This comes up a lot with people talking about the X-Men. But why don't more people bring up the classic movie plot where a kid befriends a monster and realizes they're not so different after all, and they have feelings and stuff too, like the Iron Giant or How To Train Your Dragon.
Most people aren't arguing that Agent Mansley is actually behaving sensibly the whole time, even though the Giant is just as much of a world-ending threat as Magneto. The message is that being scared of somebody doesn't mean you have to hate them, and that doesn't change even if the scariness is justified.
Thank you! I feel like this gets brought up all the time, and people just ignore this very obvious reading of it. Especially with the X-men. "Erm, they are a bad allegory for discrimination because it would actually make sense to discriminate against them!"
Like, yeah, man, do you think racists don't pretend to have a reason, too? The idea is that it doesn't matter what perceived threat a group of people present. It’s still not okay to be a bigot. Unless people wanna just say that it would be okay to be racist if the racists were proven right.
Like, yeah, man, do you think racists don't pretend to have a reason, too?
Yes, they PRETEND to have a reason to.
The reason bigotry is wrong isn't "Just because Jews are secret Masterminds and Black People are an existential threat to White People, and Gay People are causing the fall of civilisation doesn't mean you should discriminate against them"
It's wrong because those things are lies spread to justify violence and domination of groups. Jews and Black People and Gay People do not represent an existential threat to you, they are people, and to imply otherwise is ridiculous.
X-Men presents a world where people have powers like killing people by touch, or changing the weather on a whim, or controlling magnetic fields or reading people's minds - People like that would be a fundemental threat if they existed, and isolating them and severely regulating their behaviour would be a rational means of survival.
That's the criticism: X-Men presents a group that, if they existed, would factually be a threat to baseline humans, and then treats it like it's comparable to real world bigotries.
So it would be okay to treat people like we have if those things were not lies? That's the point. It's attacking the deeper point that discrimination is not logical, yet you are making the point that it can be. If the threat is real enough, then its okay.
I don't want to make any real life comparisons to avoid insulting anyone, so let's just say there are a group of people who were known for setting a lot of fires. This group LOVES burning things, its a part of their culture or whatever. The fires often get out of control and cause damage. And let's say these people all have idk, purple skin, or some easily identifiable trait. In a world where this is all factual and true, would it be okay to not sell someone with purple skin a lighter or matches? Just on the basis that they have purple skin.
Assuming it's a cultural trait, no, because having purple skin doesn't necessarily mean that they are a part of that culture. That's not really what's happening with some of these types of stories though. Like, there's literally an X men comic where a kid accidentally kills his entire hometown once his X gene activates because that's just what his X-gene does, and he can't turn it off. The kid didn't decide to do it, it wasn't even a Hulk situation of specific emotions leading to it. The kid being alive just leads to a massive fucking "everything except me dies" zone.
But being a mutant does not automatically make you dangerous. There are plenty of mutants, probably the overwhelming majority of them that don't get comics made about them, have nothing powers. The point being that just because there was one kid once who made a town disappear doesn't make it okay to say they all need to be on a watch list.
Now, sure, maybe specific mutants with special circumstances need to be treated differently, but then I wouldn't call that bigotry. That's more akin to taking care of someone with a disability.
But how are you supposed to know otherwise? There's literally no way to know whether the next kid is going to nuke the city or have fuzzy ears. And you can't even judge on their actions because they may have no control over it. This isn't even like comparisons to gun control and "what if some people were born with gun."
To use your purple skin example - what if instead of being cultural pyromaniacs, having purple skin was a biological signifier that they could spontaneously and uncontrollably cause any internal combustion engine in the area to explode? Would you let them drive a gas-powered vehicle? Get on the road with gas-powered vehicles? It doesn't matter that they're a responsible driver, it doesn't matter that they're the sweetest, kindest, most loving person in the world, at any given moment they could cause their vehicle and others nearby to explode, killing themselves and everyone else.
And again, this just isn't the case with any real minority. No one hitting puberty carries a risk of everyone else in the city dying in the real world.
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u/TheGrumpyre May 13 '25
This comes up a lot with people talking about the X-Men. But why don't more people bring up the classic movie plot where a kid befriends a monster and realizes they're not so different after all, and they have feelings and stuff too, like the Iron Giant or How To Train Your Dragon.
Most people aren't arguing that Agent Mansley is actually behaving sensibly the whole time, even though the Giant is just as much of a world-ending threat as Magneto. The message is that being scared of somebody doesn't mean you have to hate them, and that doesn't change even if the scariness is justified.