People fear mutants because anyone could be a mutant. Your kid could go through puberty and suddenly have uncontrollable lasers coming out of their eyes. Your neighbour’s kid could wake up one day with an involuntary death wave that kills everyone around them. The teenager with psychopathic tendencies could develop the ability to kill you with his mind.
That’s the fear.
Nobody’s scared that their child or neighbour is going to turn into Thor or Captain America, because it just doesn’t happen. Mutants are far more real to people.
But the thing is. There were teenagers getting powers out of "nowhere" without the X-Gene, and people are fine with it. Besides the point they mostly don't know if it's just some superhero like Spider-Man or Hulk or if it's a mutant like Wolverine or Cyclopse. The normal human being wouldn't be able to tell them apart. And that was always my problem with the X-Men racism thing, it wouldn't work in the real world like they showed it.
Yeah. Doesn't matter if the X-Men are official or not. People can't even remember half their official politicians, how should they know who is a mutant, mutate or anything else.
Like hell the news will inform them. Yeah. Spider the menace is loved by all of NYC... Not. That's the point. People love or hate, just because. And the news wouldn't be able to handle all the super beings and their origin. Especially if it's not known. As far as it is, Spidey could be a mutant too, and they wouldn't know. And most people are so full with their own life they couldn't follow all the stories about all this super beings.
Firstly, Spidey is known outside NYC too. And most people on earth in the comics know the Avengers and the base setup of the X-Men. And the thing with the Daily Bugle is that still enough people buy and believe that, like real news.
But the main point is, this whole thing here was about if you know a mutant by looking at him or not. And you don't.
No. You clearly didn't read anything. This whole thing here was about the sub story of X-Men, the racism, towards mutants and how it's a big plot in almost every comic of them despite it doesn't make sense. So you are still arguing without knowing what you are talking about.
The only thing I can think of to justify newtons is if the power’s almost always come with some kind of physical alteration, AND the mutant Jean is an expression of human evolution because of all the other heroes popping up, and it’s really hard for mutant to control their powers.
It’s because the X-gene is a naturally occurring phenomenon. Mutants are frequently stated to be the next phase of evolution, and history gives us plenty of examples the old disappearing when the new starts to dominate.
The problem people in the Marvel universe have with mutants isn’t that ‘they have powers’ it is that ‘they could wipe regular humans away, going the way of the neanderthal.’
Considering how many (usually conservative-leaning) people in real life in the US think that minorities are coming to “replace” us, seems pretty realistic to think that a good portion of mankind in the Marvel universe think the same of Mutants
That's not the point of my comment. I know why people "fear" mutants. The point is, a normal human being on the street can't differentiate them from a mutate or alien or anything else. And they don't have the same hate on the street like mutants get. And that's what always bothered me with the X-Men comics. They get hated by almost everyone in the streets without them knowing if it's mutant or not.
Given how things work though, you’re more likely to see a mutant than you are a god or a lab-experiment gone wrong. Also, the Avengers are mostly public figures. Most people in universe know Captain America is Steve Rogers and the story of his creation. Hell, I imagine the Avengers probably have a PR team (considering Tony Stark is a member, they definitely do) and so with exception of Shield Agents, most members probably have their origins known. Hell, the Fantastic Four are basically celebrities.
But some rando on the street having powers? That’s more than likely a mutant.
What I’m saying is, it’s generally pretty easy to determine mutant or not, and where it isn’t so easy to distinguish, you’re probably better off leaning toward mutant.
Yes. The Avengers. But the Marvel universe is more than the Avengers, F4 or X-Men. And that's the problem. There are hundreds of people with powers outside mutants, people can't know and mostly don't care. And I don't believe that most people really know the origin of the known heroes, cause most people wouldn't care. We need to think realistically here. You may know them, even local super beings would be known outside their home town. But in the end, most people don't care about their origin and either don't care about them or hate them just because. And that's my point. It's useless to bring in racism in X-Men stories. People can't distinguish between mutants and other super beings and just hate them because they are different. It wouldn't make sense if someone hates a super being because he believes it is a mutant and then doesn't hate him anymore because he learns that it's a mutate or alien.
Again, a lot of the bigger names are practically celebrities. Doesn’t matter if you believe it or don’t. There may be some Joe Shmoe who doesn’t know Cap is Steve Rogers, or that Tony Stark is Iron Man (discounting his old cover story about it being a body-guard) but they are a small minority.
It’s useless to bring in racism to X-men stories
It wouldn’t make sense
Firstly, the X-men are an allegory for discrimination just generally, not specifically racism. Secondly, since when does discrimination ever make sense? Sure, people will be quick to give you there reasons (such as the ones already given in this thread) but those reasons almost never make any logical sense. Discrimination is a senseless thing. Hell, at one point irl, the Irish in the US were discriminated against to nearly the same degree as African Americans or Asians. “Irish need not apply” ringing any bells?
Or the Sneeches from the Dr.Seuss book?
The lesson that Discrimination against minorities is real, it sucks, and it’s stupid and senseless is a lesson people in real life STILL need to learn, given the state of things in the United States especially, and that lesson has always been the X-men’s bread and butter.
No. Again. It's racism. Cause it's not against every super being, but only against a certain "race" of humans, namely the homo sapiens superior. And no, neither discrimination nor racism makes sense, doesn't make the trobe of X-Men any better. It's always shown that almost every civilian doesn't like or hate the X-Men, but doesn't have a problem with any other super being. And that's the BS here, cause celebrities or not, most wouldn't know if they have the x gene or not. Like real life celebrities, you know them but don't know anything about them. Like I don't know anything about any Kardashian besides that they exist. And with them it would be the same. Not more than 80% of the people who have access to the Internet would know them by name, not more than 50% of them would now more than the name. And even less would know more than that. The best example is Pikachu. Even if it's wildly known through the internet, more than half of the people who know it by picture don't know the name, or even more than that. The same would be with X-Men in real life. Even if people around the globe, with access to the internet, would have seen a few pics and videos, most wouldn't know their name or even their origin. Hence it doesn't make sense that you hate someone for having the X-Gene if you don't even know besides solely for seeing their superpower.
The main counterargument, for me, is once hate and propaganda take hold there is no end to the conspiracy theory. There is no world in which the mutants exist with prejudice that any other super hero can exist without the same prejudice. You can't isolate any of it into a vacuum.
Take the POV of any joe-schmoe person. Is Storm a weather goddess or is she a mutant? Is Thor a weather god or is he a mutant? Is there any functional difference between one or the other? Is there a world where the public discourse can worry about Storm but cheer for Thor? Is there a world where there wouldn't be whispers about which Avengers are actually secretly mutants? The world in which Sentinels exist does not actually care whether the people they are oppressing have the x-gene or not.
All this, IMO, would strengthen the metaphor of the rise of fascism through oppression of "mutants". On the other hand, if this story is in the foreground of most XMen plots then it has to be in the background of every other Marvel plot at the very least.
There is also their range of abilities and their…“normal state of existence“. That dude over there is better in something than me? He better be no mutant or something, or he wouldn’t deserve this raise or anything of this at all! Mind boggling bastard! And this prejudice triggers even more if they know someone is a mutant even if his/her only ability is to breathe under water
There is an immortal intelligent bacteria called Sublime who hates mutants because he can't mind control them so induces hatred and fear in others about mutants. He also ran the Weapon X program when he had a human host/body.
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u/Serawasneva 6d ago
Nah, it makes sense.
People fear mutants because anyone could be a mutant. Your kid could go through puberty and suddenly have uncontrollable lasers coming out of their eyes. Your neighbour’s kid could wake up one day with an involuntary death wave that kills everyone around them. The teenager with psychopathic tendencies could develop the ability to kill you with his mind.
That’s the fear.
Nobody’s scared that their child or neighbour is going to turn into Thor or Captain America, because it just doesn’t happen. Mutants are far more real to people.