Mutant Lives Matter: mutation as allegory

[Ricochet Rita]

I forgot to say that another thing I already had in my inner self and strengthened by reading UXM was the fight. Fight for civil rights ('civil' being much more than racial). I'm a political person, so I read in a tone of politics.

[Hizashi]

true and the it might be good at some point of time since racial minority have less expression in mass media back then than now. but it feels outdated in contemporary. I started reading X-men comics since 2000s and never quite buy the concept that mutants are minority reflecting racial issues in reality. I always view mutants as a metaphor for religious minority such as Muslims, Judaism, Buddhist and other religious people alike.

The metaphor works as well as it’s written; the religious minority metaphor doesn’t work because religion is a choice, mutants don’t choose to be mutants.

[Huntsman Spider]

The metaphor works as well as it’s written; the religious minority metaphor doesn’t work because religion is a choice, mutants don’t choose to be mutants.

Fair enough, but the allegory might be fairly strong with Muslims in the West, particularly in America, since after 9/11 and especially more recently, Muslims as a whole were scapegoated by elements of the U.S. government and singled out for detention without trial or hearing should they even be suspected of having committed a terroristic act or threatened such. To me, that sounds a lot like how mutants have been treated in the comics, that because someone like Magneto or Mystique goes and commits a violent act, all mutants are viewed as the same and thus criminalized, brutalized, and dehumanized by human authorities.

[Daniel22]

The metaphor works as well as it’s written; the religious minority metaphor doesn’t work because religion is a choice, mutants don’t choose to be mutants.

Religion isn't a choice for children who have religious parents. Even though they can choose to not share their parent's beliefs, if a child has parents of a certain religion it's pretty likely that the children will be considered to be of that religion.

[Hizashi]

Fair enough, but the allegory might be fairly strong with Muslims in the West, particularly in America, since after 9/11 and especially more recently, Muslims as a whole were scapegoated by elements of the U.S. government and singled out for detention without trial or hearing should they even be suspected of having committed a terroristic act or threatened such. To me, that sounds a lot like how mutants have been treated in the comics, that because someone like Magneto or Mystique goes and commits a violent act, all mutants are viewed as the same and thus criminalized, brutalized, and dehumanized by human authorities.

I admit that I worded my original post with absolutist word choice - of course mutantkind works as a metaphor for religion, but it isn't the primary one and it isn't as malleable as the minority or youth metaphor.

Religion isn't a choice for children who have religious parents. Even though they can choose to not share their parent's beliefs, if a child has parents of a certain religion it's pretty likely that the children will be considered to be of that religion.

That perspective is true from the point of view of the bigoted person, but the individual can still choose not to subscribe to their parents' religion or any religion for that matter - this makes religion the lesser of the mutant-as-metaphor perspectives. As I understand it, religions are a struggle with and an expression of truth and faith, and it's a practice that is and should be in its purest form a choice and this doesn't meld as well to the mutant metaphor for me. I'm not saying it's impossible to write it this way but that I don't see religion as the grand unifying narrative of mutantkind or the X-Men.

[Daniel22]

I admit that I worded my original post with absolutist word choice - of course mutantkind works as a metaphor for religion, but it isn't the primary one and it isn't as malleable as the minority or youth metaphor.



That perspective is true from the point of view of the bigoted person, but the individual can still choose not to subscribe to their parents' religion or any religion for that matter - this makes religion the lesser of the mutant-as-metaphor perspectives. As I understand it, religions are a struggle with and an expression of truth and faith, and it's a practice that is and should be in its purest form a choice and this doesn't meld as well to the mutant metaphor for me. I'm not saying it's impossible to write it this way but that I don't see religion as the grand unifying narrative of mutantkind or the X-Men.

That's fair and makes sense to me. A person who is persecuted because of their parent's religion is still being targeted because of something they didn't choose, though. A bigoted person isn't likely to say "The Muslims down the street are probably terrorists, but their daughter isn't religious so she's cool". In the end though I probably agree with you, religion isn't the grand unifying narrative here. For one thing that eliminates too many people straight off, since more and more people are becoming non-religious every year (in the USA especially). Also someone's religion isn't always readily apparent..

The reason the X Men work so well is that I could make a good case for any of the ideas that have been brought up here. I agree with some more than others but there's an argument to be made for all of them. And the story works just as well whether I think the main theme is religion or sexuality or ethnicity or adolescence/puberty or being an outcast...

[Hizashi]

That's fair and makes sense to me. A person who is persecuted because of their parent's religion is still being targeted because of something they didn't choose, though. A bigoted person isn't likely to say "The Muslims down the street are probably terrorists, but their daughter isn't religious so she's cool". In the end though I probably agree with you, religion isn't the grand unifying narrative here. For one thing that eliminates too many people straight off, since more and more people are becoming non-religious every year (in the USA especially). Also someone's religion isn't always readily apparent..

The reason the X Men work so well is that I could make a good case for any of the ideas that have been brought up here. I agree with some more than others but there's an argument to be made for all of them. And the story works just as well whether I think the main theme is religion or sexuality or ethnicity or adolescence/puberty or being an outcast...

Yeah, I think we're basically on the same page even if we disagree on a few minor points.

[Vegan Daddy]

I think it’s better to address real world minority issues instead of relying on the same clunky metaphor.

[Noek]

Ok so I feel Mutants can work well as a representation for racial, sexual, and lgbt and yes while arguments can be made use just real life examples Marvel is big so including the non real life examples are good for certain people from escapism to relatable.

However there are times I feel they do not do the best a job showing the comparison with the biggest example being how some people where seeing Iceman being gay as just pushing an agenda.

No I don't see Mutants as a good representation for Religion and those in the immigration circle as this is more about choice and culture as such the Inhumans work better for that. An example for that is in Marvel Rising: Secret Warriors were a bully says "Inhumans should go back to where they came from" that line really doesn't work using it on a Mutant.

[Arthas]

Rachel is the daughter of alternate reality Wolverine and Jean. I mean she can be the Draco Malfoy. With Jean as Narcissa and Wolverine as Lucius

Please stop spreading false facts.

[Ricochet Rita]

Fair enough, but the allegory might be fairly strong with Muslims in the West, particularly in America, since after 9/11 and especially more recently, Muslims as a whole were scapegoated by elements of the U.S. government and singled out for detention without trial or hearing should they even be suspected of having committed a terroristic act or threatened such. To me, that sounds a lot like how mutants have been treated in the comics, that because someone like Magneto or Mystique goes and commits a violent act, all mutants are viewed as the same and thus criminalized, brutalized, and dehumanized by human authorities.

This ^

Religion isn't a choice for children who have religious parents. Even though they can choose to not share their parent's beliefs, if a child has parents of a certain religion it's pretty likely that the children will be considered to be of that religion.

And this ^

You're talking mainly of rough bigotry, but there's also plain prejudice. And this is something we all succumb to everyday.

[GarDian]

I was wondering what people think of the parallel of mutation vs bigotry in the Marvel Universe as an allegory for racism, religion, LGBTQIA issues etc.

"Jay & Miles Explain the X-Men" points out mutation as allegory for civil rights in the 1960s, with Xavier & Magneto as stand-ins for MLK & Malcolm-X respectively (Stan Lee started writing while they were both politically active & in weekly headlines, before their assassinations.)

Later, when Claremont made the genius move of giving Magneto's origin as surviving genocide in the Nazi deathcamps, mutation became a much more layered allegory, which has extended more explicitly to LGBTQIA issues in the hands of more recent authors.

What are your opinions of mutation as allegory for social change, as adolescent struggle for identity, or something else I haven't mentioned?

Have you found strength from X-stories, reading into mutation your own challenges, struggles, and issues as allegory?

Have mutant issues helped you to connect with others in similar situations, for example, the fanfiction communities, cosplay etc?

(I know that Trek, Gate, Who, Firefly, LotR, GoT etc have united people as modern religions, but the X-stories involve so much soap-opera infighting, that I'm not sure they have the same power to unite philosophically, and might just add a new language for debate and disagreement.)

I was just going to start a thread about this as well. Maybe not this extensively. But as far as I can remember, the X-men represented the geeks and maybe by extension some of the other minorities and LGBTQ.

At least where I live (Philippines) and at the time (90s), geeks were what the X-men stood for. And it kinda made sense because well, geeks are the ones that bought comics.

So fastforward to today, I am scratching my head a little that all I hear is X-men is an allegory for LGBTQ, which I'm sure is a little bit of the original or earlier intent but didn't feel like its biggest allegory back in the day. Keep in mind, this was a time where geeks were the most bullied sub culture. Of course today, geek culture is very celebrated even in films so maybe people forgot about it today.

Is this the case or was the interpretation here just different?

[Triniking1234]

People are giving Stan Lee too much credit just because he created the book when MLK and Malcom X were still alive. His stories were straight up hero vs. villain stories. Maybe when ANAD debuted mutants could've been viewed as allegories for real world problems.

I was just going to start a thread about this as well. Maybe not this extensively. But as far as I can remember, the X-men represented the geeks and maybe by extension some of the other minorities and LGBTQ.

At least where I live (Philippines) and at the time (90s), geeks were what the X-men stood for. And it kinda made sense because well, geeks are the ones that bought comics.

So fastforward to today, I am scratching my head a little that all I hear is X-men is an allegory for LGBTQ, which I'm sure is a little bit of the original or earlier intent but didn't feel like its biggest allegory back in the day. Keep in mind, this was a time where geeks were the most bullied sub culture. Of course today, geek culture is very celebrated even in films so maybe people forgot about it today.

Is this the case or was the interpretation here just different?

To be fair the X-Men can be used to represent any discriminated minority in the world but some fans just want to narrow them to being representatives of only a specific group.

[BroHomo]

To be fair the X-Men can be used to represent any discriminated minority in the world but some fans just want to narrow them to being representatives of only a specific group.

I don't think anyone has limited X-Men's representation of a discriminated minority group more likely they're just saying that they consider it a better representation of a certain minority group

[yogaflame]

The original X-Men run by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby is more reflective of the Jewish perspective, I think, than the later notions of racial or sexuality metaphors. Remember, 1963 is less than 20 years after the end of WW2, and both creators are Jewish. The way the X-Men hide their mutantcy, and desire nothing more than to be normal, could be better interpreted through the lens of Jews who can often 'pass' as Gentile white-Europeans/Americans, and who fear being hated or feared for their difference(so close to the horrors of the Holocaust). Magneto in those earliest stories provoking the military powers and trying to form his own mutant nation from whence he could conquer the world could be reflective of Zionists and the creation of modern Israel. The X-Men exist to moderate that extreme, and try to integrate with the wider world instead of conquering it.



In the early run, they work very closely with the US military, and the FBI. They champion the status quo/mainstream society instead of being the counter-cultural freaks they are seen as today. They constantly mock beatniks and are otherwise highly conservative.



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But the original run is rather thin on the 'mutant metaphor' concepts that become so integral to the franchise in Claremont's run and beyond. It's largely a hodgepodge of Silver Age themes like aliens(Factor 3 is controlled by a space squid from Sirius), robots, underground/hidden civilizations, etc, etc gone through in typical 'villain of the week' style. The most consistent thread connecting to later runs would be the drill sargent-like Professor X(himself a military man just 10 years from his tour in Korean) putting them through their paces in the Danger Room.