We Will Not, X-Men: First Class and the Us Or Else EP

Instead of the gay rights allegory that we are usually given, Matthew Vaughan instead chooses to make an organization like the Hellfire Club or the Brotherhood of Mutants akin to the stereotypical representation of the Black Panther organization. Yes, it is true that 90% of Black Panthers were women and that one day a Black Panther could be walking with a handgun and the next with food for the poor. They have had violent encounters and sometimes been involved with acts of pseudo-terrorism. That is all fact and nobody is disputing that. However, there are two sides to every coin and then there is what you remember of the coin. I don't know if Black Panthers are still an organization, if they are, they aren't the same organization that existed back in the 70s/80s. Yet the violence that people remember from those eras are what Matthew Vaughan focuses on when creating characters like Riptide or Azazel. There are even shades of this in Sebastian Shaw.

However, Shaw is not a Black Panther allegory. People say Xavier is MLK Jr, Magneto is Malcolm X. Shaw is Farrakhan. A figure, ultimately a powerful figure, whose name has been cleansed by good acts and then mired by filth from the terrible upstart actions that have come as a consequence of his name. These are all things I took in mind when creating a video to represent X-Men: First Class. So I had to choose a song that held weight to those same ideals. In his last EP, TI (or TIP) released a song called We Will Not. The EP is called Us or Else and that seems to perfectly represent all that I have talked about above - especially when you consider that TI performed the EP while dressed as a Black Panther. My only regret is that I couldn't find a song from the 1960s to properly represent this scenario, if you guys know one, let me know because I'd love to listen to it.


If you liked the video, I'd appreciate it if you could like, share and subscribe or comment either below here or on YouTube. Either way, I'd like to get a discussion going on what you see in the prejudice allegory presented in X-Men: First Class.