this post was submitted on 27 Feb 2024
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I just don't get people who say X-Men wasn't "woke" until recently. It never even tried very hard to hide the metaphors...

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[–] Entropy@lemmy.blahaj.zone 40 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago) (1 children)

Stan Lee even said himself that he created the X-Men as a statement about bigotry and how everyone, no matter how different than you, has good in them. It's straight up an anti-discrimination metaphor. It doesn't get much more woke than that.

[–] thisbenzingring@lemmy.sdf.org 1 points 6 months ago

I couldn't have everybody bitten by a radioactive spider or zapped with gamma rays, and it occurred to me that if I just said that they were mutants, it would make it easy. Then it occurred to me that instead of them just being heroes that everybody admired, what if I made other people fear and suspect and actually hate them because they were different? I loved that idea; it not only made them different, but it was a good metaphor for what was happening with the Civil Rights Movement in the country at that time

[–] MrJameGumb@lemmy.world 28 points 6 months ago (2 children)

I don't like to use the word "woke" because it's become a conservative buzzword that has no real meaning anymore besides "something I don't like".

I grew up reading X-Men in the 80s and 90s, I watched the X-Men animated series when it came out and have watched it again in the last few years. Yes it is very progressive and liberal. That was the entire reason X-Men comics were created in the first place way back in 1963. It was originally meant to be a commentary on racism in America but has branched out to cover all sorts of liberal topics over the years

Anyone who tries to put some kind of right wing spin on the X-Men is either trolling you or is legitimately delusional

[–] IrateAnteater@sh.itjust.works 1 points 6 months ago (1 children)

The people who complain about X-Men being "woke" are the same group of people who complained that Rage Against the Machine had "gotten too political".

[–] MrJameGumb@lemmy.world 1 points 6 months ago (1 children)

I never understood that one either... WTF did they think RATM were singing about? Lol

[–] BluJay320@lemmy.blahaj.zone 1 points 6 months ago

They were angry at the dishwasher

Pocket full of shells is about a nice day at the beach

[–] VaultBoyNewVegas@lemmy.world 1 points 6 months ago (1 children)

I love X-Men comics as a queer person. I feel like their one of the few comic teams that cared about its characters being queer and not just as an afterthought.

[–] MrJameGumb@lemmy.world 1 points 6 months ago (1 children)

I haven't kept up with the comics as much these days, but I've seen that they're doing a lot more LGBT stuff lately. Looks like some of them are pretty good stories too, maybe I'll pick it back up!

[–] Notyou@sopuli.xyz 1 points 6 months ago (1 children)

I got back into comics when Hickman "soft-booted" the X-Men with Krakoa. Now they are on the "Fall of X" storyline, post Krakoa. It is indeed a exciting and great time. I'm enjoying it.

There are a lot of LGBT characters and I feel they are treating them like real people or real mutants anyway instead of just it as an after thought. Most teams or books have at least one LGBT identifying individual on it, but most are in relationships, so they dive into that. I am a straight white man though so I probably have blind spots somewhere.

[–] VaultBoyNewVegas@lemmy.world 1 points 6 months ago (1 children)

Kitty/Kate Pryde is definitely one of my faves.

[–] Notyou@sopuli.xyz 1 points 6 months ago

Yes. She does rock. Both as a pirate and as a ninja.

[–] gullible@kbin.social 5 points 6 months ago (2 children)

I require an example of someone stating that x-men isn’t woke. I don’t believe anyone could avoid understanding that.

[–] LinkOpensChest_wav@lemmy.blahaj.zone 11 points 6 months ago (1 children)

I saw a video of MAGA Republicans playing "Killing in the Name of" by RATM at an event while draped in the American flag.

Never underestimate the media illiteracy of conservatives. They kinda have to be media illiterate to be conservatives.

[–] Dagwood222@lemm.ee 5 points 6 months ago

Ronald Reagan said he was a big fan of "Born In The USA." They don't have to listen to the lyrics to know what they like.

[–] FakeGreekGirl@lemmy.blahaj.zone 9 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago) (2 children)

There's been a lot of... discourse... around the fact that, in the new Disney+ X-Men cartoon, Morph is going to be portrayed as nonbinary.

You can see a bunch of chuds raging about it if you go to YouTube and search for X-Men Woke

[–] RaoulDook@lemmy.world 5 points 6 months ago (1 children)

Mystique / Raven already transgendered into a bunch of dudes and back into a lady, in the X-Men movies years ago

[–] FakeGreekGirl@lemmy.blahaj.zone 3 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago) (1 children)

Yeah, of course, which is why this is all so baffling. Or would be, if anyone still expected the Culture Warriors™ to have a single clue what they're talking about.

Also, in the comics, Mystique has been in a lesbian relationship with Destiny since the 80s, and Chris Claremont even planned at one point to have it revealed that Mystique had shapeshifted into a man and fathered Nightcrawler, with Destiny being his mom. That got nixed by the higher ups, but IIRC, the comics actually went back to that idea and made it canon recently.

[–] RaoulDook@lemmy.world 1 points 6 months ago

Wow I didn't know she could grow a functioning boner.

[–] ouRKaoS@lemmy.today 1 points 6 months ago

A shape shifter being non binary makes as much sense as water being wet.

[–] Skullgrid@lemmy.world 4 points 6 months ago (2 children)
  1. The people who say that are lying.

  2. X-Men and many other marvel properties are made by ((((((((((((them)))))))) so why do they give a shit? Shouldn't they be hating on it due do being anti Semites?

[–] FakeGreekGirl@lemmy.blahaj.zone 4 points 6 months ago

Not just Marvel properties either. Jews pretty much invented superheroes, going back to Siegel and Shuster making Superman.

[–] Diabolo96@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago) (1 children)

Who's anti-semite and why do i feel it's because due to the Palestinians flags? In a place Where jews, former genocided people are themselves commiting genocide ?

[–] FakeGreekGirl@lemmy.blahaj.zone 3 points 6 months ago (1 children)

I think they're talking about the anti-"woke" chuds being antisemitic in this context. Which, they are; a lot of these fuckers believe trash like the Great Replacement Theory and even manage to tie in queerphobia into it (LGBTQ+ acceptance is a Jew plot to stop white people from breeding, don't you know).

[–] Diabolo96@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 points 6 months ago (1 children)

I really hope it's whose he's referring to, it wouldn't be the first time I've seen people saying that being against Palestinians genocide is antisemitic.

[–] FakeGreekGirl@lemmy.blahaj.zone 1 points 6 months ago

Oh yeah, I've been on the receiving end of that myself. But I don't think that's what's going on here.

[–] MystikIncarnate@lemmy.ca 2 points 6 months ago (1 children)

I'm just saying, the primary antagonist of the X-Men franchise was magneto. This is a man who will stop at nothing to either make all people into mutants, whether they want it or not, or destroy them for not being mutants.

On the human side, magneto was mostly fighting against people who would otherwise not care about him being a mutant, other than the fact that he's trying to kill them for not being a mutant.

Professor X is the staple of the show that defines it: where he fights in the Senate and other government institutions to have them respect the rights of mutants as people (which they are), and fights against magneto trying to kill everyone and take over, and on top of that, he gets flack from the ~~Trump supporters~~ anti mutant folks for being a mutant. The professor is fighting on all fronts to stop the prejudice and have all people, regardless of their mutant status, seen as equals, in spite of overwhelming obstacles.

If you can't see the correlation to pretty much every civil liberty movement ever, from the women's rights movements and the black suffrage movement, and the whole slavery thing... As well as more modern movements for gay rights and LGBTQ+ rights, etc.... The list is long....

Well, if someone can't put that together then, IMO, they're blind. At the most basic, here are people who are quantifiably different, persecuted on all sides, fighting for the right to exist.

How blind do you have to be to not see the very obvious correlations?

[–] Signtist@lemm.ee 0 points 6 months ago (1 children)

It doesn't matter if you're blind or not if you're not going to bother to look. Most people simply don't assess their media for underlying messages. They see Professor X as the good guy and Magneto as a bad guy, and don't think any more about them. They don't ask how or why they can be identified as the protagonist/antagonist, they just identify the general alignment and that's it.

[–] FakeGreekGirl@lemmy.blahaj.zone 1 points 6 months ago

I think that's it really. These people didn't understand the metaphors at play as children, and lack the capacity to reflect on what they enjoyed as children and realize that they grew up to be the villains.

And, of course, there are plenty of bad faith actors who never watched or read X-Men in the first place and/or don't care about the messages it tries to convey, and just want something to be outraged about for attention.

[–] Brutticus@lemm.ee 1 points 6 months ago (1 children)

who argued X men was never woke?

[–] NoSpiritAnimal@lemmy.world 1 points 6 months ago

Many stupid people, several idiots, and a few bad faith actors.

[–] Crack0n7uesday@lemmy.world 1 points 6 months ago

X-Men is a show about a minority class fighting for equal rights, nothing woke about that.

[–] steakmeout@lemmy.world 1 points 6 months ago

X-Men was always woke. I don’t care that word has been co-opted by conservatives. I do care when conservatives try to edit history and remove meaning from media to make it more palatable to their increasingly fascist audiences.

[–] OttoVonNoob@lemmy.ca 1 points 6 months ago (1 children)

God loves, Man kills...Inspired by the rise of televangelism in the 1980s, the Xmen story deals with overall religious extremism.

[–] Xariphon@kbin.social 0 points 6 months ago (1 children)

Which fuckin' god? The one that (if you believe in) sent the ten plagues? And the flood? And burned two major cities? And that's just in the book where he's supposedly the good guy?

[–] FakeGreekGirl@lemmy.blahaj.zone 0 points 6 months ago (1 children)

I think you misunderstand... God Loves, Man Kills is the title of an X-Men story from the 80s which centers on the X-Men fighting against a church that preaches anti-mutant bigotry.

[–] Xariphon@kbin.social 1 points 6 months ago

I stand corrected.

The irony of the title is still true, though.

[–] KingThrillgore@lemmy.ml 1 points 6 months ago

"keep your politics out of my x"

My scrote, x is political because it tells a perspective. You want no politics? Go watch a kids show on PBS.

[–] cupcakezealot@lemmy.blahaj.zone 1 points 6 months ago (2 children)

"x-men was never woke"

my god the first episode was literally about right wing fascists in government opposing civil rights while trying to put people on a registry and deploying sentinels to capture them and bring them to a slave island.

X men is literally about people who's different in their own ways and how they can accept the world and themselves to be their best while being discriminated. Woke AF.

[–] frostysauce@lemmy.world 1 points 6 months ago

The X-Men was originally a civil rights allegory... It's been woke since the beginning.

[–] Omnificer@lemmy.world 1 points 6 months ago (1 children)

I saw someone complaining that the old X-men show was at least subtle and not in your face about how it approached social issues.

This was in response to a clip from the old X-men show of a bunch of anti-mutant brownshirts in armbands getting mad that a filthy mutant was touching a human woman.

I think it's safe to say that person was not arguing in good faith.

[–] NielsBohron@lemmy.world 1 points 6 months ago

I think it’s safe to say that person was not arguing in good faith.

Or that they missed the obvious allusions as a child and haven't gone back and rewatched it with an adult's knowledge of context.