The X-men metaphor: is it changing?

[vitruvian]

There is no metaphor any more. The X-Men don't represent anything because the people in charge of story direction don't have much interest in that aspect of the franchise's history.

X-Men is basically about a group of generic, unorganized would-be superheroes that never get around to doing heroic things because they are too busy fighting each other or fighting the Avengers. And Marvel truly thinks they are more compelling this way.

Except for the parts where they have gotten around to doing lots of heroic things. Y'know, in many of the actual stories, if you read them.

And lots of stories still work with the whole 'mutants as metaphor for real world groups facing prejudice and oppression' thing. Of course the analogy behind that metaphor is never going to be perfect; if it were, we'd be reading stories about real world oppressed groups rather than superpowered mutants. That's kind of the point of metaphor and allegory, that they aren't exactly the same thing as what they're alluding to. It's a bit closer to the queer experience, by virtue of the whole being different than your parents thing, but even there it will never be a perfect fit what with the whole superpower thing.

[vitruvian]

It's not even useful or accurate to call them 'mutants,' since a mutant is someone who is different from their parents, and plenty of mutants are actually descended from other mutants (making them, technically, *not* mutants, particularly in the cases where they inherited their parents telepathy/telekinesis or magnetokinesis or whatever).

Very few of them, though, with the vast majority of Marvel mutants still being born to baseline parents. Besides, it's certainly not unheard of for this usage to even creep into real-world biology, with references to the descendants of mutant fruit flies and the like as members of the 'mutant strain' not being uncommon. The use of 'mutant' is somewhat less problematic than the use of 'race' or 'species' in this context.

If not for those pesky superpowers, the closest real world analogue for Marvel mutants would probably be achondroplasia, which is primarily the result of mutations in the parental gametes (sperm specifically), but can also be passed down as a dominant Mendelian trait (although it doesn't seem that two X-genes result in miscarriage as with the variant gene for achondroplasia).

[Mia]

There is no metaphor any more. The X-Men don't represent anything because the people in charge of story direction don't have much interest in that aspect of the franchise's history.

X-Men is basically about a group of generic, unorganized would-be superheroes that never get around to doing heroic things because they are too busy fighting each other or fighting the Avengers. And Marvel truly thinks they are more compelling this way.

Agreed. Of course it depends on who is writing and the time period. But honestly more often than not the Inhumans and The X-Men have often reminded me of snotty models/professional athletes/aristocrats, who consider themselves removed/above society yet who feel it is their duty to help those more unfortunate. But the infighting doesn't bother me that much. It's something I would expect to happen in the real world with a group of type-A personalities who barely get along.

[Tonamelt]

People like foreigners who move in ready to adapt. And there are many of those. It's the ones who come to a country as invaders that are disliked. That's not discrimination. They are being judged on their actions. It took decades in many countries to get rid of the catholic church. Citizens would be fools to allow more religious nutters in. Borders exist for a reason. And most war thorn countries stand as testimonial that religion does not work.

Amercian soldiers stationed in Iraq count as invaders?

The European who killed Native Americans in order to take their lands count as invaders?

Because I'm pretty sure nobody makes a big deal about them... one group win medals, the other is considered an important part of history. They don't seem to be that "disliked".

[Sundowhn]

Either you don't (recall correctly), or some teacher may have been selling you a bill of goods, which is known to happen as well. While there was definitely some trickery and unfair business dealings, there was a lot - a whole lot - of out and out warfare and violence involved in the annexation of land by European settlers from native Americans, from the very, very beginning. And even when you can point to instances of trickery like the 'wampum' 'purchase' of Manhattan Island (which was only ever supposed to be a down payment on a lease, not a purchase, really) or treaties that then failed to have their provisions enforced, there was violence through and through; either these 'deals' came about at the end of a period of bloody conflict, or their provisions which were screwing over the native population in one way or another ended up being enforced in a bloody conflict, or both.

There was also systematic genocide with things like giving American Indian smallpox infected blankets, forcing them on marches to reservations, giving them inadequate food on those reservations, etc. It was brutal and executed over a very long period of time.

[vitruvian]

There was also systematic genocide with things like giving American Indian smallpox infected blankets, forcing them on marches to reservations, giving them inadequate food on those reservations, etc. It was brutal and executed over a very long period of time.

Yes, of course. I would consider all those measures to constitute part of the violence I was talking about.

[Tomppa]

As for the metaphor, I don't think the mutant thing was ever a good metaphor for racial, cultural, gender-expression or religious minorities. Mutants, usually at puberty, become a different race than their parents, and even if their parents are mutants, they might not have any points of common experience or cultural heritage or anything like that to share. (For instance, you might have the power to hex people with bad luck, which your magnetism-manipulating dad has zero useful advice for how to deal with, other than to avoid Nazis and concentration camps, which are kind of no-brainers.) In the real world, minorities don't suddenly turn a different race from their families at puberty, and skin color, gender, ethnicity, etc. don't just spontaneously happen. (Awareness of sexuality, or the embracing of a cultural or religious identity might, but that's still not remotely comparable to waking up with blue skin and horns, and a group of self-labeled 'mutants' who mostly *don't* have blue skin or horns, or know crap all about you, your life, your family or your goals and dreams, insisting that you are now one of them, a different *race* than your mom, and need to leave with them.)

You make good points but I think you go into too much detail and that seems kind of nit-picky. Anything can be scrutinized and picked apart if you just go deep enough. Of course mutants don't work as a completely matching metaphor for any real world minority but we're talking about superhumans in fiction here so that in and of itself requires some level of suspension of disbelief and you can't get hung up on every little detail. Anyone can see that it's not a perfect metaphor and there is no way it could ever be.

It's not even useful or accurate to call them 'mutants,' since a mutant is someone who is different from their parents, and plenty of mutants are actually descended from other mutants (making them, technically, *not* mutants, particularly in the cases where they inherited their parents telepathy/telekinesis or magnetokinesis or whatever).

It's certainly not accurate to call them a 'race,' since most of them are quite different from each other. Even siblings, like Piotr and Ilyanna, or Wanda and Pietro, are pretty much single-person sub-species all unto themselves, and, depending on where they grew up, or whether or not they can 'pass,' individual 'mutants' don't necessarily have anything in common with each other, and, in the aforementioned cases, even less in common with more unique looking folk like Kurt or Marrow.

There have been many cases like this in real world where word that meant one thing evolved into meaning something else (too). Since MU's mutants received their powers as a result of mutation they are mutants and then over time it became a go to term for all who were born with x-gene superpowers, even if they inherited it from their parents and weren't really mutants.

When words like 'race' and 'mutant' are being misused, let alone words like 'decimation' or 'genocide' (also used inaccurately, to the point of being controversial buzzwords with no actual relevance to the events they label), any discussion on the topic is going to be constantly stumbling over this bad language.

I agree with you on this. It does sometimes bother me when writers describe mutants as a race or their own species when they aren't.

[Sundowhn]

Yes, of course. I would consider all those measures to constitute part of the violence I was talking about.

I was agreeing with you

[sungila]

Raphael Lemkin was the first to use the word genocide in his seminal work "Axis Rule in Occupied Europe" (1943). The term "genocide," was derived from the roots "genos" (race, people) and "cide" (to kill).

Lemkin defined genocide as follows:
"Generally speaking, genocide does not necessarily mean the immediate destruction of a nation, except when accomplished by mass killings of all members of a naton. It is intended rather to signify a coordinated plan of different actions aiming at the destruction of essential foundations of the life of national groups, with the aim of annihilating the groups themselves. The objectives of such a plan would be the disintegration of the political and social institutions, of culture, language, national feelings, religion, and the economic existence of national groups, and the destruction of the personal security, liberty, health, dignity, and even the lives of the individuals belonging to such groups."



When Lemkin proposed a treaty against genocide to the United Nations in 1945, he defined it as follows:

"The crime of genocide should be recognized therein as a conspiracy to exterminate national, religious or racial groups. The overt acts of such a conspiracy may consist of attacks against life, liberty or property of members of such groups merely because of their affiliation with such groups. The formulation of the crime may be as follows:
"Whoever, while participating in a conspiracy to destroy a national, racial or religious group, undertakes an attack against life, liberty or property of members of such groups is guilty of the crime of genocide."

Lemkin was working to define and defend the future from the systematic destruction of people by governments of war in direct response to the universally recognized atrocities of WWII.
We now know genocide to be a condition that has plagued human civilization throughout time and throughout cultures. IT IS STILL VERY MUCH A PART OF OUR WORLD TODAY.

The genocide of American Indians is ongoing. The reservation system is nothing more than an established form of internment and reservations themselves are, primarily, places of extreme poverty and violence where suicide rates, addiction rates and population declines are nearly the worst in the world.

America has refused to acknowledge their culpability...which is in direct defiance of the ratified agreements made at the Genocide Convention of 1948.

Perhaps the most poorly represented population of X-charcters are their Indigenous mutants: Dani Moonstar, the Proudstars, Forge, Naze, Shaman etc... all of them are stereotypical 'Nobel Savages' who's special powers usually entail enhancing some sort of Native American stereotype to the omega level. (Dani talking to animals, Thunderbird and Warpath shouting hokahey and staging completely inappropriate ghost dances...Forge looking about as white as a guy can with his little mustache actually being the said 'savior' of the Apache medicine people traditions...)

I give the X-writers a lot of credit for their attempts. The only way things get better is by not shying away from the difficult stuff. And THIS is extremely difficult.

Comic Books don't have to merely inform us who we are...the best art isn't always just a mirror.

Sometimes the best art is a hammer that can break down walls or build better bridges.

The X-Men has endeavored to be both a mirror and a hammer.

Without the X-Men and the genius of the mutant idea - an idea that doesn't represent a race, but a diverse group of singular individuals that are united and divided by the substance of their will not their nationhood or skin color...and who fight persecution as families, teams, and nomads...there'd be a huge and unforgivable hole in comic books.

If anybody goes back far enough in their own bloodline...that's your story...that's your orgin...and that's where WE are...the individual mutant vs the corrupted state...the individual vs the world mechanisms of intolerance, greed and division...the smallest hope against the impossible odds of despair - the X-Men is the hero story within us all.

And that's incredible - the X-Men is a pretty amazing artistic achievement...flawed, always has been, but is has also always been an honest and brave attempt to represent us all...not by the unifying cliches of our genetic codes...but by the UNIQUE AND SINGULAR fabric of our hearts.

[Baron of Faltine]

Amercian soldiers stationed in Iraq count as invaders?

The European who killed Native Americans in order to take their lands count as invaders?

Because I'm pretty sure nobody makes a big deal about them... one group win medals, the other is considered an important part of history. They don't seem to be that "disliked".

Ah uh...you're going to open a fiery can of psychotic hornetes my good fellow.
Really....."disliked" is relative term. I think is matte rof perspective. Plus if it is your own nation that give you medals count only to limited extent.
And being important part of history also for err less that nice things(I'm Italian i know wha ti'm talking about in this case...my nation is famous not just for the renaissance, but also for roman History-conquest and genocide mostly- also that not so little fact during WW2..sometimes is easy to forget here in Italy that we kind of were the bad guy there...infact in most Italian School on purpose or by accident modern history is rarely studied.).
So yeah. Is double face medal.
In hisotry is hard to pinpoint good and bad, that's why fiction love Nazis as villain. THEY ARE EASY. Really in history one never saw such crazy political constructs so insanely devoted to be as grotesquely cartonish evil as humanly possible.

[Tonamelt]

Ah uh...you're going to open a fiery can of psychotic hornetes my good fellow.
Really....."disliked" is relative term. I think is matte rof perspective. Plus if it is your own nation that give you medals count only to limited extent.
And being important part of history also for err less that nice things(I'm Italian i know wha ti'm talking about in this case...my nation is famous not just for the renaissance, but also for roman History-conquest and genocide mostly- also that not so little fact during WW2..sometimes is easy to forget here in Italy that we kind of were the bad guy there...infact in most Italian School on purpose or by accident modern history is rarely studied.).
So yeah. Is double face medal.
In hisotry is hard to pinpoint good and bad, that's why fiction love Nazis as villain. THEY ARE EASY. Really in history one never saw such crazy political constructs so insanely devoted to be as grotesquely cartonish evil as humanly possible.

I don't know if either you didn't get my point, or I don't get yours.

But let's make it simple: foreigners who "don't adapt" are not invaders... In order to be an invader you need to actually attack (physically or psychologically) the people you are invading. And be liked or disliked is subjective... That was my point.

[Baron of Faltine]

I don't know if either you didn't get my point, or I don't get yours.

But let's make it simple: foreigners who "don't adapt" are not invaders... In order to be an invader you need to actually attack (physically or psychologically) the people you are invading. And be liked or disliked is subjective... That was my point.

Ahh I now get it, Sorry i misunderstood in part what you said. In truth one should specify, from actual invader and a "Perceived"invader. The second case is sadly more common, as is easy to be perceived as invaders.

[batalia]

There is no metaphor any more. The X-Men don't represent anything because the people in charge of story direction don't have much interest in that aspect of the franchise's history.

X-Men is basically about a group of generic, unorganized would-be superheroes that never get around to doing heroic things because they are too busy fighting each other or fighting the Avengers. And Marvel truly thinks they are more compelling this way.

The X-Men have always been about outsiders and the discriminated, the metaphor doesn't really need to change to include gays. It always included them.

Right now the metaphor makes even less sense not only because of what is said above but the X-men have become the Cyclops and Wolverine show. Two white dudes pissing at each other while the women and minority mutants' roles have been reduced. Very tone deaf and eye roll inducing. This also sadly applies to the movies too.

[DDD]

Does taking my kid to the park or walking around the block count as invading and being a nutter? How about gardening? That's what I was guilty of when the tires on my car were slashed and someone scratched "foreign scum" into the paint. Try explaining the reason for that to a little girl that was then 5 years old. I was also told when applying for a job that I should just "go back wherever I came from".

Of course not, those are all examples of discrimination.

[kevinism]

The X-Men have always been about outsiders and the discriminated, the metaphor doesn't really need to change to include gays. It always included them.

Just for future reference, "gay" is an adjective, not a noun.