Techno-Orientalism in the X-M en Film Franchise
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X2: X-Men United is a film about the temporary unification of
mutants against a common enemy in the form of General Stryker (Brian
Cox), who is out to eradicate all mutants. In essence, it is a film about the
alliance of minorities against domination and oppression. However, the
Asian/American presence in the film stands in opposition to this
unification in the form of Stryker’s “personal assistant”
Yuriko/Deathstrike (Kelly Hu). Lady Deathstrike serves as the lurking
yellow peril who threatens the other mutants and their way of life. As
Deathstrike is the enemy of the X-Men, she mirrors the Asian/American
experience as they have historically been positioned as an evil, invasive
yellow horde and excluded from society by always being viewed as
different and not a part of the (white) body politic. Throughout the film,
Deathstrike is the silent minority as she hardly utters a word and is under
the control of and seemingly loyal to General Stryker and is always at his
disposal. When the viewer is first introduced to her, she is shown sitting
in an office in the White House while cracking her knuckles and
annoying the others in the office where she is an unwanted guest within
the predominantly white social space of the government office and is the
outsider/abject body in the scene.
During a complex and fascinating sequence in the film. Mystique
(Rebecca Romijn-Stamos) breaks into Stryker’s office to gather
information on one of the guards where Magneto is being held prisoner
in order to seduce him and inject him with iron to help Magneto escape.
As Mystique makes her way into Stryker’s office, she shape-shifts from
Senator Kelly (Bruce Davison) to Deathstrike then back to herself when
she is in front of Stryker’s computer. When she is masquerading as the
Asian/American Deathstrike she walks down a hallway where her face is
cast in shadows and she is shrouded in darkness, while as the Senator and
as herself she is well-lit and fully visible. For Richard Dyer, lighting in
film discriminates on the basis of race and it is “at the least arguable that
white society has found it hard to see non-white people as individuals;
the very notion of the individual, of the freely developing, autonomous
human person, is only applicable to those who are seen to be free and
autonomous, who are not slaves or subject peoples” (102). Film lighting
has the ability to discriminate since it is utilized in a cinema and society
that views non-white people as unsuitable subjects for proper lighting
and fails to conceive of them as individuals. Here, this phenomenon is
articulated as Deathstrike, the Asian/American Other, is largely obscured
by the lighting during this sequence and both Mystique, who is a blue
mutant in the film but portrayed by a white actress, and Senator Kelly, a