May 23, 2014

In “X-Men: Days of Future Past” This Real-Life US President Is (Probably) a Mutant

20th Century Fox

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This post contains some spoilers.

The X-Men film series, about a class of mutant superheroes and villains, has always been about the persecution of minorities. The first installment, 2000’s X-Men, drew soft parallels between the US government hunting for mutants and past Nazi atrocities. The story for 2011’s X-Men: First Class, was directly influenced by the civil rights movement and the contrast between Malcolm X and Martin Luther King, Jr.

In the latest installment, X-Men: Days of Future Past (directed by Bryan Singer, and starring Hugh Jackman, James McAvoy, Michael Fassbender, Jennifer Lawrence, Peter Dinklage, and Ellen Page), this theme continues with a storyline surrounding a fictional program from the early 1970s, approved by President Richard Nixon, that involves sending killer robots after America’s closeted mutant population. The film’s political backdrop also features a mutant-ized take on the 1973 Paris Peace Accords, where the US agreed to end direct military involvement in the Vietnam War. On top of that, the new X-Men flick deepens the alternate history explored in the franchise by suggesting that this handsome devil was secretly a mutant:

John F. Kennedy

NASA/Wikimedia Commons

Yep. That’s John F. Kennedy, the 35th president of the United States.

In the film, Erik Lehnsherr, a.k.a. Magneto, (played by Fassbender) is being held in a secret prison beneath the Pentagon for his alleged involvement in the JFK assassination. After his fellow X-Men break him out of prison, he claims that he was wrongly convicted and that he was actually trying to save the president from Lee Harvey Oswald’s bullet. His reason? “He was one of us,” Magneto says.

To be fair, this is a brief moment in the movie, and it is never clarified if “one of us” means JFK was a mutant or something along the lines of a friend of the oppressed mutant community. One plausible interpretation of Magneto’s claim here is that it pays homage to the aborted “Princess Diana is a zombie mutant superhero!” plot from the X-Statix spin-off.

We can only assume that JFK’s secret mutant powers consisted of killing Iraqi liberals and rampant lechery.

Now here’s a fake mini-documentary released in November that summarizes Magneto’s alleged involvement in the JFK assassination:

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WHO DOESN’T LOVE A POSITIVE STORY—OR TWO?

“Great journalism really does make a difference in this world: it can even save kids.”

That’s what a civil rights lawyer wrote to Julia Lurie, the day after her major investigation into a psychiatric hospital chain that uses foster children as “cash cows” published, letting her know he was using her findings that same day in a hearing to keep a child out of one of the facilities we investigated.

That’s awesome. As is the fact that Julia, who spent a full year reporting this challenging story, promptly heard from a Senate committee that will use her work in their own investigation of Universal Health Services. There’s no doubt her revelations will continue to have a big impact in the months and years to come.

Like another story about Mother Jones’ real-world impact.

This one, a multiyear investigation, published in 2021, exposed conditions in sugar work camps in the Dominican Republic owned by Central Romana—the conglomerate behind brands like C&H and Domino, whose product ends up in our Hershey bars and other sweets. A year ago, the Biden administration banned sugar imports from Central Romana. And just recently, we learned of a previously undisclosed investigation from the Department of Homeland Security, looking into working conditions at Central Romana. How big of a deal is this?

“This could be the first time a corporation would be held criminally liable for forced labor in their own supply chains,” according to a retired special agent we talked to.

Wow.

And it is only because Mother Jones is funded primarily by donations from readers that we can mount ambitious, yearlong—or more—investigations like these two stories that are making waves.

About that: It’s unfathomably hard in the news business right now, and we came up about $28,000 short during our recent fall fundraising campaign. We simply have to make that up soon to avoid falling further behind than can be made up for, or needing to somehow trim $1 million from our budget, like happened last year.

If you can, please support the reporting you get from Mother Jones—that exists to make a difference, not a profit—with a donation of any amount today. We need more donations than normal to come in from this specific blurb to help close our funding gap before it gets any bigger.

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