Your Unpopular/Controversial Opinions on the X-Universe

[Hizashi]

Yes, this is something that happens in real life.

However this is fiction land, where everything is, ostensibly, driven by narrative development. While people IRL can and do make snap decisions that may run contrary to their established character, (often as a matter of perception since we're often not privy to the private thought processes behind it) in fiction these same sort of snap decisions with no narrative groundwork and development to support it is bad writing. In fiction, characterization needs to be consistent, and change must be DRIVEN, not just declared to be, or you risk losing the audience. Comics are no different; Just how many criticisms have we seen about characters being written OOC after sudden personality shifts in the past?

Subtext is very dangerous to use as this sort of groundwork, precisely BECAUSE not everyone sees it. Especially once the context get removed.

And blanket accusing everyone who objects to the development of being homophobic is NOT constructive, or even correct.

Couldn't have said it better myself. I don't know for sure, but it seems to me that we're all trying to have a good faith conversation about some important topics here.

[Hizashi]

Like I said earlier, Bobby isn’t a character I “needed” to be gay. My opinions on the character largely remained unchanged after he came out.

The only arguments that I’ve heard that made his story worse was that he can’t date Lorna anymore… and they hadn’t dated for years prior to the change and she always picked Havok over him (sorry Lorna fans). Otherwise he’s still the comic relief, omega-level, who doesn’t always live up to his full potential.

Bringing back the Reed example, FF stories would fundamentally change if he was revealed as gay. He’d have to break up with Sue which would adjust his relationships with her, Johnny, and the kids.

In comparison, Bobby’s coming out has virtually no impact on X-Men stories. The only thing that has changed is his love life which is such a small fraction of what we’re reading on a regular basis.

See, I don't think it's about the impact to the X-Men stories overall, it's more about the relationship between Marvel creative, the characters, and the readership. I'm still working this out, but I'm not sure it's a good thing.

[Hizashi]

It's the only way to look at it. It doesn't matter whether one thinks he is gay or not the choice wasn't in their hands just like if you had a best friend who all of a sudden came out after you knew each other since the both of you were two years old and you had no idea. The only choice you get is how you deal with it and whether you think it will make his life horrible or good is inconsequential (and says more about the person judging than the person who came out) because it's his life. Same concept, other people (Writers) control bobby as he has no free will and in canon he is a gay man. Some like it, some don't. Theres really not much middle ground aside from personal feelings which again in the grand scheme shouldn't matter. Life will be only as horrible for a gay person (excluding themselves for this example)as the people around them make it, same with everyone else.

edit: Also of note some people never come out at all and don't have the benefit of meeting a time displaced version of themselves to say "get ya life."

But it isn't the only way to look at it, the actual people writing the character didn't interpret him the same way consistently. One interpretation won out, was it a good thing that it happened the way it did?

[Kingdom X]

Couldn't have said it better myself. I don't know for sure, but it seems to me that we're all trying to have a good faith conversation about some important topics here.

I agree, I think it's just a sensitive subject matter. I guess when it comes down to characterization I view sexuality and personality traits in two completely different categories. If a friend came out to me even if I was a little surprised my relationship to that person wouldn't shift. They may be dating different people now and show a bit more confidence but everything else is the same. Now, if a friend of mine started exhibiting completely different personality traits (plug in any example of a comic book character randomly going crazy for the sake of the plot), I'd question them way more.

Of course this is a simplified version of the situation. If a friend that was married for 30 years (again the Reed example) came out I'd probably have a couple extra follow-up questions. I know people think about this differently but I really can't find many examples of Bobby's personality changing because his sexuality did (though Duggan does like to throw random gay stereotypes at him, but that's a whole different problem).

[Alan2099]

I think a part of the issue comes from the fact that you can know fictional characters in ways you never know real people. We can see characters when they're alone and nobody is watching. We can read their first person narration or their thought bubbles. We're there in moments where they have nothing to hide and no real way to hide it.

That's a lot different from your neighbors who lives across the street. No matter how long you've known him, it's impossible to get into his head the same way.

if a fictional character has a hidden side to them, especially a long running character, you'd expect to see elements of it.

[davetvs]

Yes, this is something that happens in real life.

However this is fiction land, where everything is, ostensibly, driven by narrative development. While people IRL can and do make snap decisions that may run contrary to their established character, (often as a matter of perception since we're often not privy to the private thought processes behind it) in fiction these same sort of snap decisions with no narrative groundwork and development to support it is bad writing. In fiction, characterization needs to be consistent, and change must be DRIVEN, not just declared to be, or you risk losing the audience. Comics are no different; Just how many criticisms have we seen about characters being written OOC after sudden personality shifts in the past?

Subtext is very dangerous to use as this sort of groundwork, precisely BECAUSE not everyone sees it. Especially once the context get removed.

And blanket accusing everyone who objects to the development of being homophobic is NOT constructive, or even correct.

It doesn't matter, not everyone has to see it for it to exist, and not everyone has to accept it for it to be canon. Narratively, the subtext (which again, spans decades...Austen was probably the most blatant but it was the 2000s, comics could get away with more by that point). At the end of the day, whether you personally like or dislike Bobby coming out doesn't matter, he's done it. We all have character preferences, but if your argument "against" hangs on it somehow being OOC for the character (when we can point to 3, 4, 5 storylines that prove it isn't) or the belief that any man who has heterosexual relationships can under no circumstances actually be gay, you're wrong. Period. There was narrative groundwork for it, and it does happen IRL all the time.

Editing to add that I understand these are somewhat sensitive topics and we should extend a bit of grace to our fellow posters, as a gay man if you're in here arguing that "straight" men who've dated women don't come out or that some men don't wait until they're in their 30s, 40s, and beyond to come out, and that's why you can't accept Bobby's sexuality, I don't have to validate your response as having any type of merit. Using a false belief to inform an opinion just leaves you looking like someone who can't grasp nuanced concepts, but still wants to argue.

[Ambaryerno]

It doesn't matter, not everyone has to see it for it to exist, and not everyone has to accept it for it to be canon. Narratively, the subtext (which again, spans decades...Austen was probably the most blatant but it was the 2000s, comics could get away with more by that point). At the end of the day, whether you personally like or dislike Bobby coming out doesn't matter, he's done it. We all have character preferences, but if your argument "against" hangs on it somehow being OOC for the character (when we can point to 3, 4, 5 storylines that prove it isn't) or the belief that any man who has heterosexual relationships can under no circumstances actually be gay, you're wrong. Period. There was narrative groundwork for it, and it does happen IRL all the time.

Editing to add that I understand these are somewhat sensitive topics and we should extend a bit of grace to our fellow posters, as a gay man if you're in here arguing that "straight" men who've dated women don't come out or that some men don't wait until they're in their 30s, 40s, and beyond to come out, and that's why you can't accept Bobby's sexuality, I don't have to validate your response as having any type of merit. Using a false belief to inform an opinion just leaves you looking like someone who can't grasp nuanced concepts, but still wants to argue.

I'll thank you not to put words into my mouth, because I'm not saying anything of the sort.

YOU said "At this point any pushback to Bobby coming out (beyond the sloppy way it was handled) is homophobia pure and simple."

I'm calling you on this bullshit right here (emphasis mine). You're basically justifying your position by blanket calling anyone who objects — NO MATTER WHAT THEIR OBJECTIONS ARE BASED ON — homophobic "pure and simple."

Well lighten the hell up, because it's NOT pure and simple. Simply the fact that NOT EVERYONE IN THIS THREAD sees the same subtext you did makes that quite clear.

I don't have a damn horse in this race. I never read the old books, so I can't say what I did or did not see as "groundwork" subtext, text, or anything else. What I AM saying is that just as "just because you didn't see it doesn't mean it wasn't there," the OPPOSITE is true: Just because YOU saw it doesn't mean it really WAS.

[jwatson]

But it isn't the only way to look at it, the actual people writing the character didn't interpret him the same way consistently. One interpretation won out, was it a good thing that it happened the way it did?

But that still lands on that individual. It has no effect on Bobby being gay or not just like if a person came out midlife what another thinks of it but themselves does not matter. So it really doesn't matter, it is just a conversation for people to make themselves feel better which is cool but at the end of the day it doesn't do anything to bobby one way or the other it just changes people perception of him and whatever result that ends up being is still there personal problem as bobby is still gay.

[davetvs]

I'll thank you not to put words into my mouth, because I'm not saying anything of the sort.

YOU said "At this point any pushback to Bobby coming out (beyond the sloppy way it was handled) is homophobia pure and simple."

I'm calling you on this bullshit right here (emphasis mine). You're basically justifying your position by blanket calling anyone who objects — NO MATTER WHAT THEIR OBJECTIONS ARE BASED ON — homophobic "pure and simple."

Well lighten the hell up, because it's NOT pure and simple. Simply the fact that NOT EVERYONE IN THIS THREAD sees the same subtext you did makes that quite clear.

I don't have a damn horse in this race. I never read the old books, so I can't say what I did or did not see as "groundwork" subtext, text, or anything else. What I AM saying is that just as "just because you didn't see it doesn't mean it wasn't there," the OPPOSITE is true: Just because YOU saw it doesn't mean it really WAS.

It's not bullshit. The conversation literally goes like this:

Person 1: I don't like that Iceman is gay.

Person 2: Why?

Person 1: The narrative didn't support it.

Person 2: Actually, there's been a lot of subtext with Iceman, going back decades.

Person 1: That evidence isn't strong enough for me, so I still have a problem.

Person 2: Okay, well, you know, men who live heterosexual lives come out as gay, many unexpectedly, in their mid 20s-30s (which is where we can assume the character is meant to be) all the time.

Person 1: I still have a problem with it.

That doesn't sound like homophobia to you? I also find your combativeness ironic considering how histrionic your posts about X-23 never being written to your exact specifications are. Perhaps you're just seeing evidence supporting specific characterization that the rest of us (and Marvel) aren't?

[sunofdarkchild]

I don't think complaints should have an expiration date. Just because something's been a certain way for a long time doesn't mean the steps that created that situation are immune from criticism. bringing Jean back for X-Factor, Inferno, making Magneto a villain again are all things that happened before I was born, and I will still complain about them.

Talking about changes to characters. Every writer for the last 15 years has portrayed Magik as a remorseless killer. That's the way it is. But when it started it was completely OOC for her and was the result of an inexcusable mistake. Lousie Simonsen literally forgot what happened in the Magik mini where Illyana decided to spare Belasco's life at the end. She wrote a comic where Illyana outright states that she killed Belasco. This is the equivalent of Luke Skywalker declaring that he he stabbed Darth Vader to death and that being the new canon even though Return of the Jedi clearly showed him sparing Vader. The Magik Simonsen wrote was a completely different character from the one Claremont wrote, and even though every writer since has taken more from her characterization than from Claremont's, that doesn't change the fact that her characterization was the result of a giant and inexcusable mistake in the first place, and that mistake should not be excused because it's become the default position.



According to the above panel which Simonsen wrote the scene below had her gleefully chopping Belasco to bits.

magik spares belasco.jpg

[cranger]

It's not bullshit. The conversation literally goes like this:

Person 1: I don't like that Iceman is gay.

Person 2: Why?

Person 1: The narrative didn't support it.

Person 2: Actually, there's been a lot of subtext with Iceman, going back decades.

Person 1: That evidence isn't strong enough for me, so I still have a problem.

Person 2: Okay, well, you know, men who live heterosexual lives come out as gay, many unexpectedly, in their mid 20s-30s (which is where we can assume the character is meant to be) all the time.

Person 1: I still have a problem with it.

That doesn't sound like homophobia to you? I also find your combativeness ironic considering how histrionic your posts about X-23 never being written to your exact specifications are. Perhaps you're just seeing evidence supporting specific characterization that the rest of us (and Marvel) aren't?

Proving people you think are bigots or whatever because you happen to really, really think a couple pages here and there out of hundreds of thousands of pages is a 'narrative' is beyond careless.

[davetvs]

Proving people you think are bigots or whatever because you happen to really, really think a couple pages here and there out of hundreds of thousands of pages is a 'narrative' is beyond careless.

And arguing about established canon rooted in both real-world human behavior and narrative subtext is pointless. Where do we go from here? He's canonically gay no matter what.

[Ambaryerno]

It's not bullshit. The conversation literally goes like this:

Person 1: I don't like that Iceman is gay.

Person 2: Why?

Person 1: The narrative didn't support it.

Person 2: Actually, there's been a lot of subtext with Iceman, going back decades.

Person 1: That evidence isn't strong enough for me, so I still have a problem.

Person 2: Okay, well, you know, men who live heterosexual lives come out as gay, many unexpectedly, in their mid 20s-30s (which is where we can assume the character is meant to be) all the time.

Person 1: I still have a problem with it.

That doesn't sound like homophobia to you? I also find your combativeness ironic considering how histrionic your posts about X-23 never being written to your exact specifications are. Perhaps you're just seeing evidence supporting specific characterization that the rest of us (and Marvel) aren't?

No, it doesn't. It sounds like you deliberately attempting to manufacture that conclusion by grossly oversimplifying the argument.

And your X-23 argument is itself just grasping at straws. I'm not relying on subtext that pops up in one or two panels out of the hundred or so on average in an issue.

[cranger]

And arguing about established canon rooted in both real-world human behavior and narrative subtext is pointless. Where do we go from here? He's canonically gay no matter what.

I agree with the bold. As far as arguing about panels people put way too much emphasis on, well that is just everyday life on these forums. Which I will agree with as well to be pointless.

[Wolverine12]

It's not bullshit. The conversation literally goes like this:

Person 1: I don't like that Iceman is gay.

Person 2: Why?

Person 1: The narrative didn't support it.

Person 2: Actually, there's been a lot of subtext with Iceman, going back decades.

Person 1: That evidence isn't strong enough for me, so I still have a problem.

Person 2: Okay, well, you know, men who live heterosexual lives come out as gay, many unexpectedly, in their mid 20s-30s (which is where we can assume the character is meant to be) all the time.

Person 1: I still have a problem with it.

That doesn't sound like homophobia to you? I also find your combativeness ironic considering how histrionic your posts about X-23 never being written to your exact specifications are. Perhaps you're just seeing evidence supporting specific characterization that the rest of us (and Marvel) aren't?

You’re painting with too broad of a brush here. Also a person can dislike the direction a character takes and not be “phobic” to whatever said direction is. Like others said to call anyone who doesn’t like Bobby’s coming out, even if they only feel it’s due to poor writing, homophobic it’s a step too far. Not liking a narrative change is not the same thing as not liking a person’s sexuality. If a person says “I don’t like Bobby because he’s gay” sure that’s homophobic, if a person says “ I don’t like how Marvel made Bobby gay,”. I think that’s a creative judgment not homophobia. To you’re credit you did give allowance for the way it happened, which I personally think was handled terribly, but if that instance tainted a reader on the character that doesn’t automatically make them a bigot. Hell they could be upset with the fact Jean outed Bobby and they just can’t get past that violation of personal space.

From a personal stand point I never picked up on the subtext but I wasn’t the intended audience either. The first time it even hit my radar was when I started coming to discussion boards and people would point out the subtext. I see it now but it had to be shown to me by those looking for it first, at that may not be the case for everyone, that’s just my perspective.

I think too often now discussions become an entire black and white debate when there is honestly usually a lot of gray area that gets tossed aside because it doesn’t fit either argument.