X-Men: First Class proves that everyone loves Nazis

Whoa. I just read my title. I realized that SOME people may interpret this title the wrong way. But let me make this clear: I love Nazis too.

As far as I am concerned, there are two types of Holocaust films (excluding documentaries). There are movies like Schindler’s List and A Beautiful Life, meant to portray the Holocaust on a gritty, emotional level. If you have dry eyes after these movies, you are either a horrible monster, have a medical condition, or both.

The other type of more recent Holocaust movies are when the protagonist either kills Nazi, or even better a Jew who kills Nazis. For example, Quentin Tarantino’s Inglorious Basterds, or The Resistance with Daniel Craig. Both these films portrayed Jews who took vengeance on the Germans, allowing for some mild vindication.

And then there’s the films that have Jewish Nazi-hunting protagonists with a Nazi agenda. This is where X-Men: First Class comes in.

Erik Lehnsherr, aka Magneto, is THE Jewish character of the film.  Played by Michael Fassbender, who was a Nazi-killer in Inglorious Basterds, Eric is a Holocaust survivor with a unquenchable thirst for Nazi scalpin’.

This part was SO James-Bond-esque

What makes this movie so amazing is Fassbender’s performance. Erik is Cold War-era James Bond meets Massad agent in the film Munich. He is a man motivated by his past, by the horrors of the Holocaust. The Holocaust is what fuels Erik’s paranoia throughout the film, peaking at neo-conservative levels.

Professor Charles Xavier: That’s enough, Erik! There are hundreds of people aboard those ships, who are just following orders!
Erik Lehnsherr: I’ve been at the mercy of men just following orders…never again!

Erik’s answer to fear is to exploit the same genetic Nazi theories that he so despised. Erik argued that mutants are genetically superior to regular humans. Therefore, the mutants should be in control of the world, and should decimate the humans (the lesser species) before they fight back and try to eradicate the superhumans. It’s a battle of ‘us vs them’.

Pretty fucked up, huh?

This is what makes the movie so good. Eric’s personality is complex, multi-faceted. Having survived the worst genocide in history, Eric will do anything to ensure that he and ‘his people’ (strangely he drops his Jewish upbringing entirely to embrace mutant-kind) are not persecuted, tortured, and abused by science, in the same way Eric and many other Jews were persecuted.

If you see one movie this weekend, make it X-Men: First Class. You won’t regret it.