A longer essay-length piece I wrote on the dynamics of anti-mutant hatred and oppression within the world/universe of the X-Men.

OPENING NOTE: I wrote this up some months ago for fun, because I love X-Men and the whole dynamic of mutant persecution in it and how it’s an allegory for various oppressive realities in our own life. I’m also highly analytical, which is why this is so in-depth. So, please don’t shake your head at it being written as an actual essay – it just kind of organically turned out to be that way. It also helps that I may submit this to a comic book/geek-stuff/etc blog as a writing submission, so whatever.

So yeah, nerdy people everywhere, enjoy!

“MUTATION

The act of being altered or changed 2. The illegal genetic condition [U.S. statute 5504178], first apparent in puberty, caused by the X factor located in the pineal gland of the brain.”

Generation X (TV Film, 1996. Dir: Jack Sholder)

Introduction

In the world of the X-Men, the question of the mutant is the question that defines the latter half of the 20th century and the opening decades of the 21st. Much like the question of the colour line (as W.E.B. DuBois put it) defined the United States for so much of its history, the question of the mutant is the foremost issue facing not just the American homeland, but the human race as a whole. Whether one takes the cautious and, yes, contradictory approach of be-compassionate-yet-exclude-from-society-as-much-as-is-possible held by the Americans, or the outright segregationist practices of Germany what with the Berlin Wall in the X-Men cinematic universe (which in the X-Men cinematic universe, never fell and stands well into the 21st century dividing mutant Germany from non-mutant Germany), or an integrative, open-hearted all-are-welcome-in-our-society approach of post-apartheid South Africa in the cinematic universe, the mutant issue defines the human experience in the 20th and 21st centuries, and thus demands an analytical and thorough examination.

What Mutants Face

In all incarnations of the X-Men, the mutant race has faced vicious persecution and hatred. This hatred has come from government, religion (Rev. William Stryker in the comics, Rev. Bob Bell in the cinematic universe) and general society as well. Where to begin with such an examination? The hatred mutants have faced varies in intensity and degree, but it exists to an all-too-real, palpable extent. In some instances, it resembles the anti-black hatred of our own history’s Civil Rights Movement. In others, it resembles the anti-Jewish hatred of 1930s Europe that finally culminated in the horrors of Auschwitz and Birkenau (the Sentinel Program and the dystopian alternate future of the Days of Future Past comic arc, anyone?) We’ll go in stages.

The Symbiotic Relationship Between the Mutant and Human Species

First, let’s explore the reality that mutants are by nature, integrated into human society by default, for better or for worse. In a 1960s issue of The Uncanny X-Men,Prof. Charles Xavier is debating Dr. Bolivar Trask (inventor of the mutant-hunting Sentinel robots) on live television. In one part of this debate, he says “No one knows what causes mutation! Your own children could be mutants!” (emphasis mine). This is the reality: mutation does not discriminate. It is blind. A mutation is as likely to occur in a poor, black family in an American inner-city as it is in a wealthy, high-powered family of nobility (which it did in X-Men:The Last Stand,in the case of Warren Worthington III, aka Angel)– that is to say, completely equally. This is the great fear of the anti-mutant bigot, wherever he or she exists, the terror that haunts them in their idle moments: that their own child, their own flesh and blood whom they love and would give their lives for, would manifest an X-Gene mutation and become that which they hate and despise. Now one may think that in such a situation, love would conquer all and that their child’s mutation would give way to acceptance and tolerance of said mutation. This is naïve and wishful thinking for a large portion of society. Look at how in our own world gay teenagers are disowned, excommunicated, exiled from their homes and families due to their sexual orientation. Is it really that much of a stretch to imagine that such an expulsion would happen to a young individual who, rather than simply being sexually attracted to individuals who share his or her gender, has manifested a condition that would classify him or her, in the eyes of many, as not even human? This is even practically spelled out with the slogan, used in an alternate-future presidential campaign in the lead-up to the Days of Future Past comic arc dystopia, “It’s 1984. Do you know what your children are?”, quite literally embracing the possibility of targeting your own children with hatred due to their genetic background. Such a situation is an everyday reality in the world of the X-Men.

The Dynamics of Anti-Mutant Hatred

Now, let us look at the dynamics of anti-mutant hatred. In some instances, as we’ve mentioned above, it resembles anti-black hatred of the Jim Crow era. I would say that this is the general attitude of at least a good portion of American society in the X-Men universe, depending on the particular incarnation (as in, film, or cartoon, or Earth-616 (mainstream-line – ie, Uncanny X-Men, etc) comic or Ultimate Universe comic). However, it is not entirely analogous. In the American South in Jim Crow, blacks were not liked and they were not wanted – they were hated and brutally oppressed and repressed. Yet if the U.S. government instituted a program which,in its eventual end, held as its aim the extermination of all black individuals in the United States, horror and disgust would be the response of the majority of the American populace. In this vein, anti-mutant hatred in the X-Men universe can be seen as a mix of the anti-black hatred of Jim Crow and the anti-Jew hatred of Hitler’s Germany. The Sentinel Program, regardless of how it started, ended with the aim of the complete extermination of mutantkind. This program does not resemble the opposition Martin Luther King Jr. faced in his movement – no, it resembles what a Jewish shop owner living in Germany during Kristallnacht faced. In this respect, anti-mutant hatred, while manifesting itself to varying degrees and extents, has an inherent Nazistic taint to it in that it seeks to depict the mutant as inhuman, as subhuman, as a generic villainous and antagonistic Other, as a despicable stereotype that does and can only seek the harm and corruption of humanity.

This being the reality, the situation in the United States is worth examining in a quick aside due to the contradictions in their own approach toward the mutant question within their national and societal context. This is a country with a strong hatred and suspicion of mutants, as evidenced by the Mutant Registration Act in the cinematic universe, (presumably) sponsored by Senator Robert Kelly. However, a short time after this in this cinematic version of the franchise, the President has a mutant in his Cabinet (Henry ‘Hank’ McCoy, Secretary of Mutant Affairs and later U.S.Ambassador to the United Nations). This indicates a country struggling with the mutant question, trying to find its way forward.This marks the United States as highly distinct from Nazi Germany. In Nazi Germany there was no such crisis of conscience, no angst over how to proceed forward into a better future for all. The Nazis already had their solution to the Jewish question, and they executed it with ruthless and terrifying efficiency.

Why does Anti-Mutant Hatred Exist?

Let us now move onto the topic of why anti-mutant hatred exists. There are, within the seeds of violent anti-mutant hatred and persecution, fears – some of which are legitimate – which drive anti-mutant animus. When I say that some of these fears are justified, I do not mean to say that the hatred toward mutants on account of these fears are justified. Humanity fears mutantkind for what it’s capable of. Look at Senator Robert Kelly’s speech on the Mutant Registration Act in the film X-Men,where he mentions Katherine ‘Kitty’ Pryde’s abilities – something to the effect of, “There is a girl who can pass through solid walls. How do we know she won’t one day decide to try that with a bank?” Or look at how in X2: X-Men United, Kurt Wagner, also known as Nightcrawler, is able to – in the White House itself no less – completely neutralize the President’s Secret Service detail and put himself into a position where he, had he chosen or been directed to, could have effortlessly assassinated the President. Or what of Scott Summers, also known as Cyclops, who – with his immensely powerful optical energy beams – could wreak enormous damage anywhere he chose, should he choose to do so? What of Magneto himself, who in the film X-Men was able to effortlessly neutralize the threat of a full host of armed and trained police officers by using his mastery of magnetism to commandeer their weaponry and turn said weaponry against them? Should a war occur between mutantkind and humanity, mutants would wreak enormous damage on human civilization with much human loss of life. This rationale for mutant persecution is even explicitly argued by Bolivar Trask in the issue of The Uncanny X-Men where the Sentinels are unveiled for the first time (in both X-Men and Marvel Comics history). This is what terrifies anti-mutant bigots such as Robert Kelly, and what terrifies many human beings who are undecided on the mutant issue – that one day, mutantkind will turn on humanity and engage in a quest of subjugation, if not extermination, of non-mutantkind. And tragically, as history shows, where fear and lack of understanding of a group of people exist, wild and terrified persecution and hatred toward that group will soon follow. This is one of the primary roots of anti-mutant hatred: fear.

However, this fear has another dimension. A more instinctual one, one that exists in the gut of every human being. This is the fear of extinction. In the 2014 film X-Men:Days of Future Past, Dr. Bolivar Trask is appearing before a Congressional body attempting to sell the idea of his Sentinel Project, so as to get it adopted as an official government project. He’s turned down, but in the pitch, he cites Dr. Charles Xavier’s Oxford paper on mutation, and specifically quotes the portion referring to how Homo Sapien Superior (mutants) will come to eclipse, and eventually replace, Homo Sapien (humans). The Marvel Comics event/arc House of M even touches on this, with it depicting an alternate reality where mutants are the dominant species on the planet and are growing in number every day, with the eventual reality being the extinction of the non-mutant race. This is touched on in an emotionally powerful scene where Hank McCoy consoles Dr. Hank Pym, who is driven to utter despair over the reality that there will soon come a day where there will be no such thing as a non-mutant human being. With this in mind, anti-mutant hysteria has an instinctive, animalistic aspect to it. It is the survival instinct gone mad, a crazed attempt to halt the flow of progress and inevitability by means of bigotry, persecution, hatred and violence. With this in mind, the ‘cure’ developed for mutation, in both the Astonishing X-Men comic arc ‘Gifted’, and the film X-Men: The Last Stand, represents a bright, shining hope for humans who range from ardent anti-mutant bigots to those who are simply uncomfortable and scared where mutants are concerned. In this cure is the hope of halting the extinction of humanity in its track – eliminating the reality of genetic mutation once and for all. How can mutation overtake the entire human race if, through medicine and genetic engineering, it no longer exists? This also makes the reaction of mutant rights advocates and mutant supremacists, such as Magneto, (particularly in X-Men: The Last Stand) make perfect sense. While humanity champions its salvation from extinction, the mutant race is faced with theirs in a sick zero-sum game. This is one fear that drives anti-mutant hatred, that is infact far deeper, more potent and more visceral than any fear of mutant capabilities could be. It is the fear that, unchecked, the growth in mutant numbers and the spread of spontaneous genetic mutations will, quite literally, destroy the human race as we know it forever.

Two Figureheads for the Mutant Rights Movement: Magneto and Xavier

Before we move on, we must touch on something. Any discussion of anti-mutant hatred – particularly, any discussion of anti-mutant hatred as it compares to anti-Jewish hatred – cannot exist without a momentary focus on a significant figure in the mutant rights and mutant power movement, a man who is a lightning rod on the issue and who invites controversy whenever he is mentioned. I refer to Erik Lensherr, or otherwise, the man known as Magneto. Magneto, a Jew, survived Auschwitz. Putting Magneto himself aside, no one can understand the Nazi death camps like those who lived through them. No one who was not there can ever hope to even imagine what the experience was even remotely like. Auschwitz and the other camps were so horrifying, so traumatizing, that the experience of them has never and will never leave those who lived through them. This is true in Magneto as well. Magneto, in going through the meat grinder that was Auschwitz, is all too well-acquainted with what humanity is truly capable of, to what deep, dark, horrifying depths it can sink to given enough hatred and motivation. Given this, when Magneto experiences hatred on account of his X-Gene, and sees the institutionalized, systemic and widespread-in-society hatred aimed at mutants, he sees an all-too-familiar scene. A scene where an entire group of people are hated simply for who they are, who are classified as subhuman, non-human even, who many non-mutant people (even ‘good’ and ‘respectable’ people) honestly feel that they’d rather this group of people, these mutants, not be around at all. He knows what humanity is capable of – he’s seen it. He sees what is happening to mutants, just as he saw what happened to Jews. He sees the entire scope of what is happening, and he says to himself “My God, it’s happening again.” This is what drives him, and what drives mutant rage (which we will get into). The man called Magneto is not motivated by a hatred of non-mutants (though, in some instances, this has been part of it). He is driven by a love for his people, a care for his people, and a passionate drive to make sure that the horrors of the Nazi death camps are never again repeated, this time on mutants. So in this vein we have Magneto as the epitome of pro-mutant terrorism, giving the mutant rights movement a dimension of violent resistance, one akin to the apartheid-era African National Congress – though Magneto’s movement and other mutant extremist movements being run on sheer bitterness and rage rather than idealism and a belief in a better and fairer future.

Moving on from the topic of Magneto, we move into the question of the mutant perspective in the midst of this hatred and persecution. How do the mutants respond? Any exploration into this must take into account a man who is Magneto’s mirror counterpart – Professor Charles Xavier. Charles Xavier, a noted scientist and educator who was once a close friend of Magneto’s, fights for mutant rights and peaceful co-existence between humanity and mutantkind. To this end, he operates a school for mutant children and youth in Westchester County, New York, which also serves as a base of operations for his covert special operations team, the X-Men. Xavier represents a side of mutantkind that wishes to fight for a better world, even in the midst of all the hatred and violence aimed at it. Their weapon? Peace, love, mutual understanding. It is an approach that Magneto abhors and finds hopelessly naive and foolish. Who is right? That question is worth a full debate in and of itself.

Anti-Mutant Persecution: The Mutant Response

But how do those in the opposition stand against hatred and oppression? We will examine four case studies in this. The first is the case of a young woman, a mutant who was aware of her mutation long before mutants became an issue, who exemplifies the internal response of mutants to hatred against them and their existence. This woman is the cinematic universe incarnation of Raven Darkholme, also known as Mystique, her story told in the films X-Men: First Class and X-Men: Days of Future Past. The second is Charles Xavier and his moderate movement, emphasizing peaceful coexistence and harmony between humanity and mutantkind. The third is the case of a young man named John Allerdyce, AKA ‘Pyro’ in the cinematic incarnation of the X-Men universe, the beginning of his story told in X2: X-Men United. The fourth will be the mutant extremists who fell in with Magneto during the events of X-Men: The Last Stand. In essence, through this examination of these particular case studies, we will examine the mutant response to hatred on the individual and instinctive level, and then the mutant moderate response, and then the response of mutants who once walked in the midst of the moderate movement but later chose to walk away from it, and then we will finally examine those who never considered the moderate approach to begin with.

Let us begin with our first case study. Not much is known of Mystique’s life in the X-Men film series before she met Charles Xavier in the 1940s, when they were both children. We know that she met him as a child, and that they grew up together – basically as siblings. Her whole life up to the point of X-Men:First Class, she was ashamed of her mutant status and constantly stayed in the form of a blonde, Caucasian human woman, not her natural blue-skinned appearance. It was her meeting Magneto, and their growing friendship, that led her to abandon this shame and to embrace her mutant status. As she said to Hank McCoy at the end of the film,a man she cared for, “Mutant. And proud.” What does this tell us of mutant response to persecution? It is an excellent case study in mutant pride, which is at the heart of the mutant rights movement and the radical form of this movement spearheaded by Magneto. Mystique discovered that she didn’t have to be ashamed of who she was, of what she was, and she embraced her status as a mutant. She began to exist continually in her natural, blue-skinned form – she even went so far as to discard the human convention of wearing clothes. Where she went from here, whether her path was for good or for ill, is inconsequential for the purposes of this examination. What matters is that she acquired the one thing that the human world could not take from her, or from any mutant that’s acquired it: pride in who she was and what she was. This is one thing that both Xavier and Magneto teach their followers – be proud of who you are, of what you are, for you are no lesser than any other human being, and never let anyone tell you different. This is significant because for every oppressed minority, a pride in who they are has been a vital component of them acquiring consciousness of their oppression and the strength to fight against it. This was the case for blacks in the Civil Rights Movement, and it was and remains the case for LGBT (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgendered) individuals today and the associated activist movement that exists to seek LGBT rights.

Let us move on to our second case study. Charles Xavier, in the cinematic universe and in all other incarnations, has made mutant-human reconciliation his life’s work. His primary angle of work in this is operating a school for mutant youth and children in Westchester County, New York (as mentioned above) where the students there can be taught to properly control and use their abilities, and to provide an avenue for them that does not consist of bitterness and rage toward their human oppressors. In this sense, he is a Martin Luther King Jr. figure, a Nelson Mandela figure, choosing a third way between surrender and vicious retaliation toward the hatred and persecution his people face. If there is to be a peaceful future consisting of humanity and mutantkind living side-by-side, then it will be built on the foundations laid by men and women such as Charles Xavier and his followers. Now what does this tell us about mutant responses to the oppression and hatred they face? That even in the face of the bleakest, most darkest times and circumstances, where an entire people is being hated, and even in cases hunted like animals, there will be those that attempt to rise above it and seek a better path, a better future for both sides. This must be qualified, however. This, in both the X-Men universe and in our own world, is only sensible where such a peaceful future is possible. It made sense for Dr. King to seek reconciliation between the races in the fifties and sixties. It would not make any sense for Jews living in Nazi Germany to seek reconciliation between the Nazi leadership and the Jewish population of Europe, because Hitler and his cohorts never would have ever considered such a reconciliation. The entire basis of their racial policy, of their ideological existence, was built on anti-Jewish hatred. As bad as things are for mutants in the X-Men universe, as much of a Nazistic taint exists within anti-mutant hatred, that is not the case where the human governments and populations stand. In the cinematic universe, there is a mutant in a presidential cabinet (Dr. Henry McCoy, Secretary of Mutant Affairs and later U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations). The Mutant Registration Act is debated rather than just being a no-brainer, slated for easy passage. In the promotional material for the X-Men:Days of Future Past film, it is shown that Occupy Wall Street took on a mutant rights-aspect as they marched from the Xavier School to Zucotti Park, which indicates that a mutant rights movement, consisting of human allies as well as mutants, existed in the cinematic universe. As well, the very reality of a mutant even being able to be appointed to a presidential cabinet greatly implies the existence of a mutant rights movement agitating for greater inclusion and acceptance of mutants. With all this being said, this is the context in which Xavier’s efforts exist. A better future between mutant and human is possible, and is being fought for because in the eyes of Xavier and his allies, as long as that future is possible, it is worth fighting for. However, this is not a surefire guarantee of success. The dystopian future depicted in the X-Men:Days of Future Past film is a sequel to the events depicted in X-Men:The Last Stand, indicating that in that timeline Xavier’s efforts failed. However,that is simply one incarnation – in the comic universe, the dream lives on and such a future is seen as all-too-possible. Regardless, putting aside the events of the aforementioned film in its entirety,this examination concerns mutant responses to persecution, and Xavier’s response is a sizable and considerable segment of that population’s response to persecution against mutants across the world.

We will now move onto the second case study of mutant response to persecution.

Now, moving on to the case of Mr. Allerdyce. John Allerdyce was a student at Xavier’s school for mutants, and was a friend of Robert ‘Bobby’ Drake, also known as Iceman. However, due to what was seemingly indicated in the film as a confrontational personality, along with the traumatic events during the events of X2: X-Men United (Col. William Stryker’s armed raid on the school, and then a police stand-off with Allerdyce himself and his friends at the home of the Drake family), and in addition a meeting with a sympathetic Magneto, by the end of the film Allerdyce had defected to Magneto’s cause. What can be said about this? My own take is that this is a young man who, while being in the midst of the moderates that Charles Xavier personified and being the recipient of all the teaching and morals and ethics of the path and dream Xavier had chosen that this eminent professor had wished to impart to all of his students, did not really feel at home in Xavier’s school, did not really feel ‘right’ there.Here is a young man who saw the worst that humanity had to offer to mutantkind, and in the end having experienced all of that, Xavier’s ideals were not enough to keep him from losing faith in the dream.Thus, he abandoned Xavier’s dream for Magneto’s cause. What does this tell us of the mutant response to mutant persecution? It tells us that in the end, there are individuals and groups of individuals that, when they are pushed, despite everything they may be told and taught, there will come a point where they refuse to take anymore and instead will choose to push back. It also tells us that the conflict between Xavier’s dream and Magneto’s cause is, within the mutant community, a war of ideas and ideology, a battle for the hearts and minds of mutants everywhere. So what Allerdyce’s case ultimately teaches us is that whether mutantkind will lash out in hatred and responsive violence to the abuses inflicted upon them, or strive and suffer for a better and more peaceful world, depends entirely on mutants themselves, at the individual level. This lesson stands in the comic incarnation as well, as the entirety of the Earth-616 continuity’s X-Men lines have had the conflict and tension between Xavier and Magneto’s approaches as a central theme. So, in essence,the future of mutant-human relations depends on where each and every mutant across the world decides to stand in the days and years and decades to come.

Now, let us look at the case of Magneto’s ‘mutant army’ in X-Men: The Last Stand. In that film, a cure for X-Gene mutation has been discovered. This creates a crisis of conscience within the mutant community. There are those who wish to be cured, to be ‘normal’. Then there are those who ask “why should we be cured? Why should our mutation even be considered to be a disease? Why should we be ashamed of who we are?” This creates a storm of debate within the mutant community, one that Magneto takes advantage of. Magneto, Allerdyce, and his cohorts assemble an army of mutant extremists to storm the laboratory where the cure is being developed and to destroy its source – a young mutant boy whose power involves the nullification of all mutant powers within a certain range of him. The X-Men get involved, stop the attack, and save the day, but that’s not important to this. What is important to this is that in the mutant community, there are those who do not care for Xavier’s dream. Allerdyce is different – he was exposed to Xavier’s dream, tried to follow it, but in the end rejected it for his own reasons. The sense I got from the film was that these people weren’t interested in even hearing what a man such as Charles Xavier had to say. They had suffered too many abuses, seen too many horrors and atrocities committed against their kind, had been convinced all too well that humanity would only be satisfied with a world devoid of mutants. No more talk. No more negotiation. No more compromise. Only action, only resistance, only a violent push back against the violence inflicted against them. This is the stance epitomized by Magneto and his own brand of pro-mutant terrorism. What does this tell us about the mutant response to mutant persecution? That in the case of mutant oppression, just the same as in every case of an oppressed minority, there will be those that push back. That there will be those who fight back, and even will become radicalized to the extent that they are willing to commit acts of violence and brutality on the same level as their oppressors, all in the name of their cause. I would argue that this form of conflict in relation to oppression is alien to our modern society. The Civil Rights era (particularly the mid- to late-60s) experienced it, with race riots, along with other tensions and violence between radical blacks and privileged whites. Yes, we have the case of the LGBT populace in North America and the hardships and abuses they face, and while those abuses are horrible and in many cases horrifying, the LGBT community (to my knowledge) has not responded with violence and lashing out. There was Stonewall, yes, but we have not seen sexuality activism-based riots occurring in major cities in recent years.

Conclusion

So it is necessary,with this being said, to recognize and understand that the world of X-Men and the dynamics of oppression within it, and the societal and cultural and political contexts within which these dynamics exist in the world of the X-Men, are on a fundamental level distinct from our own. This is because mutant oppression, while being similar in nature to many of the oppressions we have faced in our own history, is unique and distinct from anything we have faced. We can understand it more by way of analogy and comparison, but ultimately we cannot understand it fully and truly because it is alien to us. It is a mix of Jim Crow racial views and Nazi race rhetoric, with the prospect of all-out war between humanity and mutantkind an all-too-real possibility.

This has been an exploration of anti-Mutant prejudice within the X-Men universe,across incarnations of the franchise. I hope it has been informative.

SOURCES:

COMICS:

The Uncanny X-Men (1963-Present)

Ultimate X-Men (2001-2009)

Astonishing X-Men (2004-2013)

House of M (2005)

FILMS:

Generation X (TV Film) (1996, Dir: Jack Sholder)

X-Men (2000, Dir: Bryan Singer)

X2: X-Men United (2003, Dir: Bryan Singer)

X-Men: The Last Stand (2006, Dir: Brett Ratner)

X-Men: First Class (2011,Dir: Matthew Vaughn)

X-Men: Days of Future Past (2014,Dir: Bryan Singer)

WEBSITES:

http://www.25moments.com– An interactive X-Men movie timeline