Is X-Men viral video linking film to JFK assassination in bad taste?

Friday 22 November 2013 marked the anniversary of the assassination of President Kennedy, the 35th President of the United States.
 
Fifty years have passed since that fateful day the Leader of the Free World passed through Dealey Plaza in Dallas, Texas before meeting his fate at the hands of gunman Lee Harvey Oswald, as wife Jackie looked on helplessly.

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To mark the occasion, the marketing team behind 'X-Men: Days of Future Past' released a viral video pointing to a website www.thebentbullet.com. The video and site implicates Erik Lehnsherr, the mutant known as Magneto in the X-Men films, for the death of John F Kennedy.

The video, and the accompanying article builds a convincing alternate history back-story explaining Magneto’s connection with the book-store sniper Oswald, supporting the fictional claim with images and videos, planting Lehnsherr (played by Michael Fassbender) on the famed grassy knoll.

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Magneto’s mutant abilities to control metal objects through the power of his mind is a neat way of explaining the “Magic Bullet Theory” first popularized by Oliver Stone’s 'JFK', and the viral site offers an entertaining alternate take on the events of the assassination, as seen through the prism of the Mutant themes explored by the 'X-Men' series.

It’s a smart piece of accompanying fiction that links the real world with the fictional comics. The previous film in the series - 'X-Men: First Class' - did the same thing smartly with the Cuban Missile Crisis, and it wouldn’t be the first superhero film to tread on the grassy knoll, as 2009's 'Watchmen' posited anti-hero The Comedian as the trigger-puller, but it does beg the question –Is it bad timing by the studio? Or are we just being oversensitive?

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The events of JFK’s death have been recreated, repackaged, and regurgitated numerous times, so it’s unlikely that a short viral video created to promote a movie is event going to be noticed by the Kennedy family, let alone cause offense.

But it’s the deliberate timing that just feels odd, especially when set against the dignified and touching tributes that happened in the real world. Suggesting an alternate timeline to the event in the form of a viral clip to help plug a blockbuster movie in this context is a fairly distasteful and shameless attention-grabbing way to promote your movie, regardless of whether it’s a piece of fiction or not. Marketeers – consider this a slap on the wrists.
 
It’s a shame, because there’s already huge buzz around the film without the silly marketing, thanks in part to the superb trailer that came out last month (see below).

X-Men: Days of Future Past will hit UK cinemas May 22, 2014.

What do you think of the video? Let us know in the comments section below.