Disclaimer: This isn't about Bryan Singer (or Ian McKellan, or Alan Cumming) being gay. The subtext was already there, transferred over from the comics. That may have been an attraction for Singer in the first place, but by the third movie the consequences are unavoidable even without Singer's presence.
With the attention given to the upcoming Wolverine movie, it occurred to me that, while that movie will likely be fun, it will probably lose the grace and elegance of the first two (even parts of the third) X-Men movies.
A lot of that grace and elegance stemmed from the implication of what super powers meant for the characters as sexual beings. I'm going to get into weird Watchmen territory here, so bear with me.
Along with mutation working as a metaphor for racial prejudice, I'm arguing that it also works as sexuality. Not in the obvious "Bobby coming out scene" kind of way, but in a more subversive way.
I always got the impression that Xavier and Magneto were ex-lovers. The comics go out of their way to have long lost children show up to prove that the two men have had sex with women at least a few times, but the movies seemed to purposefully leave that out. What's left is two spurned lovers, with Xavier seemingly neutered by his past with Magneto.
Confined to a chair, Xavier is impotent in body and encourages it of his students. Both Jean and Cyclops are forbidden to let loose with their powers, and their physical relationship is seemingly chaste. Rogue can't touch anyone. Storm is constantly paired with asexual companions (Nightcrawler, Beast). They are all, however, encouraged to dress up in bondage gear and take out their aggression with violence.
When Wolverine shows up, however, he is sex on two legs. He epitomizes masculinity, with his hair and muscles and phallic symbols jutting out of his knuckles. Strange, however, that he pursues virginal Jean for three movies and is then taken aback when she finally comes onto him. He never even pursues casual sex with Storm. As well, the only person that can control him is Magneto, who controls metal, the secret hidden beneath Wolverine's surface.
I'm arguing that, as presented in the movies, Wolverine is troubled sexually. In the first two movies his big fights are with women (the fight with Sabertooth is, ahem, premature as Cyclops blasts him out): Mystique and Lady Deathstrike. Although Mystique struts around naked, she appears to have no private parts and can be both genders. For half the fight she looks like Wolverine. When Wolverine finally does put her down, it's by impaling her with his phallic symbols, and she looks like Storm at the time. Deathstrike, by comparison, is a female Wolverine that is killed by being injected with seminal-esque fluid.
It's as if Wolverine loathes his own confused sexuality and lashes out at these women that are mirror images of himself, in order to punish himself. This is highlighted in X-Men 2 when Mystique comes onto Wolverine in the tent, turned on by him having penetrated her, and he rejects her. She asks him "what do you really want?" morphing into Jean, then Storm, then Rogue, and finally settling on Stryker.
Speaking of Rogue, notice how she only ever absorbs men in the movies? Her boyfriend, Wolverine and Magneto in X-Men, Bobby and Pyro in X-Men 2, and Colossus in X-Men 3. The scene when she absorbs Wolverine's healing ability is especially troubling: she's young, it's in a bedroom, they're both half-naked, he's penetrated her, there's blood. Ewww.
Finally, the aforementioned Jean. Her initial experiments with great amounts of power in the first two movies show her as if in mid-orgasm, and she's pretty much a horn dog in the third movie. Xavier had tried to prevent this, however, for fear of insatiable female sexuality. Combine that with X-Men 3's talk of the "cure," and one can't held but think of the so-called gay gene and female genital mutilation.
IN CONCLUSION, Wolverine will probably unintentionally come across as homo-erotic along the lines of Predator, but it won't analyze or dissect that homo-eroticism the way the X-Men movies (unintentionally may) have.
With the attention given to the upcoming Wolverine movie, it occurred to me that, while that movie will likely be fun, it will probably lose the grace and elegance of the first two (even parts of the third) X-Men movies.
A lot of that grace and elegance stemmed from the implication of what super powers meant for the characters as sexual beings. I'm going to get into weird Watchmen territory here, so bear with me.
Along with mutation working as a metaphor for racial prejudice, I'm arguing that it also works as sexuality. Not in the obvious "Bobby coming out scene" kind of way, but in a more subversive way.
I always got the impression that Xavier and Magneto were ex-lovers. The comics go out of their way to have long lost children show up to prove that the two men have had sex with women at least a few times, but the movies seemed to purposefully leave that out. What's left is two spurned lovers, with Xavier seemingly neutered by his past with Magneto.
Confined to a chair, Xavier is impotent in body and encourages it of his students. Both Jean and Cyclops are forbidden to let loose with their powers, and their physical relationship is seemingly chaste. Rogue can't touch anyone. Storm is constantly paired with asexual companions (Nightcrawler, Beast). They are all, however, encouraged to dress up in bondage gear and take out their aggression with violence.
When Wolverine shows up, however, he is sex on two legs. He epitomizes masculinity, with his hair and muscles and phallic symbols jutting out of his knuckles. Strange, however, that he pursues virginal Jean for three movies and is then taken aback when she finally comes onto him. He never even pursues casual sex with Storm. As well, the only person that can control him is Magneto, who controls metal, the secret hidden beneath Wolverine's surface.
I'm arguing that, as presented in the movies, Wolverine is troubled sexually. In the first two movies his big fights are with women (the fight with Sabertooth is, ahem, premature as Cyclops blasts him out): Mystique and Lady Deathstrike. Although Mystique struts around naked, she appears to have no private parts and can be both genders. For half the fight she looks like Wolverine. When Wolverine finally does put her down, it's by impaling her with his phallic symbols, and she looks like Storm at the time. Deathstrike, by comparison, is a female Wolverine that is killed by being injected with seminal-esque fluid.
It's as if Wolverine loathes his own confused sexuality and lashes out at these women that are mirror images of himself, in order to punish himself. This is highlighted in X-Men 2 when Mystique comes onto Wolverine in the tent, turned on by him having penetrated her, and he rejects her. She asks him "what do you really want?" morphing into Jean, then Storm, then Rogue, and finally settling on Stryker.
Speaking of Rogue, notice how she only ever absorbs men in the movies? Her boyfriend, Wolverine and Magneto in X-Men, Bobby and Pyro in X-Men 2, and Colossus in X-Men 3. The scene when she absorbs Wolverine's healing ability is especially troubling: she's young, it's in a bedroom, they're both half-naked, he's penetrated her, there's blood. Ewww.
Finally, the aforementioned Jean. Her initial experiments with great amounts of power in the first two movies show her as if in mid-orgasm, and she's pretty much a horn dog in the third movie. Xavier had tried to prevent this, however, for fear of insatiable female sexuality. Combine that with X-Men 3's talk of the "cure," and one can't held but think of the so-called gay gene and female genital mutilation.
IN CONCLUSION, Wolverine will probably unintentionally come across as homo-erotic along the lines of Predator, but it won't analyze or dissect that homo-eroticism the way the X-Men movies (unintentionally may) have.
