Is “X-Men: First Class” a Hit Because of Its Messages?

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And so it is with “X-Men: First Class.” The film is based on a 50-year-old comic, but the SFX are totally 2011. And at the same time, the film brings a sharp eye to present-day issues, most notably the issues of tolerance and quality in a diverse society. Bullying? Intolerance? Prejudice? It’s all there to be noodled on, woven into a tale of mutants stretching from the Holocaust of World War Two to the nuclear fears of the Cold War. And if it’s easy enough to guess where a Hollywood movie comes down on the issue of gay tolerance, the film’s perspective on human evolution might be unnerving to many on the left, as well as the right.

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Back in the early 60s, [Stan] Lee intended “X-Men” to be a parable about racial prejudice in America. The X-Men (and Women) were a minority of mutants, and, as such, they suffered discrimination and alienation. But of course, they had superpowers, and so while they were sometimes shunned for their differentness, they were also feared for their power.

Thus the questions: Should mutants seek to blend in (integration), or should they seek to live by themselves, separate and apart from the larger society (mutant power)? Moreover, should mutants seek to improve society–or should they go to war against it?

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Yet the theme of the film–in between, of course, the stunts and explosions–is tolerance for difference. And so the new “X-Men” becomes a kind of coded meditation on the related themes of bullying and gay rights. Most of the major characters have a moment when they discover, to their visible relief, that they are not alone in their mutant-ness–others are like them.

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Nazi murderers aside, human evolution is a touchy subject for many on all sides of the belief spectrum. Even the secular left gets nervous when the subject of human evolution, leading to human difference, comes into play.

Two decades ago, a book that argued that intelligence was partly of a function of genetics, “The Bell Curve: Intelligence and Class Structure in American Life,” by Richard Herrnstein and Charles Murray, caused a political firestorm. Indeed, those fires still smolder today, flaring up sometimes when issues of school-testing and achievement scores arise.

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Beyond the special effects, maybe “X-Men” is a already a hit (number 1 box office movie this past weekend) because it probes our deepest Darwinian feelings–and fears. If science succeeds in updating the definition of “fittest,” the survival of our particular species, in its current form, could be at risk. That’s great for future mutants, but not so great for the rest of us, and our current civilization.

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