I can accept that summer action films have a certain obligation to pander to the lowest-common-teenage-boy-denominator. I can accept that the boobies/explosion to dialogue ratio has to be high. But what I can’t stomach is the fact that every single female character Matthew Vaughn’s X-Men First Class — except for Prof. X and Magneto’s Mothers — needs to be objectified throughout the duration of the film.
It would be one thing if we were just talking about a “token female” character, but the cast is littered with women, and every single one is either completely or partially naked at some point in the movie.
Don’t get me wrong — I liked X-Men. It was a lot of fun. But I couldn’t help but be distracted at the way in which having Emma Frost turn to diamond or Mystique turn …
… into her blue skinned/red-haired self was basically an excuse to show the actresses as nude as possible without losing their PG-13 rating.
Even when the women were human, there was never a time when January Jones’s breasts were not shoved up somewhere around her neck, even when wearing a full-body jump suit. It’s little wonder why people suspect Jones and Vaughn had an affair on the movie, given that she was near-naked the whole time at his behest. Jennifer Lawrence was constantly clad in skin-tight, very short and often low-cut dresses, and when she finally gets to suit up as a member of the team, she is the only person whose top is zipped down to the middle of her chest. One would think that would be something of a safety concern, given that the suits are meant to protect them. Rebecca Romijn has a quick cameo as Mystique where she is, of course, naked and in a bed.
As for the other women in the movie, Zoe Kravitz is “discovered” by Professor X and Magneto while stripping. When she shows the pair her mutation, she unhooks her bra while they lounge on a bed and look impressed — at her dragonfly wings. She spends the rest of the movie in skintight leather Daisy Dukes and crop tops.
Rose Byrne, who plays CIA agent Moira McTaggart, strips to her bra and panties in the very first scene so that she can infiltrate some kind of Playboy club. Later in the movie, Byrne is told that her behavior is the reason women don’t belong in the CIA. Byrne also disappears for about an hour, leading me to struggle to remember who she was when she finally reappeared near the end of the film, despite having been a major character up to this point.
… I think you get it. My problem is not the sexualization of these women, but the fact that Mystique’s unzipped suit or Jones’s near-constant partial nudity or Kravitz’s Daisy Dukes or McTaggart’s silly lady ideas were not only unnecessary, but ran completely counter to the supposed point of the movie — embracing your individuality, accepting yourself, being your own person, etc. These strong, empowered women didn’t really strike me as the type who thought to themselves, “You know, I’m about to go into mutant battle. I better show off my titties” or “I no longer have to strip, and I’ve mentioned several times how I hated stripping, but I’ll dress like I’m working the poll anyhow.”
What’s your take? Is exposed ladyflesh just an accepted, unchangeable fact of summer blockbusters? Or did Vaughn go too far in his objectification of all his female actors?
I think it’s interesting that the setting was the swinging 60′s which somehow translated into half-naked women a la a 90′s teensploitation film. It was like they took the bra burning mentality of the women’s rights movement and took all the meaning out of it by rendering it a visual smorgasbord for the two male leads, Xavier and Magneto. Xavier, in particular, came across as creepy.
I told my boyfriend about this, we are going to see the film on Weds and the city is plastered with billboards advertising X-Men. All the men are fully dressed, and the two (TWO!) women featured on the billboard are either naked, like the blue lady, or in their underwear, like the blond lady. It makes me very angry.
Why?
Is that a rhetorical or sarcastic question?
On a side note, is January Jones actually *able* to make facial expressions? I saw her smile a couple of times in Mad Men, but other than that she always seems to have the exact same blank face as she does in the pictures above. As for the rest of the article, I wasn’t too bothered by Mystique’s nudity/sexiness, since that’s actually a part of her character, but the other women…sheesh. Was there any man flesh to balance it out?
Mystique’s nakedness is a result of the earlier movies because it would have been too expensive for them to CGI her clothing. In the comics, she wore a white dress with a belt of skulls.
*sigh*
Well, not going to watch that movie, then. I’m not a huge fan of seeing naked women without naked men to go with it.
Why is it when women dress like this in a movie it’s insulting but when women dress like this in real life it’s empowering?
The power dynamic is what made it insulting, not the clothing.
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It’s not necessarily empowering, but as feminists, we support one another’s decisions to dress as such. In a movie, however, we question the director/writer/producer’s decisions to blatantly display women as obvious objectified sexual objects. And given that the Emma Frost character was so poorly acted/written and not at all powerful, it was insulting. Same thing for Mystique who was constantly throwing herself at Xavier.
Two of the four writers were female. Does that make a difference now?
Not really. You have to do what you are told at work, and no matter these female writers’ convictions, if they refused to do this, they would have found other writers to do it.
If an African-American uses the N-word, does it cease to be a racist term? No.
If a female writer writes a sexist scene, does it cease to be sexist? Again, no.
Women can be unbelievably sexist against other women, so the fact that this film had female writers neither surprises me nor excuses the fact that the scenes like with the jumpsuits, as mireee pointed out, were undeniably sexist in nature. There was no reason other than titties!!!!!1 to show Mystique’s cleavage when every other (male) character had their jumpsuits zipped up to their chin. It was dumb and obvious.
Actually, an African-American can call another African-American the N-word and the Africian-American using the N-word would not considered it racist. The word itself is racist only depending on its connotation. I don’t see how a female writer could write a sexist scene for another female. I think we are also getting the defintion of the word sexist confused in this instance also. I can see using the word “degrading” but not “sexist”. For example, can you give me an example of how a male could write a male in a sexist/degrading scene? I am serious here because I don’t know. Again I’d like to state if a scene is truly “sexist” then the female could just say “no” I am not doing that scene or in this case I am not wearing that low-cut jumpsuit.
What are you referring to? I don’t think anyone views Victoria’s Secret as empowering.
I took it as women who wear cleavage baring, short skirts, too high heels, etc in the workplace. The kind of clothing that walks a fine line between professional and professionally slutty.
DO people view that as empowering?
Because according to current standard, anything that a woman chooses to do is ‘empowering!’.
So when women dress a certain way in real life, they are being ‘empowered!’.
When men decide how a woman will dress in a movie, it’s demeaning.
You didn’t expect actual logic, did you?
1. How do we know it was a “man” that decided what clothes a woman wears in this movie or any movie for that matter? Because one of the four producers of “X-Men first class” is female and two of the four screenwriters are female according to Wikipedia.
….
2. If it is a man that makes that decision, the ultimate decision to wear the clothing still lies with the actress. Is there a gun to her head? Does she not have free will to say no? If the clothing is demeaning, then the actress demeaned herself by making that choice.
I don’t think anyone cares about the actress – it’s the character and the way that the character is written.
It must have been a man, because the women don’t like it – therefore of course it was a man. Or maybe, just maybe, and even worse, it was a woman selling out her own sex to please teh menz!!!
I’m really not serious here, eh?
I haven’t seen the movie and I don’t give a damn what they wear. I have also stated many times that if you don’t like something, don’t pay for it – I don’t think there’s anything wrong with a company playing to what will sell with the targeted audience.
I’m just trying to explain the thought process to you. It’s hard to understand for people accustomed to logical premises.
It is easier than that — there is a scene where they are all wearing protective jumpsuits, zipped up to their necks, all of them except Mystique who has got it zipped down to show her breasts. It is so obvious why is it done it is almost awkward to watch. That is why I found the film to be sexist.
Am I in a movie? Is that what it is?
Ok I think I get it kind of better but still am a little confused.
I think they were making movies on someone else that I know too. I wonder how he is. And I wonder if you’ve heard of him… I just call him Howie.
I wonder if any of my ex-boyfriends are in here right now.
Sleeper agents?
I have something for you. It’s by Prince Phillip from the movie in the pink a little while ago. The Art shows always have details on these. Anyway:
http://www.whataboutourdaughters.com/waod/2011/6/3/so-is-anybody-going-to-go-see-the-help.html
Prince Phillip no longer works in the movie industries and has since his role in this movie have been racooning it on telephone he says to Ronald MacDonald the jailer and masking of the red (now blue) parade called death. The lambs instead of being slaughtered also have been instead, strangled due to the lack of too much oxygen content in their silly balloon and play figure skits.
Mark the vagina in this case.
So is Jen the culprit or is it her evil stepmother daddy police warrent. Anna Ron Act. Now.
Dead. All of you.
Green. Program self act of committed suicide. So what when there are no guns, there is a knife… ? So it goes. Try to pay a little bit more attention to it this time around please. You are really getting quite messy with things. I am hoping this means that what I think it means has come true so fast.
Yes. I am sure it is because Cleopatra herself has yet again defied our mass and hath spoken up from her oh so obvious liking and needing of me yet again so soon.
You know, you girls are going to end up burning us out with these more than usual pleas and objections to your causes of harm.
Are you, perchance, on acid? Or were you at the time you typed this?
LOL Erin.
I clicked on the link, hoping it would either help me understand, or at worst, give me a virus. I am happy to say I am virus free.
Honestly, I didn’t really notice all the boobage. I was more much more focused on the plot and the interactions between Xavier and Magneto (which was very good). Though I was very distracted by the lack of dimension in Emma Frost/January Jones. I don’t know if it was her or the script, but it felt like she was just playing a less talkative Mrs. Draper, sans slapping children around.
Brian,
Easy for you to say as a man. Males aren’t often put into that position where they have to choose to do those things. I’ve heard plenty of guys bitching about Thor and to them I say “Finally, you know how tiresome it is watching strong female characters get undermined by their tits and asses.” But still, they don’t get it.
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As for a sexist/degrading male scene: let’s see, something involving sodomy, a scene where the hero doesn’t go out fighting in a slick outfit fully armed but instead in his bathrobe and flip flops (and it’s not a comedy), where a man has to perform a degrading sexual act on a female in order to get/keep a job or something equivalent, where the hero cries in pain (and it’s not a comedy), a movie where the hero wears nothing but a loin cloth regardless of weather or situation and that loin cloth leaves nothing to the imagination, a scene where a man has to put up with a boorish crass female boss who makes him feel harassed (and it’s not a comedy). . .
Thanks for the response. You make some valid points. As a man it is sometimes hard for me to understand some of the finer points.
When you said you were honestly curious, I felt like I had to give it a shot. :) It’s really hard trying to come up with examples, though because I’m not “trained” to think about sexism aimed at guys.
A comparatively prominent case of sexism against males in film is virtually anything domestic (outside of home repair and other acceptably “manly” domestic chores). Sitcom dads are always cartoonishly inept at everything (the sexism flipside there is that their wives are always shrill control freak harpies who are always cleaning up their husbands’ horrible stupid messes but really they just need to lighten up or whatever), and it gets worse whenever fathers are put in charge of their children on top of any other domestic matter. God help a movie guy if he has to actually watch his children for longer than 15 minutes (and it’s always forced, like the wife is in the hospital or on vacation or a business trip, never because they actually wanted to for whatever reason).
It’s strange to think about how long it’s been since Mr. Mom was released and how poor the attitudes still are towards men in the home and men as caretakers. I can’t give you specific examples off the top of my head, because I do try to avoid those types of films and TV shows (although Modern Family is a guilty pleasure for me there because it’s just so absurd and because the two non-traditional families are delightful), but I once had an acquaintance who was a stay-at-home dad and would on occasion discuss how awful it felt to be constantly bombarded by caricatures of his life choices in the media – more in commercials than actual features because more often than not, films don’t even HAVE stay-at-home dads unless they’re played for laughs.
For women it’s unnecessary sexualization in tasks that shouldn’t be sexual. For men it seems to be unnecessary emasculation in tasks that shouldn’t be emasculating.
Excellent assessment!
That is very easy to understand and makes a lot of sense.
Damn nat you nailed it!
Re: xmen, not sure why all the hand wringing when everyone should know by now what it take to get people to the movies….skin sells….and what with the ‘power dynamic” schlock….classic attempt to over-intellectualize an age old marketing tool.
I agree with the “sex sells”. My guess is many producers/ writers/ directors aren’t actively thinking how can I be sexist, they are thinking how can I make the most money. Bottom line it’s *usually* about money.
And it’s sexist that making money means having men characters with whom you can or at least want to identify…and women characters with whom teenage boys want to have sex.
Saying it’s about money doesn’t mean the sexism has magically gone away. A sexist movie isn’t suddenly non-sexist (or feminist) because the people with the creative power only made it sexist to make money.
Being willing to demean women for money when you wouldn’t be willing to demean women if you weren’t getting paid doesn’t make a given person non-sexist. It makes them a professional sexist.
Another excellent point!
What’s more depressing is that the director (Matthew Vaughn) and the cast all banged on about how this movie was different to most other comic book movies – how focused they were on the drama, plot and characters. Obviously not THAT focused, eh?
Noo, focused on the drama, plot and characters with penises.
Gee, What a shock. Movie makers have realized that men like to look at women without clothes on. I thought that was a big secret.
I am just letting it be made known so that I am able to protect myself from my living masters and gods from getting angry with me about this, learning from how I am treated on here all because of my love of sex and pain. My breasts have not been located or put down in the collection of records being dispersed and going on right now from what this site says.
Breast Cancer Awareness month too is coming right up so I also would not like to miss any showings and therefore ruin it for the good of all. Torture month is now. I’m not sure if that means anything. But you might. You may have located the breasts. One side of them. Keep going there are at least three that I know they use always with me. It’s like my RFID chip I guess. Jeez I wish a had a nice big barcode tatoo on my forehead to have it at least be made shown to everyone that it is what it is in stead of tatooing the breasts with markings over the flesh. I see. This was done because of the stripped lining on that first picture. Skeletal ribs and bones is what they are called. That would be the inside view and image of the breasts. (and the chest).
You may find the rest and do what you will with them now.
Czar, don’t forget I am counting on you. I hope the difference between the two doubles I had created does not interfere with your me needing you… you get thing.
So is Howie like a double for Jon and Jon another double for blank or something? Because I really want to know.
Please stop talking now.
Have any of you complainers actually seen an X-Men comic?
I collected all the X books (X-Men, Uncanny X-Men, X-Factor, X-Calibur, and X-Force) from 1988-1998 and then I collected again in the early 2000′s until I grew bored. While the women were dressed sexily (and let’s not forget the lamentable swimsuit one-shot in the 90′s) they were more than eye candy. This movie turns them into shrewish, petty, vapid, tits with special powers.
Gods, yes, it was horrible. Between the sexism and the fact that the only black main character died in the first fight (and was the ONLY character on the team to die), I have to say I’m surprised all this slipped through the radar like that.