Mutant hysteria, really?
Feb. 21st, 2011 04:31 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
tanithryudoMinor rant on the point about X-Men in the previous post:
If I was in charge of them, there would be none of this passive aggressive 'let's sit around and get attacked' stuff. Let's face it, the public is by default fearful to apathetic about 'thems' and the politicians are only going to be worse.
What I'd do is to try and sell mutant kind as something that benefits the public. So, yeah, superheroics. Of the kind that saves a lot of lives and livelihoods, publically. We'd be first responders to every single major disaster that happens on the planet (and don't tell me that won't fill up a good calender block every year; Mother Nature can be a very mean mistress, followed closely by human stupidity and hatred). And we'd make sure CNN/BBC/etc. gets us on film pulling babies from rubble every single time.
So what if the pundits are trying to sell the 'mutants are bad because they'll eventually replace homo sapiens sapiens' thing? Between their own skins and the nebulous 'future generations', the average human only looks out for number one. And then of course after we're being hailed as saints, any attempt to attack/control us by the government can be spun in ways that will make the politicians bleed (figuratively).
Not surprisingly, sci-fi authors do a much better job at this kind of idea than serial comics. I'm thinking of Anne McCaffrey's Pegasus series, personally.
If I was in charge of them, there would be none of this passive aggressive 'let's sit around and get attacked' stuff. Let's face it, the public is by default fearful to apathetic about 'thems' and the politicians are only going to be worse.
What I'd do is to try and sell mutant kind as something that benefits the public. So, yeah, superheroics. Of the kind that saves a lot of lives and livelihoods, publically. We'd be first responders to every single major disaster that happens on the planet (and don't tell me that won't fill up a good calender block every year; Mother Nature can be a very mean mistress, followed closely by human stupidity and hatred). And we'd make sure CNN/BBC/etc. gets us on film pulling babies from rubble every single time.
So what if the pundits are trying to sell the 'mutants are bad because they'll eventually replace homo sapiens sapiens' thing? Between their own skins and the nebulous 'future generations', the average human only looks out for number one. And then of course after we're being hailed as saints, any attempt to attack/control us by the government can be spun in ways that will make the politicians bleed (figuratively).
Not surprisingly, sci-fi authors do a much better job at this kind of idea than serial comics. I'm thinking of Anne McCaffrey's Pegasus series, personally.
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(no subject)
Date: 2011-02-22 05:43 am (UTC)> Regarding the edit, you'd be amazed at how stupid the voting public can get/the congressmen can become. Think about this: First responders to the 9/11 disaster are now being denied federal health insurance for cancer induced by the toxic gas during the rescue. If Homo sapiens sapiens is capable of turning our backs on individuals of our own species whose only difference is ... well, nothing, do you really think that public attention at disaster sites is going to make any kind of difference?
Yeah, but there's a difference between taking money out of our checkbooks to pay back those first responders and agreeing with doing away with them. If I was running the X-Men, they'd be making plenty of money from non-disaster-related service work, and fielding their own medical facilities, so there shouldn't be any need there.
(no subject)
Date: 2011-02-22 05:54 am (UTC)If racism can exist and people can buy the stupid racist campaigns about how black men were going to rape all the white women in the neighborhood, what's to stop them from believe mutants can and will take over the world? I mean, look at how people responded to Muslims even now, when there's been plenty of examples of Muslims who are productive members of society. Hell, a Muslim run community center got blown out of proportion and was described as the center of terrorist activity. The media is a fucked up place that really can't necessarily be used for your own good if it's fucking determined to paint anyone they disagree with as evil.
(no subject)
Date: 2011-02-22 06:13 am (UTC)I mean, this is a public that was all for the heroes having saved the world from threat X (after a long record of saving-the-world) and then the very next issue will be throwing tomatoes at them for some strawman RL political issue or other.
(Interestingly, DC comics writers lean the opposite way; the public always tends to believe the better of their heroes, no matter the spotty record. -_-)
Re: Racism... while it's always going to be there, things have gotten significantly better when the minority in question is actively trying to do something (smart) about it. I mean, racism against blacks nowadays are nowhere as back as prior to the Civil Rights Movement, which was better than prior to the Civil War, etc. The problem is, while the X-Men were created as a commentary on the Civil Rights Movement (with Prof. X as a MLK analog and Magneto as a Malcom X analogue)... they don't actually DO anything useful like the Civil Rights Movement did. No campaigning for mutant rights, no civil disobedience, no parades, no public speeches/addresses... It's no wonder their aim for mutant civil rights never got anywhere. Which is stupid, lazy, and generally BAD writing.
As for Muslims: Yeah, but that's largely a response to 9/11. If Magneto never got a plan successfully off the ground due to intervention by the X-Men (which was how it was for most of comics until the effort to be more sensationalist kicked in in recent times) and the world never heard about it, it shouldn't be a barrier.