Yes, I understand its a metaphor for racism or anti-LGBT hostility etc but it never rang true for me that an apparent common reaction of friends and family members is one of rejection and horror when a person’s powers first appear, for example (and granted this is an extreme mutation, but disgust and horror? Really?)
Personally if my brother had come in when we were teenagers and started showing how he could freeze water with a thought or lift a truck with ease my reaction would be the same as the spiky-haired kid from Megas XLR “Cccccoooolllll…” and probably a bit jealous of his neat powers, but neither myself or my parents would think of rejecting or disowning him.
Even if the mutation was something less useful I think the reaction would be one of sympathy not shunning him.
So I don’t know, this aspect of the show never quite sat well for me even if I do understand what they were going for (fear of the different, or the other), I just don’t think the general reaction would be as described.
Well, in the X-men universe, there are politicians, pundits, and hate groups affecting people’s opinion about “those” people with special powers. So their reaction is understandable. In the real world, no propaganda exist. So you are far more likely to have a “Oh cool!” reaction.
What always bothered me about the X-Men is that you really can’t compare them to race or sexual preference because a lot of them really ARE dangerous and the fears of the anti mutant side are quite justified.
Being as mutants are imaginary, it’s hard for use to feel anti-mutant hysteria. We weren’t raised on it.
In the real world, people are feared over trivial things like which supernatural being they believe in or how much melanin they have. Mutant powers would be real and the people who had them would undoubtedly be much more feared.
As for family rejection, that happens in the real world to many children who reveal themselves as gay or trans or leave the family religion.
Yes, I think the movie fails when I, in the audience, start siding with the people that want to regulate them.
And after watching Age of Ultron, you really start to think, “You know, these super “heroes” really are dangerous.” When you start to fear the arrival of the Avengers, something’s not right. “I just want to go downtown, take in a show. Not have a building dropped on my head. Especially over stolen raw material.”
As a black male reading X-Men in the 80’s the comics resonated with me because of something that the movies don’t show well; Mutants (like many black people) were being judged on a potential to do something bad, not on something that they had done.
ETA: Sure many families might not have a problem with Iceman or even Angel, but Nightcrawler, Beak, and to a lesser extent Beast in his original form?
Chris Claremont, in particular, ran the anti-mutant hysteria angle into the friggin ground during his long run on X-Men. As his erstwhile collaborator John Byrne was fond of pointing out, after a while it didn’t make sense: the same people who adored Spider-Man and the Fantastic Four were all “Muties! I hate 'em!” :smack:
A slight twist to the narrative was when someone pointed out that certain superpowers would affect other people, a la second-smoke cancer. I could see a legitimate concern here. Magneto probably puts out a great deal of EM radiation even when he isn’t lifting buildings – who know what affect that might have on unshielded humans?
I don’t see how that makes the movie fail. A good movie should make you question the actions of the protagonist and not make it a black and white issue.
Not to mention that the idea of humanizing the “villain”, by showing that he/she/it is not inherently “evil”, but led to do “evil” things by the process of application of logic to a different set of starting presumptions makes a story much more interesting. Take the recent Black Panther movie for example. Similarly, I loved how the X-Men movies have attempted to make audiences understand, if not sympathize with Magneto.
Right, except until you start hearing stories about some teenager in the next town over who accidently cut his school in half with his laser-eyes. Or that girl down the street who demolished her neighborhood in a fit of psionic anger.
That’s really the whole point of Captain America: Civil War. Although the big “fail” for me was that the whole Sakovia Accords really just read like an employment contract between a bunch of people who were mostly already SHIELD or US Government employees anyway.
Also many of the Avengers are not inherently “super”. Iron Man, War Machine, Ant Man, Wasp, Black Panther and Falcon are normal humans in high-tech suits or power armor. Black Widow just went through some sort of Russian Le Femme Nikita Red Sparrow program. Hawkeye shoots a bow.
So is it the “super hero” that’s regulated or the tech?
But I digress.
Look at the heated discussions people have over regular small arms. Some of the actual “superhuman” Avengers and X-Men are essentially living weapons of mass destruction. I don’t think it’s unreasonable for a society to have questions about how to deal with individuals who can demolish a city with their mind or throw an office building if they get angry enough.
I’m not talking about a general concern regarding mutant powers though, rather the reaction of immediate family members to other family members displaying powers or mutations. Sure they’d be worried and maybe even scared, but I don’t see why they would be horrified and disgusted to the extent they disown them.
Though as someone pointed out I’m not living in the X-Men universe with all the propaganda and anti-mutant hate going around.
Also as someone else mentioned personally I believe the X-Men should really exist in their own seperate continuity, I was really surprised to learn they’re supposed to rub shoulders with Spiderman, the Fantastic Four etc, it doesn’t really make much sense.
To clarify - look at the level of destruction that surrounds the Avengers when they show up. The battles on the streets in Ultron, the opening of Civil War, the airport battle. Look at the damamge done in Black Panther street chases and battles. I forgive the NYC battle in Avengers, because that was an actual alien attack. But they others were more like Hancock the collateral damage was more than excessive.
Iron Man may just be a normal guy in a suit, but he sure leaves a Hulk-sized trail of destruction behind. Who pays to put it all back together again, to clean up the rubble and glass and destroyed cars?
The movies just gloss it over, but would you be happy if the Avengers showed up for “normal crime” like tracking stolen vibranium? Or would you run fast in the other direction? At some poiint, the cure becomes worse than the disease.
I know this started out about X men, but I’m more familiar with Avengers universe. At least Wolverine doesn’t bring down buildings.
I think George R.R. Martin’s version of the X-Men, Wild Cards, was closer to reality. In his stories (written with other writers), the “Jokers”, meaning people with harmful or physically deforming mutations, were indeed discriminated against, but “Aces”, meaning people whose mutations were purely benign and superpower-like, were treated as heroes and worshiped by the public. I think it would be the same way with the X-Men: Beast, Mystique and Rogue might be shunned, but Magneto, Professor X and probably Wolverine would be invited to sleep in the Lincoln Bedroom.
Americans may discriminate against black people, but they don’t discriminate against Beyonce and LeBron.
It’s the same reason why the Harry Potter books don’t make sense. If wizards actually existed, people would worship them, not hunt them down; actual “wizards” were persecuted because their magic didn’t work.
I was surprised to find that, too. I think they live in the same continuity with Avengers, too, but I’m not sure. That’s really a bit much.
I’m also surprised Spiderman isn’t classed as a mutant. Because he really is.
And what about Blade? Doesn’t he exist in the same universe? So they have genetic mutants, naturally ocurring (X-men, Scarlet Witch); genetic mutants, artificially occurring (Spidey, FF, Hulk); supernatural beings (Blade, Dr Strange); altered humans (Cap, Winter Soldier), powered humans, (Ironman, Ant Man); artificially created super humans (Vision); actual gods (Thor); regular Joes who work out a lot (Hawkeye, Romanov). Any other groups?
The Marvel universe should be called the kitchen sink universe. They have more incompatible groups than Harry Potter.
On the other hand, you have the ace The Great and Mighty Turtle, who deliberately refused to deny rumors that he was a joker (he never shows his face, but just because of ordinary shyness, not any disfigurement), because he saw how much it meant to the joker community to have a hero to look up to. Or the Sleeper, who has a different set of powers, and sometimes physical form, every time he wakes up, but who considers himself an ace even when he’s a monster with claws and acidic spittle.