When “X-Men: Apocalypse” fails its heroes of color, it fails the “X-Men” spirit; Salon, 5/30/16

Nico Lang, Salon; When “X-Men: Apocalypse” fails its heroes of color, it fails the “X-Men” spirit:

"As Angelica Jade Bastien wrote in a review of the film for RogerEbert.com, it’s “deeply troubling” that the X-Men series continues to “[trade] in the language and ideas of the Civil Rights Movement without caring one iota about its characters of color.” That linkage is not an accident: The comics are overtly an allegory for racial equality. “X-Men” No. 1 hit shelves in 1963, a year before the passage of the Civil Rights Act. According to Lee, he wanted to explore societal marginalization and the status of outsiders, calling it a “good metaphor for what was happening with the civil rights movement.” Lee told The Guardian, “Instead of them just being heroes that everybody admired, what if I made other people fear and suspect and actually hate them because they were different?”

The film series, however, has doubled as both a civil rights metaphor and an allegory for queer liberation—in ways that are extremely overt. In “X2: X-Men United” (which many believe to be the franchise’s best entry), Iceman (Shawn Ashmore) comes out to his family as a mutant, a scene in which they could easily be discussing something else. “Have you ever tried not being a mutant?” his mother asks. Many young LGBT folks have probably heard a version of that question. In “Days of Future Past,” director Bryan Singer (who is bisexual) is even less subtle. Whitelaw explains, “Magneto dons his maroon cape and helmet, floats up above the White House in front of dozens of TV cameras, and urges closeted mutants to literally ‘come out.’”

These themes, however, remain little more than subtext. While the “X-Men” films might draw on the experiences of racial minorities and LGBT people for inspiration, these groups rarely get play a major role in telling their own stories. This is true not just of Singer’s series: People of color are routinely whitewashed in comic book movies, with more bankable white actors cast in their place. In the Batman comics, Ra’s al Ghul is Middle Eastern. He was played, though, by the Liam Neeson in “Batman Begins,” who was born in Northern Ireland. The Anglo-Scottish Tilda Swinton will appear as The Ancient One in “Doctor Strange,” despite the fact that the character is Asian."