole title can be looked at in a different way (completely unintentional by Stan Lee I'm sure, but something I thought of today anyway). Consider if instead of X-Men, it was Ex-Men. As in, former men. Or, former members of the human race. They're no longer part of humanity technically, as their genes are different from ours. But they were once human, and that part of them will always remain. Like most comic book stories, X-Men uses overly stylized ways to show us real life. And they achieve this better than most. For what is Magneto really, but a scared little boy afraid to lose his family? Who is Wolverine but a man trying to master the anger within? And who among us can't relate, at least on some level, to these issues? The films and the characters are all so rich and interesting, that I could likely write a book about them (and intend to someday). Perhaps the most interesting, and most tragic, aspect of the conflict (both in real life and in fiction) is that it will always go on. To illustrate this, I'll simply leave you with the small measure of comfort we were left with at the end of the first film; when Magneto states that the prison can't hold him forever, Xavier responds, "And I will always be there, old friend."