Would You Hate Mutants?

[GirlsAreBest]

If anyone is familiar with the "X-Men" franchise, even passively, then you probably know about the obvious parallels between the plight the class of human most pronounced in said franchise have to deal with and real world discrimination.

If not, they are basically super powered human beings with a myriad amount of different power sets, who were born with a mutant gene that gave them these powers. Considering how powerful they can be, would you fear them and more importantly, would you accept them without any sort of special regulation?

Keep in mind "fear" is the reason some hate us due to the potential to harm children and that we have laws on the books that specifically target us. Is this enough to empathize with people that are capable of mass destruction and harm? If not, what does that say about those who hate us for our potential danger?

[LikelyHuman]

I was expecting this to be about Futurama and the sewer-mutants.

Kind of reminds me of a lot of the story plot in "The Boys". It's really kind of the same thing... I forget what they call them in that show, but some people are born with super powers. There's some who use them to be heroes, and some that use them to be villains; there's some who portray themselves as heroes and are really villains, and vise versa. I probably shouldn't spoil anything, but there's also some who have these powers unnaturally.

It covers a lot of the same questions you're posing here. One of the things the show explores, though, that I think makes it a little non-analogous/analgous to pedophilia is that some of these people don't really have control over their powers, and can end up causing mass destruction by complete accident. I think it's kind of interesting to compare that to pedophilia, because a lot of the times pedophiles don't want to hurt children, but they do so anyway. I'm not sure you can really call it an accident if you knew the risks and took them anyway, but the other side to that is that the kind of damage pedophiles can cause is really not anywhere near the magnitude of damage a mutant with superpowers could cause.

As with all things, I think there's no way to be black and white about it. For example, you'd probably want to keep track of mutants' powers and abilities, to try to prevent them from causing harm. However, at what point does that become an invasion of privacy? Is it justified to avoid public harm? I guess I'm asking my own questions more than I'm answering your own.

In the real world, though, there's often been a lot of similar dynamics that have played out when it comes to people with illnesses. Leprosy comes to mind. It was extremely stigmatized, and often intertwined with religious beliefs; people often thought that someone with leprosy was being damned by god. It was also mistaken for a lot of other benign skin conditions, but the growing sentiment at the time was that it was so contagious, people had to be confined to "leper colonies". Those were rife with civil rights violations, and sometimes children were stripped from the families and forced to live in those places. In the meantime, it turned out that the overwhelming majority of people were immune to the disease, and it was easily treatable by antibiotics. Then of course there's cases for quarantine that are more justified, such as an ebola outbreak.

[on the rocks]

If I'm honest, my gut reaction to X-Men style mutants or more realistically, genetically augmented humans, would be, "So you think you're better than me?!"
I certainly wouldn't want some telepathic mutant reading my mind without my consent.  No one should have that power.  But if someone did, how can we ever trust them to always use those powers responsibly? 

And in the case of governments breeding super soldiers to fight a vicious enemy, I've seen enough scifi to know that always ends poorly.  Either the super soldiers take over everything and become dictators, or the government uses them against its own people.
In Star Trek lore, humanity's first contact with intelligent life is preceded by decades of devastation known as the Eugenics Wars.  Genetically engineered humans designed to fight other nation-states turn on their 'masters' and try to take over the world.  They are only defeated by substantial loss of life during near apocalyptic war.

All this to say the mutants would have to go out of their way to prove they are not a threat to us "normies".

...oh I get it.
+1

[GirlsAreBest]

If I'm honest, my gut reaction to X-Men style mutants or more realistically, genetically augmented humans, would be, "So you think you're better than me?!"
I certainly wouldn't want some telepathic mutant reading my mind without my consent.  No one should have that power.  But if someone did, how can we ever trust them to always use those powers responsibly? 

And in the case of governments breeding super soldiers to fight a vicious enemy, I've seen enough scifi to know that always ends poorly.  Either the super soldiers take over everything and become dictators, or the government uses them against its own people.
In Star Trek lore, humanity's first contact with intelligent life is preceded by decades of devastation known as the Eugenics Wars.  Genetically engineered humans designed to fight other nation-states turn on their 'masters' and try to take over the world.  They are only defeated by substantial loss of life during near apocalyptic war.

All this to say the mutants would have to go out of their way to prove they are not a threat to us "normies".

...oh I get it.
+1

Love the response

There is a difference between understanding why and condoning it however. I just feel it is important to know that this is what and who we are fighting to change, those among the rational "normies" who just think we are all dangerous either due to uncontrollable urges or mis-categorizing us as simply sex-depraved loners.

There are still those who have completely irrational fears/beliefs pertaining to us, who use that fear to benefit themselves or those who hate us out of a misguided sense of righteousness. These are probably the people who will never change no matter how much we inform them, and in the case of the latter most two type of people they probably already know but do everything in their power to bury it.

[Rivers]

I wouldn't hate, but I'd certainly fear them.
And let's be honest, the events of X-Men give humans plenty of reasons to fear mutants.
Just as many pedophiles give plenty of reasons for normies to fear us all.

In fact, an even more poignant example can be drawn from the relation between women and men.
Women are always weary to be around men they don't know and trust, especially alone. And for good reasons.

[TooLittleTime]

I would depend on the circumstances, just like real life. If one of them blasted through my girlfriend running 200mph then yes. If one was extra cute I'd probably crush on her.

But mostly, I'd be jealous and want to be one of them.

[Itumeleng]

If anyone is familiar with the "X-Men" franchise, even passively, then you probably know about the obvious parallels between the plight the class of human most pronounced in said franchise have to deal with and real world discrimination.

Ah, my sweet, sweet childhood! I used to love the X-Men though I had know idea, as a kid, what the story was about from a cultural perspective. Makes you wonder though, did I still have some inkling, subconsciously, and was it the mutant's plight that could be seen mirroring my own struggles that drew me to it? Or was it just the muscular, scandily clad super humans? We used to play superheros with a younger friend when I was a kid, and some of those games had, as I now remember them as an adult, a sexy twist to them.

I certainly wouldn't want some telepathic mutant reading my mind without my consent.  No one should have that power.  But if someone did, how can we ever trust them to always use those powers responsibly?

Some always have power over others, in many, myriad forms. How can we trust anyone to use their's responsibly? Often people who have power thrust upon them would rather do without it.

Talking about scifi, how do you feel about Babylon 5's take on metasensory ethics? In short, if my memory serves, Psi Cops kept a very authoritarian grip on telepaths in the name of law and order that was revealed to be just as corrupt and brutal as authoritarian shit usually is.

Considering how powerful they can be, would you fear them and more importantly, would you accept them without any sort of special regulation?

I'm sure I would be afraid but I hope I would not succumb to my fear. If the potential for destruction is enough for a sentence then no man is innocent.

Itu

[GirlsAreBest]

As any huge comic book nerd, or just one dude extensively interested in the world of screenwriting, would know the animated X-Men series from the 90s is considered one of the high points in terms of adaptations of the franchise. Disney, in all their wisdom (sarcasm? maybe), decided to revive the series with another season taking place shortly after the previous end of the series. As such, it's been re-branded as "X-Men' 97" just so anyone clueless can know without a doubt it takes place in that year.

How does it hold up to scrutiny of the big mouse's handlings of off-brand franchises it monopolized in recent years? So far... pretty well actually. One of the original series' hallmarks is its handling of racism, bigotry, and even political strife in the face of these very real, and always relevant, issues while under the guise of a Saturday morning cartoon. The revival makes no hesitation in its attempt to live up to this legacy by having the very first two episodes centered around these subject matters. Indeed, the very first scene is of "normies" who have kidnapped a high profile mutant simply because they are one, and one of the very first lines of doalog is "it's not my fault, I was born this way."

The next hour or so across two episodes expands further on this concept while reintroducing you to the cast of the 90s series. I won't go into much detail but there is a decent amount of characterization, drama and of course action that unfolds which breaks up the seriousness of the subject matters without completely trouncing all over them. It's done competently, if not slightly above average but nothing to really write home about. It works and feels natural within the context of the plot for the most part.

But how does it handle the touchy subject matters? I would say fairly well. It doesn't shy away from how big an issue it really is, again, focusing on it for most of the runtime. And even though its parallels are obvious it never feels preachy, which is something that seems to be very difficult for writers to handle. There is just enough "fun" interspersed to break it all up, as I have mentioned, without it feeling undermined. It feels like Disney actually gave the returning veteran players from the original room to do their thing.

The voice cast, many from the original, do a decent job as well. Wolverines unfortunately cannot hide how much they have aged and might be one of the weaker performances, but Cyclops, Storm, and Magneto especially all feel and sound like the series never left. The new VA's for characters do fine work, some trying to emulate the old voice and some just doing their own thing. It is not super distracting, at the very least.

On a personal note, I of course couldn't help but get slightly emotional whenever a character would share their sorrow or frustration with how the world treats mutants. It hits home, obviously, and is communicated in a way that perfectly exemplifies what we have to go through (even though the lines were of course not written with us in mind). There's talk about how some mutants feel the need to hide, both figuratively and literally. There's talk about resenting having been born a mutant in the first place. There's the villains and antis who no matter how much fact you throw at them still hate them for no reason other than fear and feeling inferior. And starting from the end of episode 2, it seems it may even tackle the hypothetical of having been forcefully "cured" and what that could do to someone's sense of identity.

All these things hit home tremendously and are handled excellently (again, so far anyway). They may not have had me or us in mind, but there is an understanding of isolation due to being different that feels genuine. It isn't like some of Disney's recent attempts at being "woke" and it feeling forced, unnatural and an obvious hollow attempt at pleasing organizations and news outlets. The same Disney also edits these same mediums to remove those things just for the Chinese market, in case you thought they were actually being genuine. I had to get that jab in there.

Overall, I am impressed. It is so far living up to the original's legacy. It doesn't feel like it is pandering or catering to anyone. Hell, Wolverine is probably the most iconic X-Men in this series and out and yet he doesn't get much screentime or focus at all. It's solely concerned with it's storytelling and theming, which is highly refreshing coming from Marvel lately in-particular. I hope it continues to impress, despite how often these things derail before the final moments are over.