Mutant Lives Matter: mutation as allegory

[G0RM]

I was wondering what people think of the parallel of mutation vs bigotry in the Marvel Universe as an allegory for racism, religion, LGBTQIA issues etc.

"Jay & Miles Explain the X-Men" points out mutation as allegory for civil rights in the 1960s, with Xavier & Magneto as stand-ins for MLK & Malcolm-X respectively (Stan Lee started writing while they were both politically active & in weekly headlines, before their assassinations.)

Later, when Claremont made the genius move of giving Magneto's origin as surviving genocide in the Nazi deathcamps, mutation became a much more layered allegory, which has extended more explicitly to LGBTQIA issues in the hands of more recent authors.

What are your opinions of mutation as a metaphor for social change, as adolescent struggle for identity, or something else I haven't mentioned?

Have you found strength from X-stories, reading into mutation your own challenges, struggles, and issues as allegory?

Have mutant issues helped you to connect with others in similar situations, for example, the fanfiction communities, cosplay etc?

(I know that Trek, Gate, Who, Firefly, LotR, Potter, GoT etc have united people as modern religions, but the X-stories involve so much soap-opera infighting, that I'm not sure they have the same power to unite philosophically, and might just add a new language for debate and disagreement.)

[Captain Nash]

yes, as a gay man who discovered the X-men in my early teen's, I eventually learned to be able to walk through walls and control weather patterns.

No, just kidding, i wanted a light intro. I am a gay man who discovered the X-Men in his early teens. I was struggling with my sexuality during that time, and in fact it took me about 10 years to finally come to terms with it, but never during that time did i turn to self hate. I knew that it was okay to be different. I just wanted to try and live a normal life, not for me, but for my parents so I would not let them down as their only child. By that I mean that as the only child of the only son from my father's generation would mean that most likely that would be the end of our family name. I don't want to go into specifics, but my family has some importance with their family name, and for that reason it made it more important that we live a normal life. What I didn't realize at the time, is that being gay IS a normal life, it's just a different life than the majority.

When I finally accepted who I was, it was during the time that the legacy virus storyline was in full steam - I came out late 90's if that gives any reference. it seemed to me that not only was the hatred being written into storylines in the X-books for just being different, there was also the fact that there was fear of the legacy virus, much like fear of AIDS. I don't have AIDS so I can't related precisely to that, but I am saying that allegory was made stronger with that, indeed, possibly stronger than other allegories at that time due to the virus comparison. i.e, in the 60's-80s the allegory was more likely represented by racial minorities. In the 90's, because of the virus storyline, it seemed more apt to be an allegory for LGBT. Possibly now it's something that transgendered people may relate to. And good for all of those that can relate. And of course that includes all oppressed peoples, I didn't touch on religion but definitely with that as well - Magneto's evolution as a character highlights that.

I'm not explaining myself well here I think. But suffice to say that even though it took ME personally a while to come to realize it, the X-Men showed that being different from the majority is okay. It makes you unique. but you are still normal. Just like people who have red hair, green eyes, left hand favoritism, they may have different traits than the majority, but they are still normal. And those who are LBGT, a minority race in the culture of their location, smaller religious sects, we are ALL normal. We are all human.

Except those who like spiders. I'm not sure about them.

(sorry, I opened with a joke so I have to close with it as well, I really don't mean that.)

[Huntsman Spider]

I like spiders. Shock. (Kidding as well. Not about liking spiders, though.)

More seriously, though, I think the metaphor does work in broad strokes, and can be especially effective thanks to current events heightening fear of the other, the unknown, the stranger . . . or heightening awareness of how people who are different in some way or other are made out to be or to feel like they're inhuman, abnormal, "subhuman," freakish, or otherwise unworthy of the respect and consideration we would "normally" give our fellow human beings. The sad part is that a lot of the fandom doesn't connect too well with that overarching message, that it somehow gets lost amid all the cool costumes and flashy powers, and so when X-Men comics try to make themselves and that message more relevant to contemporary society, we now have people railing against it because, "I don't like being preached at, man!" To me, though, that's a sign the X-Men's message is needed more than ever, especially given how forces within so many nations continually seek to divide and conquer by painting relatively small and comparatively less powerful groups as scapegoats for the problems faced by those nations as a whole, or by the supposed majority within said nations, and how too many fall for that and turn on their neighbors, their coworkers, even their friends and family, or worse, total strangers who have nothing to do with the reasons they're so angry and fearful, but resemble those they've been told to hate and blame and resent.

If anything, I would invite X-Men (writers) to broaden or sharpen that message by also discussing the spectrum of bigotry, that it doesn't have to be torches and pitchforks all the time, or overt violence, state-sponsored or not, against the affected. It can be just as easily legislation that essentially outlaws and criminalizes the existence of certain minority groups, or it can be ordinary people --- maybe even non-mutant superhumans vis-à-vis the mutant plight --- who have the privilege of assuming they don't have to care because it's not something that affects their daily lives and struggles, and so turn a blind eye. Speaking of addressing privilege, X-Men (writers) could also address the issues of mutants who can't pass for regular humans and/or don't have combat-effective mutations and thus feel (rightfully) left behind by the X-Men's attempts at fighting for peaceful coexistence between mutants and humans, not to mention how being a mutant can overlap or intersect with minority groups or other groups that are already stigmatized and marginalized in real life. With how certain minorities are already automatically suspected or judged as criminals and/or terrorists and treated accordingly, would being a mutant necessarily exacerbate that? Then there's the problem of intragroup prejudice --- do mutants have their own internal hierarchies, and if so, who's perceived to be "on top" of that hierarchy and what does that mean for mutants' collective struggle for survival?

That's my take.

[ExodusCloak]

You would have thought they'd be an issue with mutants who are from pure lines later down the line and mudblood mutants.
But I suppose most mutants stem from human parents

[PsychoEFrost]

You would have thought they'd be an issue with mutants who are from pure lines later down the line and mudblood mutants.
But I suppose most mutants stem from human parents

I mean, every mutant in existence who isn't Apocalypse comes from a non-mutant in fewer than four generations.

[ExodusCloak]

I mean, every mutant in existence who isn't Apocalypse comes from a non-mutant in fewer than four generations.

Rachel is the daughter of alternate reality Wolverine and Jean. I mean she can be the Draco Malfoy. With Jean as Narcissa and Wolverine as Lucius

Blink and Chamber?

[LordUltimus]

I always thought mutants worked best as a youth/puberty metaphor.

[Daniel22]

I always thought mutants worked best as a youth/puberty metaphor.

I can see that view. It also works because everyone goes through puberty but not everyone has to deal with being "other" or part of a persecuted group. On the flip side, it's usually during puberty that we become more aware of our ethnicity, orientation, etc and how it impacts us and how people treat us. Of course we're aware of different groups and how they interact at a young age, but it's usually around adolescence that we start thinking about and processing those divisions in an adult way.

I'm old enough to remember when being a fan of superheroes was almost exclusively the territory of nerds. Not the sort of cool or accepted nerds of today, but the unpopular and harassed kind of nerd that isn't as much of a thing now. There weren't a lot of superhero movies and they didn't make a billion dollars. So back then, just being a superhero fan was enough to make you feel as though you belonged to a persecuted group. The rise of geek culture has severely lessened that bond, imo.

[The tall man]

I never really bought into the idea that mutants were a stand-in for minorities when there are actual minorities in the MU as well as the vast majority of X-men and mutants in general were white. I can't accept Cyclops or Emma or Rogue being more discriminated against than say Sam Wilson or Rage or Adam Brashear. Are we suppose to think that in the MU only mutants are subject to bigotry, prejudice and racism. And that all normal humans no matter their skin color, religious beliefs and sexual orientation have no problems. Are there no mutants who are racist against humans or is the word "flatscan" a term of endearment?

[PsychoEFrost]

I never really bought into the idea that mutants were a stand-in for minorities when there are actual minorities in the MU as well as the vast majority of X-men and mutants in general were white. I can't accept Cyclops or Emma or Rogue being more discriminated against than say Sam Wilson or Rage or Adam Brashear. Are we suppose to think that in the MU only mutants are subject to bigotry, prejudice and racism. And that all normal humans no matter their skin color, religious beliefs and sexual orientation have no problems. Are there no mutants who are racist against humans or is the word "flatscan" a term of endearment?

The allegory is pretty clear IMO: People being persecuted and killed for how they were born, not the choices they made. Kirby's view was always to have them be an allegory to the ongoing at the time Civil Rights Movement.

[Huntsman Spider]

I never really bought into the idea that mutants were a stand-in for minorities when there are actual minorities in the MU as well as the vast majority of X-men and mutants in general were white. I can't accept Cyclops or Emma or Rogue being more discriminated against than say Sam Wilson or Rage or Adam Brashear. Are we suppose to think that in the MU only mutants are subject to bigotry, prejudice and racism. And that all normal humans no matter their skin color, religious beliefs and sexual orientation have no problems. Are there no mutants who are racist against humans or is the word "flatscan" a term of endearment?

That's why I would like X-Men --- the writers, at least --- to broaden and sharpen the metaphor, to address how real-world minorities would react to mutants or vice versa. Would they become allies, perceiving a shared experience of oppression, discrimination, and marginalization, or would there be a backlash toward the idea of --- as you put it --- mostly white superhumans "appropriating" the language of oppression and persecution while being more powerful than most actual minorities ever could be? And yes, there would be a need for the writers to seriously address the issue of how mostly white, mostly conventionally attractive, and mostly straight and/or cisgender characters ended up as the face of the mutant struggle, and how that might mess with the message they're trying to send about equal rights.

[Sundown]

I think the message was created to be as broad as possible to make the most readers be able to relate to it. As it is, the metaphor can basically apply to anyone who has ever felt different or unaccepted by others for something they can't help. If writers start narrowing it down or making it more specific, it could lose audience.

[Huntsman Spider]

I think the message was created to be as broad as possible to make the most readers be able to relate to it. As it is, the metaphor can basically apply to anyone who has ever felt different or unaccepted by others for something they can't help. If writers start narrowing it down or making it more specific, it could lose audience.

That's also a problem, I'll admit, but I think making the metaphor as broad as it's been has its own set of issues, namely certain segments of fandom that dissociate from the message the X-Men series/franchise is trying to send and just focus on the cool visuals (costumes and powers). As a result, they end up very unready to engage with the issues of bigotry and prejudice being addressed by the comics. I mean, you have people who used to or still feel persecuted and oppressed for being comic book fans, but at the same time are extremely oblivious if not insensitive to the oppression and persecution experienced by various minority groups in the world, react extremely poorly to being asked to show some empathy or consideration for those groups of people, and yet they're X-Men fans. How to even begin to untangle that?

[Sundown]

That's also a problem, I'll admit, but I think making the metaphor as broad as it's been has its own set of issues, namely certain segments of fandom that dissociate from the message the X-Men series/franchise is trying to send and just focus on the cool visuals (costumes and powers). As a result, they end up very unready to engage with the issues of bigotry and prejudice being addressed by the comics. I mean, you have people who used to or still feel persecuted and oppressed for being comic book fans, but at the same time are extremely oblivious if not insensitive to the oppression and persecution experienced by various minority groups in the world, react extremely poorly to being asked to show some empathy or consideration for those groups of people, and yet they're X-Men fans. How to even begin to untangle that?

Yeah, I see what you mean and I agree. If absolutely nothing else, the X-Men should teach the message of acceptance. If people have been reading these books for any length of time and haven't gotten that one, it's hard to know what to say...

[Magnusilver]

Religious minority? Sexual minority? yes

Racial minority? no. and it's ridiculous. All prominent X-men except Storm are white.

An almost/all white team posing as racial minority really remind me of old hollywood movies that have white actors playing non-white characters.