How should X-Men reflect the bigotry of modern times?

[The Overlord]

X-Men has always had a message against bigotry and in modern times I think we have seen a re-emergence of white supremacy and people becoming more aware of structural racism. How should the X-Men reflect this modern resurgence of bigotry?

[salarta]

Well, if it were me, I'd make the emphasis on tearing down the BS used to justify such terrible things. Less lip service terms, more psychology. But that's just me, and doesn't really seem like what people want.

[TOTALITY]

Less 1:1 stand-ins (Xavier/Magneto for MLK/X, Legacy Virus for AIDS etc.) more structures/patterns. Also I think what makes the X-Men have such resonance for so many marginalized communities isn’t so much the specific depiction of the adversity they face, but how no matter what they might not have in common with each other, they still understand something of each other’s lives that normies could never understand, so just write them with that in mind! And let them actually be hella queer and racially diverse etc, or else it’s the District 9 / Planet of the Apes thing where the fantasy becomes a way to tell real oppressed peoples’ stories without actually depicting anyone from those communities...

[BroHomo]

X-Men has always had a message against bigotry and in modern times I think we have seen a re-emergence of white supremacy and people becoming more aware of structural racism. How should the X-Men reflect this modern resurgence of bigotry?

with nuance

yep, more sjw pls ...
Attachment 85695

lol uh Zwhat Dude?

And let them actually be hella queer and racially diverse etc,

YAAAAAS!!

[WebLurker]

Not sure the best way to do it, but I think it's something we really need now, both as a way to help us make sense of it all, but also to help the next generation avoid some of our mistakes; it's no secret that fiction can influence people and that power should be leveraged responsibly.

[Electricmastro]

I'll just repeat what I said elsewhere:

I've come to the conclusion that the mutants are as feared as much as they are in the Marvel Universe because the writers are writing them like they're still in the 1960s, if not, in a more backwards time, all while the Fantastic Four and other mutate superheroes are relatively treated less harshly despite also having supernatural powers like the mutants do.

I think the human/mutant relations is portrayed as a little too backwards/non-progressive, perhaps more than it should. I realize the X-Men were created to serve as a parallel to the Civil Rights Movement and persecuted minorities in 1963, but on the other hand, we're not in 1963 anymore and, at the very least, I think it's reasonable enough to say that the world in 2019 isn't quite the same as it was in 1963.

Yes, there's still hatred in 2019. Yes, there's still racism in 2019. Yes, there's still scapegoating of groups of various backgrounds to the point of suffering in 2019. I'm not denying any of that. At the same time though, considering how there are quite a few successful celebrities of minority backgrounds, such as black actors, black athletes, black comedians, black musicians that are popular and respected by the public by and large, which are situations that can also help spread a message of equality to them, as well as there being numerous black politicians, and America in 2019 just being in a distinctly different place than how it was in 1963, all aspects considered overall and kept in mind, then I'd like to see a shake-up in the human/mutant dynamic in the series.

I'm definitely not saying to get rid of the minority persecution aspect of the series, as black celebrities don't always have it peachy keen either. I guess I just think that having a more "human-embracing" aspect towards mutants in addition would make for a more interesting shake-up in the current status quo, which at many times can seem to pigeonhole mutants as seemingly being only destined to suffer. As well as it how it help the series be more interestingly progressive rather than uninterestingly (and perhaps over-depressingly) regressive. The human vs. mutants relation just ends up seeming more like a demon hunters vs. demons relation, resulting in more of a commentary of religion rather than other aspects such as race, despite many writers' intentions.

[Killerbee911]

yep, more sjw pls ...

-It is hilarious to this day that people think Social Justice warrior is an insult or bad thing

- It is also pretty funny that people can read X-men and not literally realize they are social justice warriors I mean that is their primary objective the equal treatment of mutants. Maybe they need scream Mutant lives matter for some people to get it.

-Thankful your post happens proves again that X-men should be using on things. I will use the Rahne death as an example a bunch of people were upset about that and in the big picture that seems silly to me. How the X-men is best used is when people don't out right realize what the thing X-men is referring to a lot people don't seem to care about Transpeople dying but a character who is a metaphor for a transperson dying might get to care about that character. Then next step is them finding out what metaphor is and hopefully relating it to real world and going oh maybe I should care about a transperson dying. I mean can't get some people to understand to Black Panther party but I can point out they are parallels between the Black Panther Party and Revolutionary Cyclops era X-men. X-men is best when people go "Oh Mutants are stand for Muslims in this" "Oh Cyclops is getting treated like a black person" "Oh mutants are stand in for ........"

As long as the X-men isn't preachy with it is fine. be overt, subtle and pretty nuance with it. I mean don't go Mutants from Mexico are flooding in should be something more like group of nuhumans are trying just to live work and US government are trying to send them to Attilan. I would love more diversity in the X-men but I do realize that people seem themselves in the X-men make them more accepting of things.

[TOTALITY]

Electricmastro, that’s a good point! Where are the humans who are into, like, co-opting mutant culture, the humans with one mutant friend, the sitcoms with really pretty mutants who never make their mutantness too pronounced, the mutant President who proves human/mutant relations are totally solved forever?

That said, the moves Hickman is making, I can totally see a disruption of the status quo that big believably foregrounding the classic kind of animosity that we like to pretend is history. Like how islamophobia got super popular after 9/11. Or the straight white guys who who think a tiny bit of representation means they’re being replaced — imagine how humanity at large reacts when they find out they’re actually, literally being replaced. Welcoming the new mutant overlords starts to seem like a more radical human position. But yeah, there should definitely be humans who are like, into it in a kind of grotesque fashionable way. Hope someone nails that eventually.

[JKtheMac]

I think we need to remember there was never a direct parallel with current affairs. The mutant metaphor has always been loosely applied and general. Yes it is entirely possible for a writer to tackle an individual prejudice in a story though analogy, but there is a potential to overburden the format if they try and reflect everything all at once.

Also, the audience has become more global, so Marvel have to make some choices, or at least individual writers do. Do they heavily focus in on US concerns or do they keep things broad and relevant to an international audience.

So maybe a more interesting way of asking the question is which current issues are most suitable for an X-Men analogy.

I imagine Hickman will focus on big picture issues like how easily we are manipulated by social media and the new propaganda. These are better done with indirect analogy otherwise readers will just switch off. Not many of us want to read about how Cambridge Analytica screwed over mutants. It is also quite hard to do this kind of thing. Tom Taylor was clearly interested in such issues in Red but the analogy was perhaps unfocused and not very pointed.

Issues like reproductive rights are so hot topic they can divide audiences, but they are clearly important in the US at the moment. To a European reader they can seem strange and mostly irrelevant, despite them actually being real issues under the surface of our society’s globally.

Issues in the LGBTQIAPK spectrum are all relevant to the mutant analogy, but some of them need an entire context that Marvel don’t seem eager to provide. Even tackling the issues at the left of the acronym seem difficult. Just ask Sina Grace how easy it is to write a book with a guy dating another guy. The amount of negative press that received from long time X-Men fans on otherwise mainstream podcasts and review pages was frankly embarrassing. The unconscious and non-reflective bias was palpable. How easy would it really be to seriously address trans issues or asexual issues if we still think Northstar is as far as comics can go?

[JKtheMac]

-Thankful your post happens proves again that X-men should be using on things. I will use the Rahne death as an example a bunch of people were upset about that and in the big picture that seems silly to me. How the X-men is best used is when people don't out right realize what the thing X-men is referring to a lot people don't seem to care about Transpeople dying but a character who is a metaphor for a transperson dying might get to care about that character. Then next step is them finding out what metaphor is and hopefully relating it to real world and going oh maybe I should care about a transperson dying.

Yes. This is partly the issue I am referring to. The analogy can be used but does it register? Or maybe the question is does it need to register with everyone. Although Rahne’s death was in the middle of a very depressing volume that tried to do far too much, so perhaps it is unsurprising that it didn’t land with a wider readership. It was also very bleak.

I mean can't get some people to understand to Black Panther party but I can point out they are parallels between the Black Panther Party and Revolutionary Cyclops era X-men.

How relevant to the modern world is that analogy? These political movements moved on and adapted to different contexts. Divided and combined, focused on new issues. Does radical Cyclops really feel like the right character to reflect the more modern concerns of say the bias of historical narratives or social economic challenges. He’s a very privileged guy.

This was one of the advantages of having O5 back, but we never saw fruition of that idea. The less privileged, less confident characters thrust into a world that’s supposedly less prejudiced realising that they just face different prejudices. As usual fans were more focused on nonsense like bottled water, thereby missing the point that the analogy being created had to stretch artificial notions like the bloody sliding timeline.

X-men is best when people go "Oh Mutants are stand for Muslims in this" "Oh Cyclops is getting treated like a black person" "Oh mutants are stand in for ........"

I guess that’s the question. Does it still work? How black is Cyclops? Is it obvious to someone who hasn’t been here for decades. If you need to be told does it still work?

[Electricmastro]

Electricmastro, that’s a good point! Where are the humans who are into, like, co-opting mutant culture, the humans with one mutant friend, the sitcoms with really pretty mutants who never make their mutantness too pronounced, the mutant President who proves human/mutant relations are totally solved forever?

That said, the moves Hickman is making, I can totally see a disruption of the status quo that big believably foregrounding the classic kind of animosity that we like to pretend is history. Like how islamophobia got super popular after 9/11. Or the straight white guys who who think a tiny bit of representation means they’re being replaced — imagine how humanity at large reacts when they find out they’re actually, literally being replaced. Welcoming the new mutant overlords starts to seem like a more radical human position. But yeah, there should definitely be humans who are like, into it in a kind of grotesque fashionable way. Hope someone nails that eventually.

Not sure if you're being sarcastically jokey, but I think it's worth mentioning that despite how the Hulk has caused has caused massive destruction over and over again, and how that kind of stuff has him chased by the army and reported on the news, it's shown he has a number of supporters and has even been pardoned, as Thunderbolt Ross mentioned, which seems to be a heck of a lot more appreciation given to him than the X-Men ever got, at least in more recent times, despite not purposely causing destruction like the Hulk did.

[TOTALITY]

Issues in the LGBTQIAPK spectrum are all relevant to the mutant analogy, but some of them need an entire context that Marvel don’t seem eager to provide. Even tackling the issues at the left of the acronym seem difficult. Just ask Sina Grace how easy it is to write a book with a guy dating another guy. The amount of negative press that received from long time X-Men fans on otherwise mainstream podcasts and review pages was frankly embarrassing. The unconscious and non-reflective bias was palpable. How easy would it really be to seriously address trans issues or asexual issues if we still think Northstar is as far as comics can go?

I hope Hickman has an eye on those things because I feel like he could get just about anything in right now if he wanted to. Like he said a SDCC, very few people tell him ‘no’ anymore. While nothing boundary-pushing, Mystique and Destiny’s relationship felt present and so matter-of-fact in HOX2. I guess Claremont’s intentions for them are such established history at this point that it may as well have always been overt on the page (not that it was ever super subtle.) Lots of similarly untapped potential in plenty of other characters that I know some writers and editors would pass by executive order on their first day in office, yet somehow straight people keep holding the keys to the X-Men, forever the most subtext-laden Marvel franchise but never the representation standard bearer it could be. I would settle for a straight person in charge who at least tries to make some strides in that area (especially if they have the clout to make things happen), maybe if they had some queer x-fans in their brain trust...

[Killerbee911]

How easy would it really be to seriously address trans issues or asexual issues if we still think Northstar is as far as comics can go?

Is that feature or is that the comic? The X-men is a superhero comic how much responsibility should it have in areas like this? Is the X-men superhero story that can touch on social issues or Is it a book about social issues that happens to have superhumans in it? The X-men does lionshare of work no other comic imo comes close to if the X-men wanted they could put Iceman, Northstar, Shatterstar, Rictor, Prodigy, Pyro and Anole as team for a book/story note I am not excusing them from doing better but I am saying X-men can field a team of LGBTQ superheroes where something like Justice League or Avengers you will struggle to point out one.

X-men has a natural set up to parallel stories of minorities but X-men also still has to be entertaining superhero comic with action and adventure to sell. Other comics can cover these issue as well it is not alone in the comic world and forcing it to be everything in this area is unfair. That said X-men can and should do better but when I see many other big comics so woefully under equipped to tell these type certain of stories I see that problem is with industry not necessary the X-men. X-men can have convo with Darwin,Celia Reyes and Sunspot on what it it is to be Afro Latino, The X-men can have Moonstar, Forge, and Warpath talk about issue of Indigenous Americans. I guess my big point X-men is actually has good balance of social issues/super heroism but since other comics are so bad at it .We demand more from the X-men sometimes at detriment of X-men being a dope superhero book.

Yes. This is partly the issue I am referring to. The analogy can be used but does it register? Or maybe the question is does it need to register with everyone. Although Rahne’s death was in the middle of a very depressing volume that tried to do far too much, so perhaps it is unsurprising that it didn’t land with a wider readership. It was also very bleak.
?

If it does for some that is good enough. I spoke on it above it. X-men does not have to be everything that doesn't excuse it from being better in that area tho

[Psy-lock]

It is hilarious to this day that people think Social Justice warrior is an insult or bad thing

Social Justice Warrior =\= person who fights for social justice. It carries implications that they are pursuing personal validation rather than any deep-seated conviction, and engaging in disingenuous arguments.

[jetengine]

One thing I want is no more sentinels.

Where's the humans complaining about their homes being destroyed by the giant robot trying to capture a dude who's 'threatening' mutant ability is to turn cheese into chicken ? Wheres the anti-government types yelling about how THEIR taxes are being wasted on stupid giant robots when a dude in cheaper power armour could do the same job ? Etc