Are the X-Books still reflective of the real world?

[Cloudman]

I think the X-Men metaphor still works in the modern world. A handful of countries in Africa and the Middle East it is still punishable by imprisonment or death to be gay. Certain faiths are outlawed around the world and the practice of the faith is again punishable by death.

Yeah, you're not going to see many of the X-writers focus on the kind of awful discrimination prevalent in Africa/Middle East, and in their respective migrant communities in western countries though. That goes completely against the grain of 'intersectional' politics. The hateful baddies in the X-books are all white conservative types.

[wano]

The United States of America is occupied territory.

The Native American Reservations were the model for the concentration camps.
It is interesting how quickly people conveniently forget they are living on stolen
land, and Indigenous Americans have been quietly eradicated for the last 500 years and counting...

Yeah they couldn't protect it, and British people just love conquering... There's no stopping them back then and if Russia and China didn't exist today there's be no stopping America now

[wano]

Yeah, you're not going to see many of the X-writers focus on the kind of awful discrimination prevalent in Africa/Middle East, and in their respective migrant communities in western countries though. That goes completely against the grain of 'intersectional' politics. The hateful baddies in the X-books are all white conservative types.

Actually the purifiers had many black, latinos and women. They stood for humanity as whole

[Sandfall]

They are still relevant of the world, in and out. I do not just think marvel is putting as much weight any more. It feels as if you get that more with xmen movies and television than the comics.

[Tycon]

Nope. They don't go far enough. There are concentration camps in Chechnya for gay people, black slave trades in Libya, militaristic imperialism rooting its way through nearly every country, police brutality, Nazi rallies, and privileges that dictate how power dynamics play into societies as a whole.

Of course, there's the "Mutant Deportation Act" but where is the ICE equivalent where government-sponsored authority groups get carried away with their power and use it for their own racist and xenophobic bias. (not that i expect GUGGENHEIM of all ppl you address the situation in that light)

Yeah, you're not going to see many of the X-writers focus on the kind of awful discrimination prevalent in Africa/Middle East, and in their respective migrant communities in western countries though. That goes completely against the grain of 'intersectional' politics. The hateful baddies in the X-books are all white conservative types.

Ah yes, I too love to ignore fallacies in my argument from literally any other book in order to push my bigoted and, quite frankly, unnecessary viewpoints.

[Cloudman]

Ah yes, I too love to ignore fallacies in my argument from literally any other book in order to push my bigoted and, quite frankly, unnecessary viewpoints.

Bigoted how? Be specific, not vague.

[924COLLECTIVE]

Yeah they couldn't protect it, and British people just love conquering... There's no stopping them back then and if Russia and China didn't exist today there's be no stopping America now

Actually a small thing called Biological Warfare did most of the work, not much has changed to this day.
Eugenics continues with GMO foods, Flu Vaccines (which are less than 10% effective), Fluoridated Water...

Pick your poison, there are plenty of options.

[wano]

Actually a small thing called Biological Warfare did most of the work, not much has changed to this day.
Eugenics continues with GMO foods, Flu Vaccines (which are less than 10% effective), Fluoridated Water...

Pick your poison, there are plenty of options.

Point being that American reigning supreme through war, economy and culture (despite claims that Americans have no culture) is a fact and won't change so easily

[AbnormallyNormal]

No, not perfectly. And they never were. But if people find enough compelling analogies that work for them, that's all that really matters.

[ChronoRogue]

The Mutant=Minority thing doesn't work, and hasn't ever worked really. It's always been weighed down by the fact that mutants can pose a genuine danger to those around them. As wano pointed out, mutants have caused huge amounts of damage with scant repercussions.

Taylor's new mutant paradigm in X-Men Red doesn't make a whole lot of sense, as discussed in the other thread. Affording mutants a dual nationality means giving them favourable treatment over non-mutants. Bunn is a good example of a writer who doesn't pay too much heed to the Mutant=Minority idea, and he's one of the better X-writers currently working at Marvel. Writers should take the metaphor as a loose inspiration for the stories they write, rather than getting bogged down in the logistics of it.

The first point applies to all metahumans and the MU doesn't treat them all the same. This is an inconsistentcy people love to point out, "why do people love the FF but not the X-Men" but that's the point of racism. It's not that logical and is based on prejudice. Mutants in the MU are the 'other' and not heroes, so problems that affect multiple groups, end up being projected into one. (outside of story arcs that specifically deal with that like Civil War I)

There isn't always an obvious or united visual signature for that discrimination like skin color but that doesn't stop there being discrimination against sexuality, religion or a host of other prejudices.

As for taking the metaphor as loose inspiration, tbh I don't like when writers do that. The whole point of the X-Men is that this metaphor makes them different, they aren't regular metahuman. They are more common than the average superhero, someone you have a chance of interacting with and not even knowing it. Someone who could be your neighbor, friend or that sometimes isn't as obvious; I think that's the point that is supposed to make them scary than heroes you might see occasionally on the news.

CC didn't make the mutant metaphor the end all be all and many of the classic iconic X-Men stories are more fantastical, but what grounded it down where the quit moments when he dealt with this issue and the thoughts and feelings of the characters involved in terms of discrimination. Opinions will vary, I just don't see the point of the X-Men if you want to avoid one of it's main selling points. but ofc it does help they have a huge library of interesting characters all on their own anyway

[MyriVerse]

The Mutant=Minority thing doesn't work, and hasn't ever worked really. It's always been weighed down by the fact that mutants can pose a genuine danger to those around them. As wano pointed out, mutants have caused huge amounts of damage with scant repercussions.

But no more of a danger than the rest of humanity. Most threats are still superpowered flatscans.

[remydat]

according to the southern poverty law center, there were 43 killed and 67 injured by the so-called "alt-right," which is based on a report published by them this week.

in addition, the anti-violence project recently reported that violent crime -- not trolling, or shaming --- violent crime against lgbt have spiked 86% in the United States since this time last year.

further, with "the wall" still looming large in public conversation, DACA being threatened as we speak, and elected officials publicly calling for dreamers to be arrested if they showed up to the state of the union, i would argue that it is us who have become caricatures of ourselves, and not the comics that are being written as a caricature of reality.

Those killings are against the law and the government would punish the offenders. In the MU, often times governments are complicit in the hate crimes. That was the distinction I was making hence why I said a lot of the racist and xenophobic or homophobic elements are from individual citizens and organizations not the government.

That's nonsense. Governments around the world have used mass killing for centuries from the trans Atalanta slave trade, various genocidal episodes since the dawn of man. Just in the last 100 years we have had the holocaust, the Armenian genocide, the continued murder of different native nations. We have had black Wall Street, rosewood and a host of other attacks. If anything the mutants have had it easier in some respects because they are fairly new at the oppression Olympics.

I was not referring to the historical record which I as a black man am well aware of. I was referring to the present day and my point was that in the present day governments in the developed world don't behave as they do in the comics. Individual people and racist organizations may but they are not the government. If a racist kills a black person or a homophobe kills a gay person they would be prosecuted. In the MU, you get the sense they would be celebrated for killing mutants.

[Huntsman Spider]

Those killings are against the law and the government would punish the offenders. In the MU, often times governments are complicit in the hate crimes. That was the distinction I was making hence why I said a lot of the racist and xenophobic or homophobic elements are from individual citizens and organizations not the government.



I was not referring to the historical record which I as a black man am well aware of. I was referring to the present day and my point was that in the present day governments in the developed world don't behave as they do in the comics. Individual people and racist organizations may but they are not the government. If a racist kills a black person or a homophobe kills a gay person they would be prosecuted. In the MU, you get the sense they would be celebrated for killing mutants.

I think what the first poster you were replying to was indicating was that the current U.S. government, by virtue of its more prominent members, if not the leadership itself, expressing casually bigoted or just plain disrespectful and dehumanizing attitudes about people of color and LGBT+ people, has created a social climate and atmosphere where violence against people of color and LGBT+ people feels more acceptable or excusable to the people actually engaging in such violence. They may not be explicitly encouraging violence against people of color and LGBT+ people, but the bigoted contempt and disregard for the rights and concerns and needs of those same people casually expressed by at least some in the government signal to the people on the street who share those views that taking it to outright violence would be more acceptable or excusable than it would have been under other leadership.

[sureshot]

I can see why they keep the racism trope in the X-titles. It's a real world issue and one of the things that made the comic line popular. That being said I never found it to be either written very well or realistically imo. A giant 8-10 foot tall orange rock (The Thing) gets a free pass on racism. Yet the human looking character firing ruby eye blasts is to be more feared. The Human Torch is less scary than Firestar. The non-human characters gets a mostly free pass on racism and face not even the tiniest bit that the X-men do. I don't want it to go away yet it's seems that nothing has changed with humanity as a whole. Their have been other threats much worse than anything a mutant has done in some cases. Yet it feels like nothing changes with humanity or very little imo. At this point given how many other threats the world has faced from non-mutant characters one would think that less humans would be racist. Or given how their is a big effort to fight racism in recent years. Their should be more non-mutant heroes helping mutants and quite frankly more support and less racism from humanity. So no one in this thread and others like it have shown me why mutants and only mutants in the MCU should be targets of racism.

If the writers truly wanted to showcase racism properly they would have the average person targeting non-mutants as well for racism. Humanity hates anything different. Show me more characters that are not mutants being attacked by Sentinels and Purifiers. Otherwise it's the same boring, tired, stale, overused trope of "ahhh theirs a mutant kill it, burn it with fire etc" that has been rehashed continually over the years. Don't even get me started on the unrealistic casual acceptance of the average human with the government having access to giant killer anti-mutant robots and a willingness to use them. Speaking for myself if mutants existed and I hated them I would be more terrified of the government having access to giant versions of the Terminator.

[ClanAskani]

I'm not sure if the metaphor works as mutants become more and more powerful. There's nothing to fear about other races, religions or sexual orientation. But there are mutants who could lose control of their powers and some who use their powers for evil.

There's legitimate concerns that there needs to be some oversight of what mutants are doing if they can result in the destruction of the entire planet.