Do the X-Men still take the place of POC, religious minorities and the LGBTQ?

[dkrook]

Aren't you doing the same thing?

Naw, you can't elaborate in any meaningful way this perspective you have. So that sets up abbreviated responses.

[Devaishwarya]

Interesting, so how about writers just write them meaningfully into the FICTIONAL narratives. What better way to be relatable to all those you just listed?

That's what they've been doing all along from Claremont to HiX-Man with varying degrees of success in between.
Just because I don't see something that's relatable to me, or representational of me, in whatever form, doesn't mean there's no relatability or representation, at all.

It's been clearly established in the many past iterations of this very topic that as a direct analogy, it doesn't work. But indirectly and on an individual basis, it does. Mileage will vary depending on what the individual reader is looking for.
And has actually changed and evolved with the times...as it/they should. HiX-Man's X-Men and Mutants are pretty far removed from what Claremont wrote in the 1980's.

[Noek]

Do all remeber the title topic " DO THE X-MEN STILL TAKE THE PLACE OF POC, RELIGIOUS MINORITIES AND THE LGBTQ?". Still being the key word. As in present day do you still see Mutants representing those who are treated wrong.

[Devaishwarya]

While I don't agree they "take the place of..." (I do understand what the OP was trying to say)
Yes, they can and do STILL represent those who are treated wrongly. Just in a more updated form to suit our current times.

[skyvolt2000]

Do all remeber the title topic " DO THE X-MEN STILL TAKE THE PLACE OF POC, RELIGIOUS MINORITIES AND THE LGBTQ?". Still being the key word. As in present day do you still see Mutants representing those who are treated wrong.

NO.

Never should have been. Folks would still shoot up Prodigy for being black and then look funny when you tell them "that was a mutant." That would be a BONUS to them.

[Huntsman Spider]

NO.

Never should have been. Folks would still shoot up Prodigy for being black and then look funny when you tell them "that was a mutant." That would be a BONUS to them.

A good point as well on the last part. Black people in real life are treated as if their skin imbues them with superpowers that make them dangerous and deadly to justify law enforcement (or the occasional self-appointed law enforcer) gunning them down pretty much at will and suffering no meaningful consequence or penalty for it, so in a world with superpowered beings that happen to also be black or otherwise nonwhite, being superpowered should just make them an even more appealing target for bigots to violently, even lethally, vent their fear and hatred of so-called "others."

[Kusanagi]

As a Black Person, hell no.

The fact that people even think their needs to be an allegory for race instead of just writing stories about black/gay/etc. characters is messed up. And honestly even when they were earnestly trying to be allegory it was hit or miss (and sometimes they spectacularly missed: see Kitty and the n word)

[MaximoffTrash]

Mutants can conceal their status (black, brown, asian, indigenous people can't)
Mutants, for the most part, can turn their abilities on and off (meaning there's no automatic stigma attached to being a mutant. they can choose to be themselves publicly or not and sometimes they are embraced because their powers are pleasing.)
Mutants, for the most part, are EXTREMELY attractive by normal human standards (meaning they are, more often than not, extremely socially successful even without their powers being revealed)
Mutants have a culture they have invented for themselves which is largely hidden from non-mutants
Mutants were never enslaved
Mutants are not immigrants

they certainly are not an analog for Black Americans who, even in the Marvel universe, have had and still have it much worse than the mutants ever did. And the same can be said for Brown Americans as well and Indigenous Americans. there's no comparison; all those groups exist in the marvel universe with a basically identical history to their real world counterparts.

one size can't and doesn't fit all.

doesn't mean they're not awesome. but they weren't designed and haven't evolved to be what so many people keep trying to pretend they are.

The other thing that makes the mutants a poor analog for ANY marginalized group is, it's not unreasonable to fear mutants. They are actually physical threats to those around them and it makes no sense, survival-wise, that any baseline human would trust any mutant NOT to kill them or invade their mind or whatever. there'd be no way to stop them if they did.

I think this is not necessarily true, it appear this way because the X-franchise for the most part focused on, well, X-Men.
But X-Men is just a group of mutants doing specific stuff.
Like lore wise there are bunch of mutants who don't really have any power, they just look weird, and it's very likely most mutant just look like your average Joe.(If not straight up looking none-human) but it doesn't feel this way because the franchise focus on the elite group, AKA the powerful or beautiful ones.(This is the case for both heroes and villains.)

[Huntsman Spider]

As a Black Person, hell no.

The fact that people even think their needs to be an allegory for race instead of just writing stories about black/gay/etc. characters is messed up. And honestly even when they were earnestly trying to be allegory it was hit or miss (and sometimes they spectacularly missed: see Kitty and the n word)

I think the problem with "needing" an allegory for racism and marginalization in real life is that it lets certain elements of the readership and fandom off the hook by giving them proxies similar to themselves, that they feel they can more easily relate to or empathize with, instead of directly challenging their lack of empathy or affinity for characters, let alone real people, that do not resemble them or their own lived experiences.

I think this is not necessarily true, it appear this way because the X-franchise for the most part focused on, well, X-Men.
But X-Men is just a group of mutants doing specific stuff.
Like lore wise there are bunch of mutants who don't really have any power, they just look weird, and it's very likely most mutant just look like your average Joe.(If not straight up looking none-human) but it doesn't feel this way because the franchise focus on the elite group, AKA the powerful or beautiful ones.(This is the case for both heroes and villains.)

That's a problem with the superhero genre in general, that it focuses far too much on the superpowered "elite," the so-called "A-List" heroes and villains with a few on the "B-List" getting promoted to greater prominence for one or more arcs, and ordinary human characters and "lower-tier" superpowered characters get lost in the shuffle, creating a sense that those people who are either outright ordinary or "less special or powerful" compared to "top-tier" superhumans don't really matter in the grand scheme of the universe. After that, it's hard to feel that these incredibly powerful beings, who are privileged by the narrative of the setting in various ways and aspects of their existence and character, really merit the sympathy or empathy of the readership, especially the parts of the readership that identify more with those ordinary or "less special" beings that the more extraordinary and powerful ones seem to ignore or flat-out trample underfoot.

[Steel Inquisitor]

I think this is not necessarily true, it appear this way because the X-franchise for the most part focused on, well, X-Men.
But X-Men is just a group of mutants doing specific stuff.
Like lore wise there are bunch of mutants who don't really have any power, they just look weird, and it's very likely most mutant just look like your average Joe.(If not straight up looking none-human) but it doesn't feel this way because the franchise focus on the elite group, AKA the powerful or beautiful ones.(This is the case for both heroes and villains.)

They're also in super-hero comics where everyone is super attractive. Just like in tv and movies.



Every person here is drop dead gorgeous, even the guest stars.

[Redjack]

Why are there so few mutants of color?

if they are meant to represent us why are more than 90% of them white (and straight)?

[Username taken]

NO.

Never should have been. Folks would still shoot up Prodigy for being black and then look funny when you tell them "that was a mutant." That would be a BONUS to them.

Exactly this.

And with so many mutants being beautiful white people, it kind of falls apart.

I mean, can guys like Emma Frost and Scott Summers really be metaphors for POC? Nah...

[Steel Inquisitor]

Why are there so few mutants of color?

if they are meant to represent us why are more than 90% of them white (and straight)?

Metaphors are never 1= 1 in fiction. Stan Lee and Jack Kirby were heavily influenced by Civil Rights during the 60's, they didn't just choose Xavier and Magneto being inspired by Malcolm X and Martin Luthor King at random, which Claremont build on. Over time other writers, like Morrison, would incorporate other marginalised groups overtly into the metaphoric to keep it fresh.

Because these characters were created in the 60's, and until recently non-white voices had more of say behind the scenes. There's a reason the 05 were all white when they were created and it nothing to do with the stories. The industry's always been heavily impacted by America's racism. That's why they had so much trouble the south with characters like Falcon and Black Panther the they were created. This also affected classic shows like Star Trek, which got grief over Uhura being black.

[Redjack]

Metaphors are never 1= 1 in fiction. Stan Lee and Jack Kirby were heavily influenced by Civil Rights during the 60's, they didn't just choose Xavier and Magneto being inspired by Malcolm X and Martin Luthor King at random, which Claremont build on. Over time other writers, like Morrison, would incorporate other marginalised groups overtly into the metaphoric to keep it fresh.

That's a lie. It never happened. It is false. it is actually offensive to claim Xavier = MLK and Magneto = Malcolm. Only people who were ignorant of both men would have ever tried to make that analogy and only an equally ignorant audience would have accepted it. It's nonsense.

Stan invented mutants because he was tired of making up origin stories. the civil rights nonsense was injected in the late 1980s.

Page 13 of SON OF ORIGINS of MARVEL COMICS tells the story in detail. Stan wrote it.

[Zelena]

That's a lie. It never happened. It is false. it is actually offensive to claim Xavier = MLK and Magneto = Malcolm. Only people who were ignorant of both men would have ever tried to make that analogy and only an equally ignorant audience would have accepted it. It's nonsense.

Stan invented mutants because he was tired of making up origin stories. the civil rights nonsense was injected in the late 1980s.

Page 13 of SON OF ORIGINS of MARVEL COMICS tells the story in detail. Stan wrote it.

It’s what I heard too. But this idea of mutants as a metaphor dies hard. Comics have been invented for entertaining purposes, not political ones. Authors can have convictions, but it would be a misstep to show them that blatantly on the paper. I see them in the story itself and in its conclusion, not in the characters.