billd91
Not your screen monkey (he/him) 🇺🇦🇵🇸🏳️⚧️
It's not just mutants who represent that power dynamic - but also the brilliant scientists, the beneficiaries of bizarre accidents, the mega-rich, etc. The core difference for mutants is they're born with it. That's why they represent groups that are discriminated against because of what they are, not who they are, or how they behave.Its true that mutant = analogy for other downtrodden groups is a long standing comic tradition.
For me the problem with that has always been, that mutants aren't just different, they represent an entirely different power dynamic. Which is why Prof X's position is just a faulty one to me.
Its not as simple as "you are different than me, I should show tolerance."
Its.... "if you sneeze wrong you can destroy my house, me, and my entire family".
If we look at one of the more recent episodes. Magneto shut down Earth....like the planet. He turned off civilization like its a light switch. And now apparently he is damaging the magnetic sphere so much that if the Xmen don't stop him Earth will be ruined.
When Xavier said to Magneto, "we are NOT gods". My immediate reaction was "um your not?".
That's not the kind of thing people can learn to tolerate, because again its not about difference, its about power, and when one group has absolute and total power over you should they choose to use it....humans are never going to be ok with that. While the Xmen want their message to be "we should love and tolerate people that are different than us", the real message of that world is "you should love and tolerate those have absolute power over you".
A very different message.
Another thing to consider is the genre and which characters you're supposed to identify with. Superheroes may be powerful (and this applies across all superhero types, whether mutant or not), but at the core of the stories is how they use their power. They use the to generally pursue altruist aims and while they may form a pretty high-ended elite, they use their power to help others in need whether it's by stopping a bunch of relatively petty criminals or defeating a menace bent on annihilating half the population. In other words, the moral core of the genre is that how you behave is what's important and how you should be judged, not what you are.
Last edited: