The X-Men fit with Midnight’s Children so extraordinarily well, it is almost uncanny. A cynic could say that the X-Men’s habit of rewriting and ret-conning the past makes them as reliable of narrators as Saleem; however, there is much more in the relationship between the two texts. At heart, both are tales of a group of mysterious people people who for no real apparent reason display a variety of superpowers (many of the same powers, in fact.) The Midnight’s Children have their powers as result of being born on or close to midnight on the day of India’s independence, the (original) X-Men because they were conceived vaguely in the vicinity of nuclear power plants. Of course, there are numerous differences. Chief among these being the X-Men work to stop evil mutants and fight for their survival, and the Midnight’s wandered around as two of their members hunted them down and placed them in camps. This is where the particular example of the film version of Days of Future Past becomes relevant. The Midnight’s Children are rounded up by the combined efforts of Shiva and a amnesiac Saleem, working for the government to destroy their own. They do this for no reason other than the government said to, and for the destruction it brings. Similarly, Days of Future Past features a brilliant scientist who determines the Mutants are a threat to the world, so he creates a force of giant robots to hunt them down and place them in camps (this leads the X-Men to send one of their own back in time to prevent this from ever happening; The Midnight’s Children simply cease to exist). The X-Men provide an alternate look at a similar situation, Helping to show that this series of events is not unique to the pages of Rushdie’s novel, and may be found elsewhere.
This leads to an interesting conclusion. Both texts feature a group of far beyond average people being hunted down by a government which fears them. While the majority of people involved are not harmful, there is a small segment of the population which is extremely harmful (Shiva for one, the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants for the other.) Instead of looking for the actual criminals, they allow fear to rule and wipe out everyone involved. This leads one to ask why this is, and if this occurs in the real world. Both of these texts become a reflection of how fear and paranoia can greatly affect the world at large. In Midnight’s Children, the face of a nation is changed in reaction to fear. In X-Men, the face of the world. After viewing these, we must ask how the X-Men strengthen this portion of the plot from Midnight’s Children, and how likely something like this would be to change everything. At the very least, it shows the dangerous power of fear to the world.
"X-Men: Days of Future Past Official Trailer 2". Dir. Bryan Singer. 20th Century Fox, 2014. Web.
Curated by Zachary Lewis
I didn't even make the connection between the two at first but the more I think about it the more parallels I see. I really like that you found something completely different than Midnight's Children to showcase how the effects of fear and blind faith in a larger organization transcend cultural boundaries. I was also thinking about the "history is written by the victors" concept and how that might carry into Midnight's Children (Saleem lying about Shiva's death, Saleem maybe dying) and the X-Men, well any Marvel movie, being constantly rewritten.
ReplyDeleteThis was great, it just adds to another reason for Rushdie's criticism. Though I don't believe all art works can be truly unique, I wonder how much of an influence early X-Men comics may have had on Rushdie, and his writing process. This also brings me to ask, what else influenced Rushdie to write such an expansive novel. I would be very interested to hear him contrast his own work to that of Gabriel García Márquez, or even Isabella Allende; both authors who portrayed through magical realism, the political turmoil of their countries. I wonder what else was published during Rushdie'es era that may have followed in the same style and suit, but maybe retained less action, and focused more on a smaller narrative tale, rather than Rushdie's expansive juggernaut of a tale.
ReplyDelete---Edward Montalvo