Diversity and Representation in Media

Ironically I think X-Men is one of those franchises that was better adapted, because the cartoons (92,97 and Evolution) focused on the acceptance and tolerance part and got rid of all the things that made it a Broken Aesop, like the nastier mutants that shoot the Aesop on its foot and some of the more unsavory parts of the comics.

EDIT: Corrected the first with 92.

Edited by AegisP on Mar 25th 2024 at 5:28:43 AM

Discord: Waido X 255#1372 If you cant contact me on TV Tropes do it here.

That might because those adaptations had a shelf life and the option to be separate from the wider marvel universe (whether they took it or not)

https://variety.com/2024/film/news/nelson-peltz-disney-woke-marvel-black-panther-1235951056/

Nelson Peltz, who's currently trying to get rid of Disney CEO Bob Iger, put Ike Perlmutter back in Marvel and possibly try to get rid of Kevin Feige, complaining about MCU movies that aren't focused on straight white men.

To be fair, if you ignore No Way Home and Guardians 3 and Doctor Strange 2 and Thor 4 and Quantumania, as well as the upcoming Deadpool 3, none of the new Marvel films have had straight white male protagonists, a group of people that have famously been unrepresented.

Edit: Actually, isn't Deadpool bi? If so I retract Deadpool 3 (though it is Deadpool and Wolverine and I'm pretty sure Logan's straight).

Edited by king15 on Mar 25th 2024 at 12:24:36 PM

Some comics imply otherwise and there's that alternative universe where he's in a relationship with Hercules but basically yes.

I hope all of this blows over and Kevin reminds at Marvel Studios.

Deadpool's pansexual to be exact.

Can't remember where I read it, but I remember that Wolverine's original creators intended for him to be seen as an unpleasant person, basically a bit of an asshole.

Unfortunately, the traits that were supposed to make him an asshole; like always being angry and spoiling for a fight, where interpreted as "badass" by readership at the time.

x6 Yeah, I’m really hoping the whole proxy battle goes nowhere.

The Owl House and Coyote Vs Acme are my Roman Empire.

isn't GOTG vol 3 more about Rocket

Granted true, though Rocket is still technically a straight male voiced by a white man, so it still sort of counts? To be fair, GOTG films are ensembles anyway (with Starlord just as the focal point). I just wanted to point out that, even if they aren't necessarily the whole focus (Thor 3 and Quantumania both have major supporting protagonists that aren't straight white men), there's still a lot of straight white men in Marvel films for that demographic to relate to (unlike what has been suggested).

Edited by king15 on Mar 25th 2024 at 12:33:18 PM

Kinda but he spents a lot of it in a coma, while we follow Quill trying to save him.

Trying to claim the Guardians trilogy was Rocket's story all along was a bit of a stretch.

Edited by dcutter2 on Mar 25th 2024 at 12:33:03 PM

Oh I wasn't, just thinking specifically about Vol 3.

Also personally I don't consider anthro/animals having human race equivalents unless outright stated.

Oh sorry, that wasn't directed at you. VOL 3 itself was trying to say that with Lyla's line. (This has been your story all along)

A truly surprising and unexpected take from the man who forced M. Night Shyamalan to cast his daughter as Katara.

And not that it would make his comments valid if it were otherwise, but Black Panther and The Marvels do not have only black and female characters, respectively.

The two Black Panther movies made over 2 billion dollars combined.

Peltz: 36 white male protagonists?! Last year I had 37!

Scar himself looks like foreign, weak, and with very female moves.

Yeah, I can get trying to diss the latest Marvel movie but he's out of his mind with BP since it's a moneymaker.

I feel like my counter-question to that would be: "Why do you need another white male protagonist? It's not like there's a drought of them."

Welcome to Estalia, gentlemen.

Republicans aren't far right, and the differences between the parties focused a lot less on social issues in the 90s.

The target audience for cartoons and comics are kids, especially boys. There wasn't yet this idea that everything had to have a political message. There was also agreement on what racism is. So it was pretty easy to make a cartoon for kids that had broad appeal. Like the idea that you shouldn't be mean to people just because they are different would be non controversial among conservatives and centrists.

I haven't seen all the "backlash", but what I have seen is people push back against the idea that X-Men is just for specific groups. Which may stem from a misunderstanding, but it does look like one "tribe" wants to exclude the other "tribe".

I for one, think it is a good thing when people of different political persuasions have shared culture. It doesn't make sense to me for one group of fans to try an exclude another. Especially when the actual work is often less divisive as the discussion that happens outside the work.

What are you talking about? Kid's cartoons have always been political as hell. What, did you think they included aesops and heavy-handed messages for kicks?

And Knowing Is Half the Battle and all that.

It's just that nowadays certain people think "minorities exist" is political.

Edited by M84 on Mar 27th 2024 at 3:37:10 AM

Disgusted, but not surprised

I mean, X-Men is one of the worst examples of trying to say a cartoon from the 90s is not political.

I'll teach you a lesson about just how cruel the world can be. That's my job, as an adult.

I don't think it's very controversial or gatekeep-y of me to say that the talking heads complaining about things "going woke" aren't fans, nor is their perspective worth considering. They're grifters riding a controversy and they do not put one iota of thought into this media otherwise.

Edited by Chortleous on Mar 26th 2024 at 1:41:44 PM

Full agreement there. X-Men, as a franchise, has been very political since Claremont first started writing for it in the '70s at the absolute latest, but there's elements of it going back to Stan and Jack's original run from the '60s (perhaps best exemplified by Issue 14, the introduction of the Sentinels, government-backed hunting-and-killing machines designed to target mutants, a premise which was expanded upon to create the X-Men's main status quo of mutants being a hated and feared minority group).

Also

(glares at Project 2025)

Edited by TrashJack on Mar 26th 2024 at 3:45:30 PM

Any time someone uses "woke" as if it's a bad thing, I just tune them out. It really says all I need to know about them.

Disgusted, but not surprised

Further proof that when people complain about political, they mean politics that include non-binary people.

I'll teach you a lesson about just how cruel the world can be. That's my job, as an adult.

As the meme says, "there are two genders: male and political; there are two sexualities: straight and political; there are two races: white and political". The moment that straight white men aren't being pandered to for once is when certain folks start complaining about things being "political".