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

[Xaviers Dream]

Sureshot, it makes sense to me. After all the Fantastic Four are featured as celebrities that make themselves available to the public. People can accept a few people as standouts of a minority group without accepting the entire minority group. I thought the TedTalks on Whitetopia covered this well.

Also in US politics, the Republicans have a few high profile black politicians but they talk about race the same way that the rest of the party does.

[remydat]

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.

I don't disagree with that. My point is the governments in the MU are worse. They go behind just being casually bigoted and often times are outright bigots that sanction violence.

The question is whether the comics reflect reality and I am saying the comics are still more extreme, Trump notwithstanding.

[remydat]

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.

I think the distinction is the Thing or the Torch don't represent a new species. They are superpowered humans. Whereas if mutants are the next evolutionary step then people fear them usurping humanity altogether.

[AbnormallyNormal]

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.

Exactly, that's why the analogy was never a perfect one.

At the same time, you could say it's a Chicken or Egg situation: human reaction and hysteria to the emergence of mutants in general might have provoked them into becoming violent as a defense mechanism

[Huntsman Spider]

I don't disagree with that. My point is the governments in the MU are worse. They go behind just being casually bigoted and often times are outright bigots that sanction violence.

The question is whether the comics reflect reality and I am saying the comics are still more extreme, Trump notwithstanding.

The comics, at least in this regard, represent reality taken to a certain quasi-logical extreme. It's one thing to have a government in modern times that acts as an enabler to bigots among the citizenry by way of its representatives' or leaders' own statements, policies, or even actions regarding minorities and/or LGBT+ people, but another to have a government actively supporting and sanctioning genocidal measures against minorities. While we're not quite there yet in real life, we do have supporters of the current government who aren't necessarily in the public eye that would very much like to go there.

Having the minorities be superhuman mutants in fiction like the X-Men comics (and various adaptations) just takes that a fair bit further, especially since the justifications for anti-mutant bigotry are much the same as anti-minority, anti-immigrant bigotry in America and increasingly in Europe. The claim is that they (real-life minorities and immigrants or fictional mutants) threaten "good, regular folks" that "happen" to be largely from the majority population and/or dominant group with crime and violence and are prone to being recruited by gangs or terrorist cells. Ironically, many of those gangs and terror cells would not exist or attract as many to their ranks without persistent alienation of minorities, real or fictional, by the majority population that drives many of them to feel as though they have no home in conventional society and thus nothing to lose by lashing out at it.

[Chaos Reigns]

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.

Yes they do ie Standing Rock.

[sureshot]

Again I don't expect racism as a theme to disappear from the X-titles. I do wish mutants as a whole would get some kind of break. A good point was made about mutants and how dangerous their powers can be. Yet so are non-mutant super powered heroes just as dangerous imo. It just seems the level of bigotry and racism has not changed since when the X-men first were written in the comics imo. Even then I would expect the hatred and bigotry to remain at high levels in a world where humans were the majority and mutants the minority. In a world where 50% or more are different and super powers common or at least fairly common targeting mutants and only mutants male little to no sense for me at least. The Thing riding in their flying vehicle overhead. Spider-man webbing his way across town. The Avengers fighting the Wrecking Crew. The Skrulls and Asgardians invading. the high levels of racism feel out of place. If it was up to me I would reboot the X-titles in a world similar to ours yet no superheroes of any kind except mutants. Who keep appearing in small yet ever increasing numbers. Then targeting mutants and only mutants makes sense. As humans would rightfully feel that mutants would replace them. That's why I prefer DC take on it a little more it's not as realistic to be sure yet when the world top power villains and heroes are as human looking as can be. Hating on the Martian Manhunter for looking green and alien makes not as much sense imo.

[remydat]

The comics, at least in this regard, represent reality taken to a certain quasi-logical extreme. It's one thing to have a government in modern times that acts as an enabler to bigots among the citizenry by way of its representatives' or leaders' own statements, policies, or even actions regarding minorities and/or LGBT+ people, but another to have a government actively supporting and sanctioning genocidal measures against minorities. While we're not quite there yet in real life, we do have supporters of the current government who aren't necessarily in the public eye that would very much like to go there.

Having the minorities be superhuman mutants in fiction like the X-Men comics (and various adaptations) just takes that a fair bit further, especially since the justifications for anti-mutant bigotry are much the same as anti-minority, anti-immigrant bigotry in America and increasingly in Europe. The claim is that they (real-life minorities and immigrants or fictional mutants) threaten "good, regular folks" that "happen" to be largely from the majority population and/or dominant group with crime and violence and are prone to being recruited by gangs or terrorist cells. Ironically, many of those gangs and terror cells would not exist or attract as many to their ranks without persistent alienation of minorities, real or fictional, by the majority population that drives many of them to feel as though they have no home in conventional society and thus nothing to lose by lashing out at it.

Well I think it is a lot further but sure it is the logical extreme but think we both agree the real world isn't actually there yet.

[Tycon]

Bigoted how? Be specific, not vague.

It was pretty obvious that it didn't seem like a "point it out" moment. But I'll say that painting the picture as if all X-writers talk about are white, conservatives is pretty dumb. And you were implying some pretty weird stuff there. I'll like for you to elaborate now

[Sandfall]

Sureshot, it makes sense to me. After all the Fantastic Four are featured as celebrities that make themselves available to the public. People can accept a few people as standouts of a minority group without accepting the entire minority group. I thought the TedTalks on Whitetopia covered this well.

Also in US politics, the Republicans have a few high profile black politicians but they talk about race the same way that the rest of the party does.

Fantastic Four were the first heroes with no secret identity back then it was kind of refreshing, more easy to believe than putting on a glasses to hide an identity.

X-Men hid nothing, they were more openly social activists except from Xavier who for a long time never told the public he was a mutant .

[RLAAMJR.]

No. If we have mutants in the real world, humans would support them , make them leaders.

[Triniking1234]

That's highly optimistic.

[useridgoeshere]

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.

The threat posed by mutants isn't that different than real world mass shootings, bombings or other attacks, only amplified for dramatic effect. A guy kills 50 people in the real world, so they make it 5,000 in comics, because they think bigger numbers make it feel more important. People use the same safety argument against minorities, based on race, ethnicity, religion and orientation. They've all been deemed threats. Most of the mutant metaphor is drawn directly from the real world.

You might be inclined to agree with him if it had been someone you cared about being killed in one of the X-Men's numerous scraps.

Anyone judging an entire class of people by the actions of a few is a bigot, whether that's in the real world or in comics. We see it all the time. When a white guy goes on a rampage, no one blames all white guys, but people do blame minorities.

[wano]

No. If we have mutants in the real world, humans would support them , make them leaders.

Or use them for wars and start a mutant arms race

[remydat]

No. If we have mutants in the real world, humans would support them , make them leaders.

That's highly optimistic.

In this social media celebrity driven world, it's possible. The US has an obnoxious reality TV star as its President. The young kids would probably be ecstatic over a dude with powers. I don't think Marvel has really caught up to that.

There would obviously be some elements that fear them or would want to use them but like today there would be many more people that would likely think Mutants are f**king cool. Not to mention, people today are far more likely to protest government oppression. Look at the protests on college campuses, riots due to police shootings, etc. The liberal elements would certainly most likely embrace them and the conservative elements would be split just like the Republican Party today is split between the moderates and the Freedom Caucus type extremists.