X-Man Comes Out!
Wednesday, April 22, 2015 at 11:31AM
Manuel here fanboying over the increasingly diverse Marvel COMICS universe which recently outed original X-Man Iceman in the newest issue of All-New X-Men. If we must succumb to a superhero-filled world, we might as well celebrate these types of storylines:
I love her shrug
That’s Jean Grey sort of breaking the news to gorgeous Bobby Drake (played in the films by Shawn Ashmore) who seems taken aback by this realization. Marvel has always been at the cutting edge of progressive diverse representation, especially the X-Man whose central conceit has lent itself to so many subtextual storylines about discrimination and persecution. Indeed, when I first heard the news of Bobby’s “coming out” I couldn’t help but remember the following scene from X2 (arguably the best of the X-Men films precisely because it so skillfully mines the mutant-as-gay metaphor while offering great action set pieces that feel generous towards all its characters and not just the franchise’s golden boy Wolverine):
The question now becomes: will the Marvel Cinematic Universe ever catch up? With Black Panther and Captain Marvel (now with writers attached!) coming soon, Michael B. Jordan’s Johnny Storm coming our way this summer and a number of non-white members of the X-Men cast in the upcoming Apocalypse storyline (here’s hoping Bingbing Fan’s Blink gets a chance to shine!) we may be slowly moving towards a superhero slate that isn’t entirely lily-white (I’ve yet to catch up on Daredevil past the pilot but I couldn’t shake off the whole “white guy vs foreigners/immigrants” storyline it seemed to be painting) though it seems it’ll remain straight for the foreseeable future.
How long until we get a prominent LGBT character in the MCU? With total media domination (Netflix shows! ABC* spinoffs! Movies scheduled until 2098!) it's a matter of time, yes?
*Is this the part where I'm informed that there's such a character already in either Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D and/or Agent Carter, two shows I started watching but grew tired of midway through? And if so, does this just add further credence to the idea that television continues to be more open to representing diversity than the box-office beholden franchise world of cinema?
LGBT, Marvel, Shawn Ashmore, X-Men, superheroes
Reader Comments (9)
Manuel: It's not really anti minority, though. Racelifted Ben Urich is presented as a hero and the show is sympathetic toward Elena Cardenas. The point's less "foreign or minority = evil" and more "rich = evil, regardless of ethnic background."
Is Blink showing up in the new movie? Gosh I hope so, she was my favorite new mutant.
Daredevil's nemesis is a rich, white dude. Don't be an annoying PC hack...
tonytr & volvagia -- i'm afraid Manuel has a point.I liked Daredevil a lot but it's worth noting that the central heroes are white (with the exception of Ben Urich who... well, i won't get into spoilers) and the villains are all immigrants with the exception of the big bad who is literally big and bad but who gains his evil strength / power from his web of foreign allies and his girlfriend is also an immigrant.
so there is definitely some xenophobia happening with the show. Good show but that part is problematic.
tom -- knowing these movies like we do i think we can safely assume that it will be the wolverine & magneto show again. maybe blink gets a scene or two. (sigh)
manuel - there is not such a character in AGENTS OF SHIELD, no. DC TV is ahead of Marvel here since Flash has a gay character, albeit a minor one. But at least he's viewed sympathetically, he's respected (and the boss) and we've met his boyfriend.
Weird, I always thought it was Angel who was gay. I definitely had that subconscious impression growing up. Iceman was kind of the lovable dipshit prankster, while Angel was the wealthy prettyboy. Anyway, I knew it was one of the blond guys...
I would like to delicately and politely suggest that TFE peeps consider making an editorial decision to have less identity politics for the sake of identity politics on the blog's content. It gets really tedious, especially for non-American readers.
This post, for example, has virtually no analysis of either the comic book, or the X2 movie, or the Dredevil series. It is basically an incomplete scorecard of race/orientation of the characters featured in them. You don't even need to have seen or read none of the original material to put together an article like this.
Compare it with Anne Marie's ongoing series on female filmakers, for example. She writes really interesting essays about the artistic output, while still managing to address identity issues (gender, race, etc.), It's a lot more interesting because she does it through the prism of art criticism. Nick Davis is great at it also, in the podcasts.
The article's author himself has done much better on his recaps of Looking, This one is no different than a Slate article.
Anyway, just my two cents.
I would like to see all politics, identy, race, gender, etc., dropped. So many pieces get mired down in thoughts that don't add anything useful to the conversation at hand. I get that we all want to see ourselves represented accurately, but patience will you noticed just as fast.
The "author" here to offer some brief thoughts:
I gotta say, never did I think that a silly newspiece (that's why the piece has little to no analysis Carmen, it was never designed to do anything other than offer news about Iceman's "coming out" and stealthily mark all the latest Apocalypse casting news) would get this type of "let's not talk about politics" response.
Henry, I'll have to respectfully disagree. Sitting down, shutting up and being "patient" has rarely worked as a strategy when it comes to advancing social justice agendas. Then again, I don't think objectively pointing out the lack of diversity of an increasingly ubiquitous genre isn't "adding anything useful to the conversation." It is just pointing out the NEED for said conversation. Even if this is an "incomplete" scorecard, it really diagnoses a larger issue that further analysis would no doubt still back up.
This is always a tricky and thorny subject and I take everyone's points, but the push for a blanket dismissal or refusal to discuss what everyone's deeming "identity politics" strikes me as also not necessarily helpful either and if that makes me a "an annoying PC hack" well, so be it.