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Men: First Class deals with a plethora of socio-political issues that ultimately pertain to the concept of freedom. The basis for the plot of the movie is the Cuban Missile Crisis and the role that an unknown, manipulative power of mutants played in almost staging -- and narrowly averting -- a nuclear war in the early part of the 1960s. What is of particular interest about this aspect of the film was that the historical epoch rendered within it was a turbulent time for African-Americans, who sought Civil Rights throughout the United States during the years prior to and after those depicted in the movie. Although none of this history manages to infiltrate the plot of the film, it is still noteworthy to analyze the way African-American characters are utilized within this movie in a context that is decidedly removed from the greater social struggles that characterized their race during this timeframe. A thorough examination of the nature and the depiction of African-American characters within X-Men: First Class reveals that the movie marginalizes this racial group and portrays them in a negative light.
One of the most convincing aspects that corroborates the notion that X-Men: First Class marginalizes African-Americans is the fact that there are noticeably few of them within the film. Although there may be more African-Americans in this movie than there are other historical minority groups, it is noteworthy that there is only one full-blooded African-American character in the film (who is actually African, the Kenyan...
In addition to Darwin, there is a character who is half-African-American and half Jewish, the actress Zoe Kravitz, who plays Angel. Both of Kravitz's
parents are of African-American and Jewish ancestry. Aside from Kravitz and Gathegi, the only other African-American characters are a pair of henchmen who operate with the primary villain of the movie, Sebastian Shaw, and who appear infrequently and are not given any lines to speak. A brief
analysis of the sheer number of African-American characters within this film reveals that due to the fact that there is only one full-blooded African-American character who is given speaking lines, African-Americans are marginalized within the context of this movie.
The usage of Gathegi's character Darwin actually goes beyond marginalization and is in alignment with the stereotypical negativity that Hollywood has routinely imbued its African-American characters with for decades. There are a number of facets of Darwin's characterization that support this viewpoint. Prior to joining the X-Men and
training with them, Darwin's occupation was that of a cabdriver-which in and of itself is not necessarily negative, yet is certainly not an occupation for one to aspire to. More significantly, however, is the fact that Darwin's character remains alive in the movie for approximately half an hour. True to the typical deployment of African-American characters in Hollywood films, Darwin's character meets an untimely death early on in the film -- certainly before any other main characters are killed. What is particularly eminent about Darwin's demise is that he is one of the protagonists, the benign X-Men, who happens to be destroyed before any of the others. It is also important to note that during the scene in which Darwin is killed, there were several X-Men who were in danger. Not surprisingly, the only one of them to meet an early fate is the lone African-American character, who chose to
sacrifice himself to help his fellow mutants escape. Throughout the remainder of the film the surviving X-Men refer to Darwin's sacrifice as noble. Yet to the viewer, the message of his early demise is quite clear -- African-American characters are expendable and marginalized within this film,…
