Arts & Entertainment - page 2

 In 2016, the R-rated superhero movie Deadpool was released to the public, and although it was not the first Superhero movie to be R-rated, this one was a major turning point for Marvel movies.

  No matter a character’s backstory, when Marvel makes movies based on their heroes, it seems that they’ve been afraid to make a superhero film that was not rated PG-13, because they feared that it would not bring in enough profit. This fear would lead to them watering down stories because a group of four people, the average family dynamic, watching a movie is more profitable than just one or two individuals watching it. Deadpool went on to do extremely well, attaining over $700 million in the box office.

   When it was announced that the new Wolverine movie would be R-rated, fans of the hero who’d been begging for an R-rated film were very excited. Logan was the product that fans had been waiting for, and although it’s been said to be less action-packed than viewers were expecting, it does set a new trend that superhero movies can follow.

   The character of Wolverine throughout the comic books series was always portrayed as a wild, violent individual, and although it is seen throughout Logan, it is not nearly as dramatic.

  The movie, however, gives Wolverine the “Watchmen treatment,” which is a DC comic book that explores heroes when they are at their lowest and weariest. As a result, there is less of a focus on the violence and more emphasis on character development.

  The title of the movie is appropriate because this is one of the most personal superhero movies, digging deep into Logan’s personality, as he is tasked with smuggling a girl across the country, protecting her from villains searching for her, while simultaneously learning more about her as the story progresses.

  The acting in the movie is acceptable. The reason why it is considered good but not great, is because there are child actors in this movie… a lot of them. Although the young actress who plays a significant role (Dafne Keen) is great, the other child actors in the movie seemed to be overacting in certain scenes. When it comes to Oscar nominated Hugh Jackman (Wolverine) and Golden Globe winner Patrick Stewart (Charles Xavier), the acting was amazing. Boyd Holbrook, who plays the main antagonist, was very great as well.

  The movie touched on some adult themes, such as suicide, immigration and even racist subjects that are rarely touched upon in superhero movies, which is usually to be commended. It was surprising to see that some scenes were extreme tear-jerkers.

  Overall, Logan was an amazing superhero movie that is not shy to show its hero at his lowest and exploit his deep emotions but still manage to cast him in a different light of vulnerability, which is the opposite of what a superhero is. It was less of a superhero movie and more a heartfelt bonding story between two characters.

   During the African American Civil Rights movement in the United States (1955-1966), there were protests for equal rights for the Black community, especially those in the South. Southern states had in place the “Jim Crow” law, which prohibited African-Americans from sharing the same bathrooms, restaurants, and theaters with white individuals. It basically marginalized them because of their race.

    In 1963, Marvel Comics released the first issue Uncanny X-Men, written by Stan Lee; this comic book is what begin the X-Men franchise. “The X-Men” are a group of mutants that are feared and hated by humans just because they were mutant; the correlation of this story with the events occurring in this era was obvious.

   In 1982, Chris Claremont, a longtime writer of  X-Men comic books, said, “The X-Men are hated, feared, and despised collectively by humanity for no other reason than that they are mutants. So what we have…intended or not, is a book that is about racism, bigotry, and prejudice.”

  In these comic books, one of the villains, Magneto, believes that humans should be completely destroyed by mutants so that mutants could live in peace, while Professor Xavier, who is a protagonist, believes that humans and mutants could live in harmony without any violence. These two opposing ideologies resemble those of Martin Luther King. Jr and Malcolm Little (Malcolm X). Little thought that the black community should forcibly fight for their rights, while King believed that they should fight for their rights by means of peaceful action.

   In 1966, still during the Civil Rights era, Marvel introduced the first mainstream black superhero in Fantastic Four Vol. 1 #52. In this issue of the Fantastic Four, the heroes pay Black Panther a visit in his fictional African country of Wakanda, where he shows them his power by hunting them.

   In later issues, he fights alongside the “Fantastic Four,” a group mainly composed of white members. These comics not only show Marvel’s inclusion of minorities but also their implied opinion of laws like the “Jim Crow” law. By having heroes of different races and backgrounds fight alongside one another, it showed that they were against any sort of segregation and marginalization.

  Marvel went on to prove this even more by creating the first openly gay superhero called Northstar in 1979, a year after the first openly gay politician, and gay rights activist,  Harvey Milk, was assassinated by Dan White, who was charged with manslaughter rather than murder. In 2013, “Ms. Marvel” (Carol Danvers), a white superheroine, was rebooted into a Muslim, Pakistani-American teenager called Kamala Khan in Captain Marvel Vol.7 issue #14. Ever since 9/11, the United States has been undergoing a transitional period where the Muslim population are now those being marginalized because of their religion by some people in the country.

  Recently there was a law put in place by President Donald Trump that banned refugees and citizens from certain Muslim countries. Katie M. Logan of The Conversation, in an article called “Why America needs Marvel superhero Kamala Khan now more than ever,” said that Kamala Khan “challenges the assumptions many Americans have about Muslims and is a radical departure from how the media tend to depict Muslim-Americans. She shows how Muslim-Americans and immigrants are not forces that threaten communities – as some would argue – but are people who can strengthen and preserve them.”

  Today Marvel Comics is currently the leading comic books publisher in the world because they take pride in diversifying their comic books.