‘X-Men’ and Allegorical Oppression

Oh honey, black is so last year. [Photo from The Workprint.]

Queers are everywhere, man. You’ll never get rid of us. We’re in your coffee shops, your department stores, and even your blockbuster franchise movies! We might not be immediately visible, but trust me, we’re quite present underneath the layers upon layers of blue silicone and spandex. In fact, the “X-Men” film franchise is as queer as big-budget summer movies get.

While Fox’s prominent franchise has yet to incorporate any canon queer characters (though the coming “X-Men: Apocalypse” may change that, who knows), but it has woven in queer themes right from the beginning with Bryan Singer’s “X-Men” and “X2” and (regrettably) Brett Ratner’s “X-Men: The Last Stand.” The prequel “First Class” and semi-prequel, semi-sequel, all-clusterf—k “X-Men: Days of Future Past” don’t really go there as much, so we’ll just focus on those first three films for now.

“X-Men” has always been an allegorical franchise, more so than a lot of superhero comic books. Its premise about fabulously-costumed mutants seeking acceptance in a world that doesn’t understand them, fears them or even outright hates them lends itself so well to action-packed tales that are not-so-secretly about big issues. One of the better runs in the series was Grant Morrison’s “New X-Men,” where the mutants were used as a metaphor for the future and the next generation: unpredictable and not always a force for good, but inevitable all the same. It did get weird towards the end, but for the most part it was a nuanced allegory that took the series into darker territory without being angry teenage boy boner-bait.

Not that I’m pointing fingers or anything… [Photo from Marvel.com.]

In Singer’s “X-Men” films, mutants can be seen as an allegory for queer people, as this scene from “X2” makes painfully obvious. This is understandable: Singer is openly gay, so he has somewhat of a personal interest in this topic and it would make total sense for this to be deliberate on his and screenwriter David Hayter’s part. Ian McKellan, who plays Magneto and is also openly gay, even took the role because of the script’s parallel to the gay rights movement.

And even if it isn’t intentional, it’s not an unfair interpretation since the plight of the mutants as portrayed in the film has a lot of parallels with the plights of queer people and queer youth in particular. Their parents shun them when their powers begin to emerge, they’re forced to build familial communities with people like them to survive and the government wavers between indifferent to their suffering and actively trying to eradicate them. This is to say nothing of the fact that Professer Xavier (founder of the school that serves as a haven for young mutants) and Magneto (the villain) have more chemistry than any of the film’s canon couples (feel the sexual tension in this clip).

“Oh, Charles, you’ve not only won our game…but my heart as well.” [“X-Men” is the property of 20th Century Fox and Marvel Entertainment.]

The problem with this, however, is that Singer and Hayter take the allegory far beyond the point where it would make any sense in a real-world context. This problem is best illustrated in the dynamic between Xavier and Magneto: Xavier wants to keep peace between mutants and humans and have mutants stay hidden and blend in amongst the greater population, while Magneto wants mutants to be “out and proud” about their mutant-ness (so to speak) and live openly, which causes them to clash. If these two were presented as equally viable survival strategies, that would be one thing, but the films portray Magneto as outright evil for wanting to not live in fear and have him recklessly cause property damage and harm innocent civilians to get what he wants.

Even more problematic is Magneto’s evil plan in the first film to cover New York in an ugly CGI jelly cloud that would turn normies into mutants, which would in turn melt them into a puddle of water due to instability. By the logic of the film’s metaphor, this is a justification of widespread homophobic and transphobic fears that queer people are trying to “convert” or “recruit” other people, portraying them as a predatory menace.

It’s bad enough that the film portrays wanting acceptance and freedom as something that violent fascists demand, but even the film’s “good guys” are depicted as ticking time bombs. From Cyclops’ uncontrollable laser eyes to Rogue’s life force-draining hands, the films make it very clear that mutants, good or evil, are a constant danger to themselves and others. This gets particularly bad in “X2” when Wolverine straight-up murders countless faceless mooks without a thought and Pyro blows up police cars and blasts numerous officers with fireballs (right after the aforementioned “why won’t you accept me, mommy” scene, no less) and has to be stopped from savagely murdering them by Rogue.

Pictured: a reasonable discussion. [“X2” is the property of 20th Century Fox and Marvel Entertainment.]

“X-Men: The Last Stand” wasn’t directed by Singer or written by Hayter and is generally just an incompetent waste of time that has little to do with the previous entries thematically, but its blessedly brief fixation on the “mutants vs. society” struggle is still worthy of discussion. In this film, an injection is created that suppresses the X-gene, which gives mutants their powers. Most the characters, good or evil, generally agree that this mutant cure is A Bad Thing and that they should try to stop it being weaponized against them.

This could be the basis for an intriguing and complex storyline about forced assimilation of oppressed populations into a dominant culture, but again, the film drops the ball on the execution. Rogue is the only one among the main group who actively wants the mutant cure because of her extremely dangerous powers putting a damper on her relationship with Iceman physically, but the others tell her that they don’t need the cure and should be proud of who they are (hmm, this sounds…familiar). Ratner plays up the mutant cure as an extremely important thing that needs to be talked about right now, dammit, but it gets lost amidst the film’s too-numerous action sequences and the whole Dark Phoenix nonsense. By the film’s end, however, Rogue shows up after getting almost no screen time, miraculously cured of her life force draining abilities, and the movie treats it as…a good thing? Because now she can get her freak on with her boyfriend, as if these movies weren’t focused enough on heterosexual love?

I guess. Who cares. F—k that movie.

“I turned strai-er, not-life-drain-y just for you. Let’s make out, I guess.” [“X-Men: The Last Stand” is the property of 20th Century Fox and Marvel Entertainment.]

The “X-Men” films aren’t the only series that’s had trouble with its allegorical treatment of oppression of queer people. HBO’s “True Blood” fell prey to similar problems setting up the vampires at the story’s center as a thinly veiled metaphor for gay people, with Westboro Baptist Church types bandying about signs reading “God hates fangs,” (Get it? GEEEEEET IIIIIT?) but then proceeding to show vampires as perfectly willing to eat random humans.

This is not to say that creating stories about and drawing attention to the systemic oppression of social minorities through allegory is inherently a bad idea. Many classic science fiction novels have done this successfully, such as “The Handmaid’s Tale” and “Brave New World.” But when you’re telling a story that mirrors the rights of oppressed people, you take the responsibility onto yourself to depict their struggle in a way that isn’t grossly misrepresentative of real-life dynamics. Now, that’s a lot of responsibility and I don’t expect anyone to get it perfectly right, but would it kill you to not write queer people as murderous crazies, or at least not make a terrible movie about it?