yes, screw them too.
Mastermind didn't IMPOSE on Jean to treat Ororo as a slave. That was her own unhibited fantasy he gave shape to. You should probably go read the book Im not interested in doing a recap for each pious knight that is going to come to the defense of Jean's white innocence tonight.
Did someone on the site just say Magneto would be on the right?
"A happy ending? So unlikely. We're not having a moment here.
Wrong city, wrong people, all huddling in fear.
No one escapes the slaughterhouse, and that's just where you're at.
(You could've asked Rebecca but then Adam stomped her flat.)
You think you're special cuz you're scrappy? You're deluded, time to go.
Lucy's living on the moon but you're another dead psycho."
I know you are just trolling and I shouldn't engage with bad faith actors, but obviously Claremont was using this to show how bad Jean/Phoenix had become. The darkest thoughts coming forward... kind of like Onslaught was for Xavier or how they explained away Xavier's lust for a child Jean Grey (those inner dark thoughts we constantly fight against that are inside all of us, type of thing).
Though I will say I do not blame this on Phoenix. Even by the retcon Phoenix copied Jean's mind and body, and a portion of Jean's consciousness was in there (ie. her essence), so people need to stop erasing Jean out of the Phoenix and Dark Phoenix stories.
CyCOP:
- assaulted protesters during the Utopia protest
- supports the death penalty (re: XForce)
- tried to secede from the United States
- set up a black site (Utopia) in which he tortured people of color (Bishop)
He's a right wing propaganda machine.
I see nothing in this post arguing that Jean is not racist, only excuses for her behavior.
slaverjean.jpg
oh man THIS scene...
We spent a good 30 minutes discussing this at the DPS book club I attended. People bent over backward trying to make Jean into a victim of Mastermind, of the Phoenix, when the answer could simply be that Yes, Jean Grey is a little racist. Like almost everything, racism is a spectrum of behaviors and perceptions and you might as well acknowledge it. Jean was a privileged white woman who was a child in Pleasantville.
Specifically though, this scene was written in the late 70s by a man who was coming of age in the 60s. Racism was an issue that wasn't fully deconstructed at the time, but I can appreciate the steps taken at the time.
That said, we need to acknowledge that Jean had been slowly acknowledging the what her maturation into Phoenix meant. She wasn't just a telekinetic mutant anymore, she was a human woman with godlike power. If you release the id into that playground, OF COURSE you're going to see everyone else, friends, family, lovers, and authorities as less-than, smaller, and terribly limited. Now take that miasma and put it in an amplified illusion by Mastermind/White Queen and you get the paradigm of the Hellfire Club, where the aristocracy WAS better than everyone else, exploited people and held dominion over everything. She was miles above the other X-Men in terms of power and potential, and the illusion created a world where that was represented. Jean's little patriarchal racism refracted to became full-blown royal superiority.
Oh I agree during a very specific era (RightClops) Cyke had a right wing turn and became Dick Cheny but those dark days are over. As for Jean I conceded in my post that Claremont was showing how dark she had became due to the manipulation by the hellfire club. Most people, unfortunately do have both explicit and implicit bias since we live in a word, society, and culture that constantly pushes messaging on us that unfortunately includes generalizations, stereotypes, prejudices, and the like against the "other" which always includes minorities, marginalized folks, etc.
Leah Williams once tweeted about this panel and said she'd like to explore it further. Though in the story Jean was believing herself to be someone else (a character created by the manipulation from Mastermind), which was a big part of why Jean became Dark Phoenix though the manipulation of Phoenix/Jean is usually left out when folks discuss Dark Phoenix and it is usually discussed that Dark Phoenix is a natural extension of the Phoenix cycle (which it may or may not be).
Is that a good or bad thing?, Jason Todd's death was weird but it led into him being resurrected and becoming Red Hood which was good, so with the right writer(s) it could a be very cool concept.
So Jean is a suburban/Middle Class version of Emma Frost lol