Yesterday, I re-watched the 2000 film “X-Men” on VHS in my living room - but it took me a long time.

As a person with disabilities, I am definitely intrigued by this movie.  The idea of “mutants” in the movie is presented as people who have “different” bodies and minds that clearly deviate from a “norm” or “standard” as dictated by society.  They are even persecuted by the society in which they live.  Part of the movie’s plot follows a politician who tries to garner support for his “anti-mutant” legislations.  He uses fear-mongering to convince his constituents that mutants should be punished, restrained/surveilled, and kept away from society because of the “dangers” they pose due to their natural "superhero" abilities.  I admit, to me there is a cute whimsy to viewing disabilities as “superpowers”, but I wonder WHY because disabilities literally force you to make adaptations.  In the realm of some current disability justice movements, the argument is made that no one is “disabled” so much as they exist in relation to an ableist society.  A society that expects everyone to be the same and have the same needs (even though that is not true nor has it ever been) is actually the source of the “disability”, not the individual who naturally exists “outside” of societal norms.  As an allegory for disability, X-Men isn’t so bad to me!  I did look for other disability analysis of this movie out of curiosity and found this particular piece of writing very insightful.  It also makes me want to watch the other X-Men movies in the franchise.  I also wonder if the “elevator pitch” for this movie over in Hollywood-land was: *~*DISABILITIES AS ABILITIES*~* or something to that cringey nature…

It is a strange experience to have in life, inhabiting a body that cannot “govern” nor regulate it’s own self. Such a body could very well harm its inhabitant, and this leads to problems such as disembodiment from the self. In the movie, each mutant has a “superpower” which is presented as a burden to that person but also as a gift to them.  But usually the “gift” part of the deal is not apparent until they learn more about themselves and how to live with it.  For example, one of the X-Men has lasers that shoot out of his eyes, so he wears specific glasses at all times as an adaptation to his superpower.  The glasses allow him to control and direct the force of the lasers that are naturally emitted from his eyes.  When the glasses are on, he doesn’t have to worry about harming himself or others and can save his power only for times when it is useful to him or others. 

Wolverine is an interesting character to me because his natural ability is the superpower of being able to heal wounds quickly (which is a power that me and my diabetic limbs ENVY greatly lol).  One heartbreaking scene in the movie is when Wolverine experiences a nightmare while sleeping.  The nightmare is a trauma flashback to being medically experimented on in an army base where he is implanted with the ability to extend metal knives from his hands.  His natural ability for healing himself was the reason he was a candidate for this traumatic experiment to begin with (which alone makes my head spin on many levels).  When in a heightened state of arousal, his weapons come out of his hands almost instinctually.  While having the nightmare, his friend and fellow mutant, Rogue, tries to wake him up.  But when he does, because of his anxious state, his knives come out and he accidentally stabs Rogue right through her chest.  She begins to die because of this fatal wound.  Luckily, Rogue’s superpower is absorbing the life energy of anyone she comes into contact with through physical touch, and that includes the abilities/superpowers of other mutants.  By touching Wolverine as she dies, she inherits his healing ability momentarily, allowing her stab wounds to close up and save her life.  But, this touch does nearly kill Wolverine in return.  If she had touched him for a moment longer, it would have sucked all the life out of him completely.

Rogue’s circumstances also hold lots of trauma due to her superpower alone, which is a common theme in the movie when examining the lives of most of the mutants.  Since she can’t control the fact that her touch sucks all the life energy out of others  - she has to avoid physical touch completely.  Touch provides a sense of safety, stress release, connection, and healing, among many other proven benefits.  Here is one medical study I found most interesting on the subject, especially in its SCOPE of study.  But imagine being cursed to spend your whole life avoiding that one thing?  Rogue can never feel safe, loved, or held by others the way “normal people” experience it, so her required adaptation is to learn how to source feelings of safety, stress reduction, and community through different means (but I never understood at the end of the movie if we ever get to literally know what that is for her so if you know PLZ TELL ME).  

In the movie, mutants are gathered and educated at an institute for them that one of the characters affectionately refers to as “mutant high”.  In this safe environment, people such as Rogue can learn how to adapt to their mutations and even learn how to control them or utilize their abilities for the good of others.  

I bet they have a lot of ethics classes in that school!  An ability can be used for good things and bad things (if you believe in binaries or dichotomies anyways, as Hollywood movies tend to operate), but this depends on the disposition of the person using an ability.  For example, Professor X is a mutant character and he is the founder of mutant high.  He is also a teacher there.  His mutant ability is that he can read and control the thoughts of others.  I guess he could become a bitter or spiteful man and justify using his ability for “evil”.  But, because he kept this in check somehow (that we don’t really get to know as viewers), he uses his abilities to do “good” instead, by committing himself to the lifelong work of helping other mutants harness, control, and understand their superpowers.  (Maybe dude had a REALLY good therapist for enough steady years in a row!)  I do find it interesting that among all the mutants in the movie - there are NOT many elders present.  There is only Professor X and his fellow mutant/nemesis Magneto.  (But it is stated in the movie that other mutants’ ages can be hard to tell due to their superpowers sometimes).  That feels like a testament to the fact that, according to the movie, mutant lives are ROUGH given the societies they live in, so elder age is rare to encounter.  It’s probably why the X-Men invest so heavily in educating new generations of mutants.

Magneto is an “evil” mutant in the story and even though he fights with Professor X, he is also his comrade and old friend.  At the end of the movie, after these dudes do all this EPIC BATTLE with each other, they still play a game of chess!  (Because in the end, mutants know mutants, and will always understand each other at the very core of the matter.)

Magneto has the ability to command magnetic fields, meaning that among other abilities, he can control metal objects.  The movie opens with a scene from his traumatic childhood in which he is shown as a young child entering an extermination camp during World War II.  As he is ripped apart from his parents by the Nazis, in his heightened state of emotion as well as physical restraint/violence against him, he somehow bends an entire metal fence nearby.  The phenomenon does not stop until one of the Nazis knocks him unconscious.  Throughout the whole movie, it is suggested that mutants originally become aware of their superpowers via moments of intense trauma, which is the first step in learning how to harness them.

Later in life, Magneto becomes a mutant who espouses an “us-against-them” mentality.  This is the fallacy that causes him to use his mutant abilities for “evil”.  It leads to his egoism, like in the movie he claims that mutants are inherently “better” than non-mutants.  He claims the mutants are a more “highly evolved” version of a normal human, and this hierarchical view is what maybe drives his destructive behaviors and actions.  This dude just wants to fight hierarchy with a different hierarchy after a lifetime of constant threats from a hierarchy!  On the other hand, Professor X is presented as a calm, collected man who believes in the potential of all humans working and living together as one.  He still remains committed to helping other mutants specifically, since he has the resources to do so, although I do find it interesting that we never learn as viewers exactly how or why he has those resources nor get to see or hear about his mutant-self past even though we learn about so many others.  What we do know as viewers is that Professor X is “visibly” disabled, as he is a wheelchair user. As a viewer, I assume he went through lots of his own trauma growing up as a mutant, but I am not privy to that.  I only get to see the bounty of his success in overcoming whatever that was in his past- such as the school he built for mutant children and the facilities underneath it built for fighting evil.  I wonder if this is some kind of story device - like are we not supposed to know the past of the mind-reader because he is the one who knows all?  Since he is always “listening” to the thoughts of others, is that why he doesn’t talk as much about his own? Or was his necessary adaptation (to managing his superpower)  becoming a person who communicates differently? IDK but… SO MANY QUESTIONS

I spent 12 hours watching this one movie today (which has an actual running time of 1 hour and 44 minutes).  I had to keep stopping it to process all my disorganized thoughts as they happen in “real time” (as opposed to crip time) so I’m glad I could accommodate this random brain activity today. It’s usually annoying having to stop and start a movie like that, understandably so. Usually, I can only digest films at my own pace when I am alone.

In the X-Men movie, there is nothing inherently “WRONG” with the mutants, nor are their abilities presented as things that should be pathologized nor ‘treated’ as a means of eradication of the ability.  It just means they have to pay extra care and attention sometimes, attune themselves, and learn to meet their needs as they arise.  The evil politician/artificially-turned mutant dies as a result of complications from his induced mutation because he couldn’t adapt to his new condition, physically speaking.  This makes me think of chronic conditions/disabilities acquired later in life, and how that varies in experience to those one has experienced for all of their life.  His death also speaks to how acquiring a mutation/superpower/disability changes your whole outlook on everything you ever knew. Before he dies, he essentially tells Storm that he finally kinda knows how she feels, being a mutant and all, after spending his entire political career hunting down people such as herself. It took becoming a mutant himself to truly understand the realities of her experiences of life. (But then he literally dies immediately after that.)

According to X-Men, a “superpower” (or “disability”) is something one needs to adapt to, learn to understand, and know better about the self so that you can use this ability to help the self and others.  So, SHOUT OUT TO EVERYONE ELSE OUT THERE doing “the work” of trying to adapt and understand.  It is strange trying to get to know yourself internally while struggling so hard to adapt externally.  The kind of work you never get paid for (because there is no way to monetize it, especially under existing systems and structures; it simply exists outside of any “transactional” paradigm at all - but try explaining that to a capitalist!).  But it’s the kind of work we never even sought nor asked for either - as an experience, its not a PLEASURE, it’s an ENDURANCE and also one we have no other mortal choice but to execute.  But, it is our work, nonetheless, and so be it. I know that 12 hours is *annoyingly* long to spend digesting one movie, I agree!  But only when compared to some arbitrary “norm”.  I liked how this movie makes me see the value in moving towards acceptance rather than away from it. Sooooo I give it A+ , 10/10, Siskel & Ebert give it twenty three blow jobs and 600 bitcoin! Go inve$t in a watch of X-Men todayTM 

Side note - in this X-Men movie, the character of “Storm” is played by Halle Berry, who is a ~*~type 1 diabetic~*~*