The sexuality metaphor in the X-Men comics

[Kymeric]

You aren't stuck with it. No one is making you read it.

I usually dont lol. The newxmen will be the first time ive bout xmen in many years.

I just think the metaphore is bad. If mutants really existed we would all be on the side of the setinels. It wouldnt take many times of magneto killing our loved ones before we agreed theyre too dangerous to exist. While they could do something great with the race angle. Address how we still cross the street if we see a group of black guys coming. Or when we hear someone behind us in a dark alley were relieved that theyre white (i think jesse jackson said something similar to this). There is real issues that we should talk about but theyre taking the easy way out to make it about homosexuality.

[The Irony Engine]

There is real issues that we should talk about but theyre taking the easy way out to make it about homosexuality.

Kymeric- I absolutely agree with you that the points you brought up about race are real issues. But believe me when I say that there is enough prejudice to go around. Blacks face issues, LGBT face issues, Hispanics in the US faces issues, women face issues. They are all slightly different issues... but they don't cancel each other out. It's not like there is some contest being staged over who wins "Miss Most Oppressed." The best thing minority groups (not to mention, people in general) can do is try to help and support one another, not attack each other over who's problems are more legitimate.

[Mia]

It's a one size fits all metaphor for anyone different. It's pretty simple.

I agree.

But the closest analogy I've seen to the X-Men has always been the Jewish people. In that there was always a message about not matter how badly people treat you or your situation gets. Always strive to be the better person and serve society.

However since M day that message has been pretty much shot.

[The Irony Engine]

I agree.

But the closest analogy I've seen to the X-Men has always been the Jewish people. In that there was always a message about not matter how badly people treat you or your situation gets. Always strive to be the better person and serve society.

However since M day that message has been pretty much shot.

I always saw it as LGBT- because I'm pretty heavily bisexual. The sexuality metaphor jumped out at me right away when I was younger. But a friend of mine recently confessed that she saw "Xmen First Class" and related to Mystique because it reminded her of her own struggle with a disability. She has a physical disability she has been able to hide from others... but she says she's sick of hiding it anymore. Her boyfriend of about five years helps her take care of it, but is embarrassed for their friends to know. She is worried about people at work finding out, because she thinks it could keep her from getting a promotion. But mostly, at this point, she says it's part of her, it helped shape who she is, and she wants to be out about it. She mostly wants him to accept it and not see it as separate from who and what she is. It was surprising for her to grab Mystique as an example, because she actually doesn't read comics at all.

I never thought about Xmen as a metaphor for a disability- but I guess I can see that. I guess if you are Oscar Pistorius, you can turn your disability into a superpower. It also never occurred to me that it could be a metaphor for Judaism, but I guess I can see that too. I think it really is a very broad, all inclusive, metaphor. That's pretty cool.

[The Irony Engine]

While they could do something great with the race angle. Address how we still cross the street if we see a group of black guys coming. Or when we hear someone behind us in a dark alley were relieved that theyre white (i think jesse jackson said something similar to this).

I actually don't react this way, because, while I'm not black- half my family is. But that said... yeah, it would be neat if the writers explored the complexity of this sort of thing more. I'm thinking you don't really mean to say that the metaphor is bad- just that it could be better used.

[Assassin Spider]

But the closest analogy I've seen to the X-Men has always been the Jewish people. In that there was always a message about not matter how badly people treat you or your situation gets. Always strive to be the better person and serve society.

However since M day that message has been pretty much shot.

The current X-Men status quo is somewhat reminiscent of the situation in Israel. A persecuted people seeks refuge from their persecution in a distant land. Over time, said people develop a culture of near-constant mobilization against a world perceived as full of enemies inimical to their very existence, with whom peaceful coexistence is no longer (if it ever was) an option and the only justifiable response in the name of survival is to prepare for war. In the process, they alienate many of their erstwhile allies, who become dismayed at the paranoia and belligerence with which they treat those they view as not wholly supportive of their efforts to ensure their survival as a people. The common perception in that land is that their greater militancy is what stands between them and complete extermination at the hands of their enemies, even if it means doing unto others as their enemies once did unto them.

I just think the metaphore is bad. If mutants really existed we would all be on the side of the setinels. It wouldnt take many times of magneto killing our loved ones before we agreed theyre too dangerous to exist.

As for the issue of "if mutants were real, we'd be on the side of the Sentinels for our own self-preservation," similar arguments could be made about "stop and frisk" in New York City or the general focus by the national security community on Middle Easterners of Islamic faith in investigations of potential domestic terrorist threats. In both cases, the targeting of minorities in these investigations and impromptu personal searches is justified by citing the popular assumption that the minority communities yield the most criminals/terrorists or at least a greater percentage of criminals/terrorists than the majority community does and thus merit greater monitoring for the sake of personal or national security. That is a fallacious argument because it does not account for the much greater numbers of non-criminal, law-abiding members of those minority communities as opposed to those that break the law and commit crimes, nor for the fact that most of those investigated or personally searched turn out to be innocent, which further destroys the argument that it is the minorities committing most of the crimes.

Tying it back to the X-Men, Magneto being a mutant who uses his powers to be a human-murdering terrorist, attempts at self-reform notwithstanding, does not justify the entire mutant community being treated as inherently and immutably dangerous and inimical to normal humans, as subjects to be rounded up, registered, and detained at best or executed at worst. Come to think of it, Sentinels could be used as an allegory for racial profiling of African-Americans, Hispanics, and Middle Easterners by law enforcement, only taken to the extreme of hunting down the offending minorities just for the offense of being part of the minority population and not because they've committed a specific crime. With the Hispanics in particular, several states have passed laws demanding that Hispanic residents "show their papers" to prove they've got the legal right to walk on American soil, which could be linked back to Sentinels as enforcers of mutant registration laws, and some stop-and-frisks in New York take a similar attitude of telling the stopped-and-frisked person, "Prove you've got the right to be here." In all cases, it amounts to the criminalization of a minority community with the flimsy excuse of trying to ferret out actual criminals among said community, all while imposing a form of implicit psychological oppression upon that community: "You're not wanted here, you're not respected here, you're not seen as a human being or as someone with rights that should be respected or acknowledged here."

Are there dangerous mutants that should be locked up and imprisoned for public safety? Yes, but that's public safety, and mutants are just as much part of that public as anyone else. Going to the real-world analogy, are there criminals of black or Hispanic heritage or terrorists of Middle Eastern heritage and/or Muslim faith that should be locked up for public safety? Yes, but again, blacks, Hispanics, Middle Easterners, and Muslims are as much part of that public as anyone else. Deciding that a certain group does not deserve the same considerations as the majority of people because they are somehow different and thus lesser than the majority of people is the very core of prejudice upon which discrimination and bigotry build, and that's just as true even in a fictional situation where the group in question possesses fantastic abilities that most people do not. Forgetting this is all too often the first step on a road that leads to the Holocaust, to the Tuskegee Experiments, to the Japanese internment camps, to forced sterilization of black women, and even to Abu Ghraib, for real-world examples of the depravities that can result when we embrace bigotry and hate too tightly.

Also, on the issue of "mutants = LGBT," you would think the X-Men would sponsor something similar to the "It Gets Better" initiative following the suicide of Tyler Clementi after having his sexuality exposed to his fellow college students by a roommate who streamed his encounter with his lover by way of a secretly turned-on webcam. It'd really be something for the X-Men to remind young mutants that there is still hope for them, although as Time to Zap indicated, it wouldn't be quite as doable nowadays in light of the atmosphere of the X-Books being more mired in despair and desperation than in hope.

[tetragene]

I usually dont lol. The newxmen will be the first time ive bout xmen in many years.

I just think the metaphore is bad. If mutants really existed we would all be on the side of the setinels. It wouldnt take many times of magneto killing our loved ones before we agreed theyre too dangerous to exist. While they could do something great with the race angle. Address how we still cross the street if we see a group of black guys coming. Or when we hear someone behind us in a dark alley were relieved that theyre white (i think jesse jackson said something similar to this). There is real issues that we should talk about but theyre taking the easy way out to make it about homosexuality.

thank you for, apparently, speaking for all white people ...

it's not "taking the easy way out" -- it's taking something that is a legitimate connection & emphasizing it. Mutancy & mutant-relations can most certainly be related to race (or damn near anything else) -- but as has already been mentioned, people don't "discover" they are Asian at puberty or can "hide" the fact they are black in public. That definitely more closely relates to homosexuality (or as previous post brought up -- a disability) And just as there are some morons who fear/hate other races (which isn't an exclusive trait to whites) the same can also be said of homosexuality & all those "protect our morals/marriage/children/beliefs from the dangers of homosexuality" campaigns, groups & ways of thinking. Those are also "real issues." I'm not a flamer so I'm often privy to the conversations of others freely talking about homosexuality because they assume a queer isn't nearby -- I heard at work just yesterday a guy complaining about gays campaigning against Chik-Fil-A & wishing the US would "round all the gays living here up & gas them." That doesn't sound like the typical human bigot in an X-Men book though, does it?

[TETO/memo1989]

thank you for, apparently, speaking for all white people ...

it's not "taking the easy way out" -- it's taking something that is a legitimate connection & emphasizing it. Mutancy & mutant-relations can most certainly be related to race (or damn near anything else) -- but as has already been mentioned, people don't "discover" they are Asian at puberty or can "hide" the fact they are black in public. That definitely more closely relates to homosexuality (or as previous post brought up -- a disability) And just as there are some morons who fear/hate other races (which isn't an exclusive trait to whites) the same can also be said of homosexuality & all those "protect our morals/marriage/children/beliefs from the dangers of homosexuality" campaigns, groups & ways of thinking. Those are also "real issues." I'm not a flamer so I'm often privy to the conversations of others freely talking about homosexuality because they assume a queer isn't nearby -- I heard at work just yesterday a guy complaining about gays campaigning against Chik-Fil-A & wishing the US would "round all the gays living here up & gas them." That doesn't sound like the typical human bigot in an X-Men book though, does it?

I totally agree with you. I was going to respond to his/her/its/hir post first but you bet me to it.

X-Men characters/plots/settings/stories represent and/or metaphor for minorities, suppress groups, and outcast. So many people could really relate to the X-Men, that is so beautiful. You take any X-Men characters/plots/settings/stories and it will represent and/or metaphor for different types of groups; race, LGBTIAQ, religion, political orientation, ethnicity, culture, differently able, education, social class, age, gender, lifestyle, and so on. Therefore, when someone is talking about X-Men representing and/or metaphor for one minority, suppress group, and outcast people shouldn’t get upset but just add that they feel they do that to another group too.

The way that he/she/it/ze post seems that they were upset and insulated about this thread. I feel like they don’t understand the daily struggle the LGBTIAQ community face every day; not being able to get married, their marriage/love/family not being recognize in many parts of the world, their own families and love ones hating and fearing them because they are different from them, being killed and harassed, having laws against them, and etc. It is very difficult to be gay in this world. People tell you that you are “unnatural” and “abomination” without seeing many factors like in Bible David and Jonathan had the most loving relationship but other use hateful passage to justify their misunderstanding, there are many other animals that have homosexual relationships, there is research that show how genetics and hormones that make people LGBTIAQ, and we as humans have the freewill to love and be whoever we want. People need to understand that and stop hating someone because they are gay.

I usually dont lol. The newxmen will be the first time ive bout xmen in many years.

I just think the metaphore is bad. If mutants really existed we would all be on the side of the setinels. It wouldnt take many times of magneto killing our loved ones before we agreed theyre too dangerous to exist. While they could do something great with the race angle. Address how we still cross the street if we see a group of black guys coming. Or when we hear someone behind us in a dark alley were relieved that theyre white (i think jesse jackson said something similar to this). There is real issues that we should talk about but theyre taking the easy way out to make it about homosexuality.

From my experience and what I notice people go to another street when they see a gangster and/or skinhead, not a black person. Also, I would still be scared if I was a dark alley and see a white person or any person only if they are a very old and kids I wouldn’t be scared.

[Dr. Sonic]

It's an inkblot, a Rorschach - an ambiguous, plastic form of oppression that one can project his or her own feelings, experiences, and attitudes onto. To make it overly specific to race or sexuality or religion would act to rob the symbolism of its plasticity so that it speaks to only a portion of the readership and not the readership as a whole.

[NewMutant]

I usually dont lol. The newxmen will be the first time ive bout xmen in many years.

I just think the metaphore is bad. If mutants really existed we would all be on the side of the setinels. It wouldnt take many times of magneto killing our loved ones before we agreed theyre too dangerous to exist. While they could do something great with the race angle. Address how we still cross the street if we see a group of black guys coming. Or when we hear someone behind us in a dark alley were relieved that theyre white (i think jesse jackson said something similar to this). There is real issues that we should talk about but theyre taking the easy way out to make it about homosexuality.

Well if you aren't reading it I can't say you would be the best person to analyze it. As other have said it relates with any minority. There is no easy way out. There is bad writing. Writers typically capitalize on the minority popular/topical minority of the moment. Right now that is homosexuals. It was other minorities before and will be again later. The homosexual minority angle is just as legit as any other minority.

Luckily equality will never come and we can keep having X-Men stories.

It's an inkblot, a Rorschach - an ambiguous, plastic form of oppression that one can project his or her own feelings, experiences, and attitudes onto. To make it overly specific to race or sexuality or religion would act to rob the symbolism of its plasticity so that it speaks to only a portion of the readership and not the readership as a whole.

Exactly.

[Kymeric]

Kymeric- I absolutely agree with you that the points you brought up about race are real issues. But believe me when I say that there is enough prejudice to go around. Blacks face issues, LGBT face issues, Hispanics in the US faces issues, women face issues. They are all slightly different issues... but they don't cancel each other out. It's not like there is some contest being staged over who wins "Miss Most Oppressed." The best thing minority groups (not to mention, people in general) can do is try to help and support one another, not attack each other over who's problems are more legitimate.

There very much is in the real world. Its what made me give up on civil rights. Because its not about equality, it a power grab for that specific group. It took a while of being in a situation where black civil rights were fighting tooth and nail with a gay civil rights group before I gave up completely. Decided theres no real moral component if theyre willing to F eachother to get ahead and are looking to take away from eachother. Very disenfranchising.

Thankfully Im a group that can blend in as long as I dont march up and down the square. So I sit back and watch.