Read Online X-Men and the Mutant Metaphor by Joseph J.; Darowski - Free Book Online Page A
Authors: Joseph J.; Darowski
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than white athletes. A Google search of “Do African Americans have an extra muscle in their legs” returns tens of thousands of links to online forums and question-and-answer sites where this question has, it can be assumed in most cases, been posed seriously.
In “Consuming Blackness,” Daniel Rosenweig analyzes a commercial that aired in 1990 that featured a white catcher watching tape of Rickey Henderson, an African American baseball player who was on the verge of setting the career record for stealing bases, repeatedly stealing bases. The catcher is alone in a darkened room, watching film of Henderson stealing bases over and over, seemingly putting in extra hours after the rest of the team has completed practice. As Rosenweig notes, “The catcher’s dilemma links two standard white dystopic narratives: white men cannot compete physically with black men and whites must work harder to earn what they have” (113). Flying in the face of much of the history of the United States, white men are the underdog in this interpretation of the racial dynamic. The analysis continues:
[T]he commercial generates a series of racially coded dyads underscoring the essentialism of American sports discourse. Its central set of antitheses, the catcher and the base-stealing outfielder, organizes a barely submerged belief system regarding the respective qualities of the races. The white catcher is cerebral, defensive, disciplined, protecting, fundamentally sound, and perhaps not very athletic by nature. Conversely the black outfielder is physical, offensive, reckless, stealing, flashy, and graced with an innate natural athleticism. (114)
It is interesting that the first instance of the general public reacting negatively toward a mutant in an X-Men comic book occurs at a sporting event. And the script makes a point that the majority wants to believe there is some cause other than talent that would allow a member of a minority to surpass them. The superiority of the majority cannot be questioned. Although in this instance there is in fact a distinct advantage—superpowers—that the Toad possesses, the logic of the angry crowd is the same type of thinking that allows tales of extra muscles in African Americans to be perpetuated through decades in locker rooms and now on online forums.
In The X-Men #8 (Nov. 64), published more than a year after the X-Men first appeared, 5 we see a crowd of normal humans reacting with fear and hatred to a mutant. The crowd that had threatened the Toad in The X-Men #5 (May 1964)had no direct knowledge he was a mutant. The dialogue makes it clear that at the track meet the group believes they are watching a fraud, not neccesarily a mutant. The incident in The X-Men #8 (Nov. 1964) begins when the Beast climbs the side of a building to save a young boy. The crowd below identifies him as a mutant and immediately begins to react as Merton’s “prejudiced discriminators.” Not only do the members of the crowd question the humanity of the Beast, pointing out that he ran up the building “like a gorilla,” but they begin to voice conspiracies about mutantkind. Mutants are “waiting to take over the world,” and the Beast “just saved that kid to throw us off guard . . . to make us think mutants aren’t dangerous!” And then a threat is uttered, as the panel focuses on the clenched fist of a man; a voice bubble reads, “Let’s get ’im, before he loses himself in the crowd.”
In the intervening issues—between #2 , when a crowd of women adore the Angel, and #8 , when a crowd threatens the Beast—there is no narrative explanation given for the change in attitudes toward mutants. Despite his code name, the Beast did not look terribly different from normal humans, only having larger hands and feet. By contrast, the Angel had wings sprouting from his back, thus marking him more clearly as a mutant. So why is there such a dramatic shift in tone?
It is entirely possible that the heightened debates and
In “Consuming Blackness,” Daniel Rosenweig analyzes a commercial that aired in 1990 that featured a white catcher watching tape of Rickey Henderson, an African American baseball player who was on the verge of setting the career record for stealing bases, repeatedly stealing bases. The catcher is alone in a darkened room, watching film of Henderson stealing bases over and over, seemingly putting in extra hours after the rest of the team has completed practice. As Rosenweig notes, “The catcher’s dilemma links two standard white dystopic narratives: white men cannot compete physically with black men and whites must work harder to earn what they have” (113). Flying in the face of much of the history of the United States, white men are the underdog in this interpretation of the racial dynamic. The analysis continues:
[T]he commercial generates a series of racially coded dyads underscoring the essentialism of American sports discourse. Its central set of antitheses, the catcher and the base-stealing outfielder, organizes a barely submerged belief system regarding the respective qualities of the races. The white catcher is cerebral, defensive, disciplined, protecting, fundamentally sound, and perhaps not very athletic by nature. Conversely the black outfielder is physical, offensive, reckless, stealing, flashy, and graced with an innate natural athleticism. (114)
It is interesting that the first instance of the general public reacting negatively toward a mutant in an X-Men comic book occurs at a sporting event. And the script makes a point that the majority wants to believe there is some cause other than talent that would allow a member of a minority to surpass them. The superiority of the majority cannot be questioned. Although in this instance there is in fact a distinct advantage—superpowers—that the Toad possesses, the logic of the angry crowd is the same type of thinking that allows tales of extra muscles in African Americans to be perpetuated through decades in locker rooms and now on online forums.
In The X-Men #8 (Nov. 64), published more than a year after the X-Men first appeared, 5 we see a crowd of normal humans reacting with fear and hatred to a mutant. The crowd that had threatened the Toad in The X-Men #5 (May 1964)had no direct knowledge he was a mutant. The dialogue makes it clear that at the track meet the group believes they are watching a fraud, not neccesarily a mutant. The incident in The X-Men #8 (Nov. 1964) begins when the Beast climbs the side of a building to save a young boy. The crowd below identifies him as a mutant and immediately begins to react as Merton’s “prejudiced discriminators.” Not only do the members of the crowd question the humanity of the Beast, pointing out that he ran up the building “like a gorilla,” but they begin to voice conspiracies about mutantkind. Mutants are “waiting to take over the world,” and the Beast “just saved that kid to throw us off guard . . . to make us think mutants aren’t dangerous!” And then a threat is uttered, as the panel focuses on the clenched fist of a man; a voice bubble reads, “Let’s get ’im, before he loses himself in the crowd.”
In the intervening issues—between #2 , when a crowd of women adore the Angel, and #8 , when a crowd threatens the Beast—there is no narrative explanation given for the change in attitudes toward mutants. Despite his code name, the Beast did not look terribly different from normal humans, only having larger hands and feet. By contrast, the Angel had wings sprouting from his back, thus marking him more clearly as a mutant. So why is there such a dramatic shift in tone?
It is entirely possible that the heightened debates and
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