Were The X-Men Always Woke?

[@PillarofGarbage]

After a technical hitch yesterday, this video’s out properly! Videos like this can exist in large part due to my growing family of backers on Patreon and KZbin - if you’d like to help me make more like this , please do consider signing up here! www.patreon.com/pillarofgarbage

[@jayvbspdx]

Had me in a panic. I had the old one cached so I can watch it and when I hit refresh it was *GONE* and I panicked and in the ensuing panic stubbed my toe

[@PillarofGarbage]

@@jayvbspdx very sorry I caused that 😭

[@thezenlu]

Seriously! That abrupt cut made me double take and think something was either wrong with you or my signal... I'm glad neither is the case!

[@Tyler_Lalonde-]

Help you lie and propagandize, no thank you.

[@marcusclark1339]

simple answer: NO and anyone that would try to say yes is a dumbass, there is a difference of social agenda pushing and stories based in political themes and settings

[@wfjhDUI]

Those opening clips are great. I had forgotten it was that heavy-handed. A show can basically scream at the audience "THIS IS A METAPHOR FOR RACIAL DISCRIMINATION" and 30 years later people will nostalgically remember it as completely apolitical. lol

[@moonwhooper]

Because they choose to be ignorant and just watch the action

[@skillcoiler]

Conservatives seem to have a really hard time with media comprehension.....

[@PatrickWDunne]

I recently began re-watching the OG series. In episode 5, one character announces their presidential campaign by saying he'll round up the mutants and put them in camps.

[@dngillikin]

Yep, the politics in X-Men '92 are as subtle as a brick. Grifting 30-something KZbin Culture Warriors, if they watched the show at all, didn't notice because they were in f*cking elementary and middle school at the time these episodes aired.

[@ThousanWhite]

In the very first episode you can even see a female president. That would be considered “woke” by todays flimsy standards

[@stannyb3346]

​@dngillikin I mean I watched those episodes back when I was in elementary school and even then I caught the message, I thinks these right wing grifters are either lying or were too obtuse to catch the underlying message in the show.

[@UltimatePower01]

@@stannyb3346they don’t have to believe what they spew, they’re grifters, they grift, that’s all. It’s about the money they cash in.

[@christopherbennett5858]

@@stannyb3346why not both?

[@mgalusic]

The X-Men couldn't get much further from "we're all the same". I mean one of the most iconic scenes of the movies is nightcrawler and Mystique. "Why dont you make yourself look like them?" "Because we shouldn't have to"

[@Gloomdrake]

She’s right, but I still think she should wear clothes

[@mgalusic]

@@Gloomdrake eh. Modesty is for homosapiens

[@elih6087]

@@Gloomdrake Lol that's what I thought. I mean you can accept yourself and still cover up. Wouldn't hurt to wear some armor and weapons.

[@jp3813]

@@elih6087 Ever seen TMNT? She's covered up by her own body.

[@theobell2002]

@@elih6087 I mean, I ain't complaining. 😏

[@benwasserman8223]

One of the most beloved X-Men comics is God Loves, Man Kills. A comic that opens with Mutant children being murdered and makes its villain a fantatical televangelist directly inspired by the likes of Billy Graham and Pat Robertson. The comics were never subtle when it came to drawing real-world comparisons, and it's hard to imagine people had no clue what those parallels were.

[@kylemendoza8860]

If you want to talk about parallels. Do you see any parallels between the mutant Brotherhood and maybe some other organizations today? Which one was supposed to be the good guys again?

[@DKdrop]

@@kylemendoza8860 Yes. The thing that makes the brotherhood interesting (at least in their best appearances) is the investigation of their motivations. I’m not gonna say that they weren’t the bad guys or anything, rather, that they were relatively nuanced. For golden-age comics, at least.

[@kylemendoza8860]

@@DKdrop So if X-Men were woke. What were the Brotherhood?

[@Wveth]

@@kylemendoza8860 The Brotherhood and Magneto seem to both be inspired by the more radical philosophy of figures such as Malcolm X, while the X-Men follow the ideologies of others who believed in rebellion with no or minimal violence (like MLK). They did this because they wanted to honestly explore the themes of the story, because it's complicated and nuanced, and ultimately the writers are saying that resistance without proactive violence is the most effective kind. I know you were hoping for a 'gotcha' question but as usual, the truth is more complicated than you think lol

[@kylemendoza8860]

@@Wveth I'm not trying to do a gotcha. I am an X-Men fan too. I'm just trying to figure out who's woke and who's not. Lol. That's a little joke.

[@BlueBeetle1939]

That the x men arent a 1 to 1 parallel for any specific cause or minority group is precisely what makes them such a great metaphor that passes the test of time they can be applied to any struggle and can represent anyone

[@DarthTingleBinks]

That's not always great. Sometimes subtlety can be a bitch because nobody notices, or they ignore the message because it's an "allegory" and isn't meant to be taken seriously. And other times, it's just more effective to be blunt and overt with the messaging. People will complain about a message being shoved down their throats, or about getting beaten over the head with it, but if a writer didn't need to do that, they wouldn't have done it. Usually. Also, those people complain about every little thing, so their opinion isn't really valid.

[@TreFKennedy]

They were based off black people 1st

[@johnwatson1258]

True but even Stan Lee claimed the inspiration for making mutants feared came from the civil rights movement. There's a quote on the history channel's website that states as much. But the X-Men have long been used as an allegory for any and all marginalized groups. But black people see that as another allegorical example of black influence because most rights and advocacy for the rights of specific groups use the civil rights movement as their backdrop. Even the stop Asian hate movement drew parallels with the Civil Rights movement. It only makes sense that one of the longest historically oppressed demographics in America be the spearhead for minority advancement overall. So for black people the X-Men will always have a special place.

[@TreFKennedy]

@@johnwatson1258 thank you

[@KalicoKal]

@@DarthTingleBinks they will complain regardless but not being 1 exact group is genius because the x-men are the perfect minority representation. all different people with different yet similar struggles trying to figure it for themselves and each other trying to get rid of the same set of rules

[@anenemystand5582]

Those evangelists referring to the x-men as sub humans is so unintentionally funny. Like I'm sure they just don't know the difference but they've literally set themselves up to look just like comic book villians

[@LutraLovegood]

There are real villains today using those same words to dehumanize people. If anything, comic book villains aren't evil enough.

[@aazhie]

​@@LutraLovegoodxD the comic book villains have understandable motives for being kinda awful, and they aren't as villainous as evangelical leaders, so many times!

[@adamach3776]

Perhaps they meant subhumans as a like, “subset of humans”?

[@sylokthedefiled]

@@adamach3776nah definitely not

[@DeadKraken]

@@adamach3776 The only other description that could be used for "mutant" from a non-comic book fan, would be "humanoid" or "demi human", which both sound very different from "sub human". Sub human just indicates an inferior human--being and has strong pejorative connotations, especially when used by evangelicals, whom LOVE to embrace eugenic concepts. They knew what they were doing and saying, they're just evil, hateful creatures.

[@thatgaymerguyb5275]

There's an episode in season 4 where storm and wolverine are lovers in an alternate future. They go back in time with Bishop to 1959 and someone sees them holding hands at a table and they get attacked for it because they're an interracial couple.

[@spencersholden]

I completely forgot about that! Not subtle at all.

[@Anniebobanny]

And I also remember Storm thinking the idea of racial prejudice to be utterly stupid.

[@originalindigodingo]

Maybe they were just upset cause Storm was dating a *shudder* Canadian.

[@Adamtendo_player_1]

Actually they also got attacked because they ate mutants.

[@moonwhooper]

​@@Adamtendo_player_1the point is, the message is not subtle in the slightest but people still somehow miss it

[@bargainbincatgirl6698]

29:35 When you showed the US Evangelicals reaction to "God Loves Man Kills" I expected the outrage but not that at the time they referred to the mutants in the story as "sub-humans". That was a perfect example of "life imitating art" because equating mutants as sub-humans is something a mutant-bigot (or human supremacist) will say on the X-Men universe.

[@achristiananarchist2509]

It's kind of extra weird because it seems like the default would be "superhumans". That's kind of the oldschool comic book way to refer to superhero characters. The whole point is that they are humans who have powers other humans don't, and so are superhuman. Modern comics have tried to move away from that because it sounds overused and cheesy, picking things like "metahumans" instead, but "subhuman" seems like an oddly clunky and intentional choice, like the fact that the X-Men are superheroes themed around minority inclusion not only makes them ineligible for the normal "super" label, but puts them in a situation where their powers make them less than human, a position that fits so perfectly into the "Friends of Humanity" outlook, when discussing a comic whose villain was literally based on them, that it basically just validates the topicality of the book's message. This is who Pat Robertson would be in the X-Men universe. This is who Pat Robertson is in our universe. This comic was right, is relevant and exposing something about society, and they are just putting that on display in real time.

[@kira-dk2mx]

Even Master Mold himself said that there wasn't much difference between humans and mutants. He was gonna shit on everyone in equal measure.

[@hypothalapotamus5293]

I think it's more that the art was on-point and the person being criticized couldn't understand what he was being criticized about.

[@whodatboi2567]

Boy oh boy, the Goblin Queen in episode 3 made all those outraged by Rogue's butt look mad stupid.

[@Nomxla]

My thoughts exactly

[@whodatboi2567]

​@@Nomxla To be fair, she's actually more toned down than how she appears in the comics. But they wouldn't know that since they don't read.

[@georgemetcalf8763]

Fans need more Goblin Queen.

[@PillarofGarbage]

Goblin Queen served fr

[@ColorOfExcellence]

Clock it

[@KingOfMadCows]

The anti-woke crowd are already saying that Disney "unwoked" the show because of the backlash and that's why X-Men 97 is good. Because it's so easy to completely change a high quality animated show in 2 months even though it took 3 years to make it.

[@PillarofGarbage]

that is a genuinely impressive level of delusion

[@mikhaelgribkov4117]

Literally 1984. Like, it was literally in the book and the thing most of distopia media references from it. You can't even satirize that because it is literally was 25+ times already at least.

[@jonathantobias3955]

Yeah for these people it's woke unless they like it. If they think it's good, then it can't be woke apparently.

[@SIDEKICKDUSTY]

When you've got a buzzword that wishy washy, you can pretty much use it however you want, I suppose

[@VoidR]

This is the same crowd that runs around screaming, "OMG it's the Rapture! Repent!" every time a funny shaped comet gets too close. then, after it passes yells, "Hallelujah, God cut us some slack!" once they realize the world didn't blow up and now they regret selling all their stock on the cheap Goal posts are pretty easy to move when you make them out of balloon animals.

[@AscensionGod]

It really shows where those people in the CBN broadcast minds were when they called the Mutants "Sub-Humans."

[@achristiananarchist2509]

That got me too. It was hilarious because that whole segment could basically be ripped whole cloth, without changing a thing, and be inserted into an X-Men comic and it would make perfect sense.

[@malcire]

Isn't it generally common to refer to people with super powers as super humans?

[@roguedeathangel]

Fun fact: Marvel once went to court to prove that the mutants are NOT people. At the time toys of humans were subject to a higher tax rate, by going to court to prove that mutants aren't people they managed to secure a lower tax rate and therefore keep more of the profits by charging the same price as toys of human characters like Iron Man.

[@flibberfrogman5508]

@@roguedeathangel Y'know there's something to that about capitalism profiting from the dehumanisation of marginalised groups...

[@roguedeathangel]

@flibberfrogman5508 In all fairness it was Magneto who coined the term "Homo Superior" so I don't think he'd complain about being considered non- human haha

[@Jayk129]

Yes they have, the whole X-Franchise in fact. There is one explicitly “woke” X-story that has stuck with me since I first read it 38 years ago. It is New Mutants #45. The young Xavier’s students go to a dance at the local public High School and meet a student named Larry who is bullied by other students. The bullies threaten to “out” him as a Mutant to what at the time was believed to be a Mutant hunting organization, but they just think they’re teasing him, they don’t know Larry actually is a Mutant. The next morning The New Mutants are informed by Magneto (Then the schools headmaster exactly like in X-Men ‘97 now) that Larry had hung himself the night before. At Larry’s memorial Kitty Pryde very explicitly says that Larry killed himself because he was afraid of being outed. She makes a point of saying that labels hurt and in addition to “Mutie” lists several offensive terms for marginalized groups, the last of which is a 6 letter gay slur starting with F and ending with T. Now in the digital version available on Marvel Unlimited those words are censored but in 1986 when I first read the physical comic they weren’t. I can’t think of anything more woke in 1986 than having a teenager kill themselves because they are scared of being outed as something society fears and then explicitly using that word as an analogy for what the kid feared being discovered about himself. That issue was quite obviously an allegory for queer teen suicide. I actually paused the video to go read that whole issue again before writing this comment and all these years later it still makes me cry. That issue and it’s message is exactly why when I was 13 I learned that there was nothing wrong, scary, or different about LGBTQIA+ people. That they were just people who wanted to be loved and accepted like anyone else. And it’s a story and message that has stuck with me, never forgotten, for almost 4 decades. That’s a pretty damn woke message if you ask me.

[@jbutler8585]

@23:49 pissed me off way more than I expected. Maybe I'm not at all interested in defining precisely what "X-Men was always woke" means. Maybe that whole target crowd can simply eat my ass because they sure aren't willing to ever define what "woke" means themselves, because they can't do it without revealing one or more blatant bigotries. It's a simple and accurate enough truism that it doesn't *deserve* more explanation, nuance, or sensitivity. X-men was always woke, and anyone who needs extensive proof of that wasn't paying attention in the first place. They CERTAINLY aren't listening or learning from anyone explaining it now.

[@newrecru1t]

Rather poetic for a piece of media that came out in 1986 has an important part of its message censored nowadays, if it isn't clear enough? The folks that fear Orwell's 1984 because of _"woke cancel culture"_ don't seem to recognize that they're the extremist antagonistic humans from X-Men. Even more ironic that the comics are woefully unrealistic, because nowadays we don't just have students bullying fellow classmates with slurs and threats, they'll even physically assault and outright murder those that are different; Nex Benedict should come to mind, especially when some have attempted to label their death as a suicide.

[@TheDanishGuyReviews]

I did not notice the Other F-Word, as l call it, when reading it. I was too surprised by the fact that Kitty starts the list with the N-word.

[@IshtarNike]

This is a perfect example of when NOT to fucking censor things. Honestly the companies make even me angry sometimes because they do such dumb shit lol.

[@gateauxq4604]

@newrecru1t just a tip-there’s a huge difference between people who don’t want offensive language to be used and people who want to kill people they are offended by. ‘Woke cancel culture’ are just three culture war buzz words thatsay a lot more of nothing when they are put together.

[@AngryNerdBird]

All this outrage is funny to me, because so far "nonbinary" hasn't even been spoken in the new show at all. It's literally just how one of the creators described morph because unlike the show the creator isn't set in the 90s. lol

[@zeroattentiongaming820]

As someone with Celiac Disease, really appreciate you using us as your example with food. Cross contamination is a nightmare so seeing some awareness of that getting spread has made my day. Always feels shitty having to turn down something someone tried to make safe for you because they made the tiniest mistake due to not having to be hyper vigilant about this stuff.

[@brody5409]

Okay that one that said that Chris Claremont didn't intend for the X-Men to be woke is patently untrue under him Kitty Pryde was always giving speeches about how bigotry was wrong. He also famously only cared about the women characters and had to be reminded to add stuff for the men to do.

[@wintertrooper7918]

Dude claremont was coding every single character as queer!

[@christopherbennett5858]

@@wintertrooper7918Trying to find bisexual women in Claremont’s work is like bringing a Geiger counter to Chernobyl. And then there’s the Mystique and Destiny of it all. Also black Tom and Juggernaut

[@Hillthugsta]

Not to mention that Storm was clearly by far his favorite character. Im kinda thankful that she is.

[@Rick-tr7ul]

He's like me, I have more female characters than male characters for TTRPGs (like, 1 male character and 5 female characters)

[@BlankEmporium]

But it's not woke, it's progressive. There's a big difference. Being woke is pandering to useless idiots while true progressives actually try to change things.

[@minako10]

The "God Loves, Man Kills" example is spot on and can be applied to a lot of media from the past as well. Grifters love to brag about how old media is so much better than today's and not at all 'Woke" when there are, in fact, plenty of films/series/comics etc. from years or even decades ago that they would absolutely hate if released today.

[@edschelchang6123]

Yeah, I was thinking about The Silence of the Lambs the other day and I thought that if it came out today they would hate it

[@Marsh388]

Also, some of the things that they complain about now (I.e. hot women) are things they wouldn’t have the luxury to miss if their counterparts from yesterday had their way.

[@Shampyon]

​@@edschelchang6123 God, yes. the way the movie plays up the FBI as a boy's club, and the sexism Clarice faces both from her coworkers and the general public. Plus the clear attempt to drive home that trans women are not sick or evil, and that Buffalo Bill is not a trans woman. Either one of those would get it panned as "Hollywoke Pandering to the Globalist Elitists".

[@DavidRYates-tk2tq]

​@@edschelchang6123 really? You'd think they would love the villification of trans people.

[@rashadpaige564]

As an African American man it annoys tf outta me how the word Woke has been co-opted. Another example of how dominant American society takes from an oppressed community displaying cultural nuance in their vernacular.

[@mordakie3805]

it got co opted because black people dont care ..by far the most fragmented lost "community" in America black people dont fight for shit half of them are worse than the oppressors now a days

[@mordakie3805]

@@Ciderpunk-jj5es woke meant "powerful white man bad"

[@torinju]

@@Ciderpunk-jj5es No, the core of 'woke' now is 'I don't want to see anything but white men'.

[@butHomeisNowhere___]

Bro black culture in america has always shaped culture in america, broadly. Think of it like you guys are trailblazers :) But also, i can totally understand how annoying it would be to have a word co-opted by just the worst people online. That's a different story, for sure.

[@torinju]

@@butHomeisNowhere___ The co-opting of woke is a little different I think. White people taking on music originally created by black people at least acknowledges that black people came up with something awesome and something people would want to emulate. The taking over of 'woke' is taking something from black culture that is a positive and saying 'this thing is terrible'. I think. I'm a white dude, so what the hell do I know about it?

[@Marsh388]

When the first two episodes came out, I said “X-Cutioner’s rant will fly right over the heads of people who have literally said that word for word “

[@davidmun1601]

Back then, people were complaining that some of these characters were too sexy. Now, people complain that these characters are not sexy enough.

[@BrendonLee]

The X-men preached tolerance and the importance of a cool head to avoid unnecessary violence and destruction. We need the X-men now more than ever.

[@torgo1985]

That Lauren Chen article screams “I don’t even ‘see’ mutants”

[@Ciderpunk-jj5es]

So, as colour-blindness was the ''''''''woke'''''''''' position up until only 10 years ago, and Lee and Claremont were doing their thing 30, 40 years ago, the 'is X-Men Woke' question becomes a bit more complicated, no?

[@kami_in_the_skye]

@@Ciderpunk-jj5esNo.

[@Ciderpunk-jj5es]

@@kami_in_the_skyeAt the time he was writing X-Men, is it most likely that Chris Claremont would consider himself a colour-blind Liberal, or a Twitter Progressive? And how can the answer not possibly matter?

[@blacxthornE]

​@@Ciderpunk-jj5es X-Men is anything but colorblind.

[@Ciderpunk-jj5es]

@@blacxthornE Everything aside from the Krakoa era has seen the team fighting for integration and peaceful co-existence, right?

[@basicsimp8798]

Most Superhero comics are about realising that the true villains are society and how we treat others so poorly that they become desperate enough to be villains. Heck, even the heroes are having a tough time and majority of it is not because of their bad guys but just trying to live their life in a Capitalist hell hole. So yes, X-Men and superhero comics are woke, they've always been. Even with a lot of censorship back in the days.

[@rustyshackle8000]

Saying '97 is good because it's been "Unwoked" is just...crazy to me. When in the first goddamn episode, a human supremacist says, and I quote, "Tolerance is extinction," and previously used rhetoric heavily inspired by the Great Replacement Theory that's become extremely prevalent in Conservative policy as of late. And not to mention the very next episode, where extremists storm a government building in protest of lawful proceedings, with a militant extremist who brutalizes several people while calling them "whiny." Only for a Holocaust survivor to brutalize him in return, and quote the motto of Holocaust remembrance: "Never again." It's honestly a genius take on the X-Men. The series has never been subtle with it's inspirations. Maybe sometimes it didn't stick, but X-Men has never been afraid to make a statement. And X-Men '97 made a pretty damn good one.

[@babygorilla4233]

Why are we having a discussion about if the X men lf all things is progressive? The original work had a holocost survivor and marvels first gay character bonding over how society teats them like shit. Complaining how they made the X Men woke is like saying they made the tale of christ religious.

[@awandererfromys1680]

"First time?" -- A _Star Trek_ fan I mean I'm not a huge fan of the new Trek series either but to say it went woke is just mindblowingly ignorant of everything Trek.

[@mattpluzhnikov519]

I absolutely *love* your comparison of, "Complaining how they made the X Men woke is like saying they made the tale of christ religious." To the point that, when they find the *next* thing to Wokespot, I hope to remember to respond to folks with something along the lines of, "Yeah, [Thing] is Woke, and The Bible is religious. Big whoop."

[@torinju]

@@awandererfromys1680 I do, unfortunately, kind of get it. I was a conservative Star Trek fan at one point in my life (I am not a conservative anymore). It takes a lot of mental gymnastics and some compartmentalization, but it's possible to be both. But mental gymnastics and compartmentalization is par for the course to be conservative. For instance, the thing that really broke me away from being conservative was listening to Rush Limbaugh talking about gay marriage. The ideas that 'America is the land of the free!' and "We can't allow gays to marry!' takes so much mental effort to try to harmonize it caused me to question the rest.

[@Thareldis]

​@@torinjuto be fair, seeing that cognitive dissonance in rush's rethoric took some intelligence. You don't have to be a genious to see it, but a lot of the really hardcore conservatives constantly ignoring glaring contradictions in their rethoric, are either willfully ignorant or well.. quite dumb. Not that we don't have any let's say cognitively challenged people on the left, but they usually just say dumb stuff that at worst gives conservative influencers some arguments against the left and at best triggers some anty sjw chuds every now and then.

[@christopherbennett5858]

@@torinjuYeah, unfortunately, when it comes to oppressive regimes, contradictions of words are ignored as “might makes right” is the ideology used. Keep in mind that Marvel comics literally have Hydra, an organization built around and ruled by actual Nazis that still see play in the comics today.

[@geenadasilva9287]

honestly, the people yelling about millennials, the existence of queer people and the "re-writing" of history sound are deeply tedious. do they realize that they sound like old people from before WW2. Even before Dark Phoenix, Claremont and Dave Cockrum encountered resistance to having female characters as strong or more powerful than traditional male characters meant they had to sneak in equivalences to show that Phoenix was as powerful as Thor or the Silver Surfer. And yet some men are still whining about having female empowerment forced on them. Same with race. Same with sex and gender. mainstream media's recent inclusion of diversity is simply a matter of trying to enlarge consumers and the bottom line. money money money

[@ianstratton]

Somewhere in the world, there's a person who turned "anti-woke" because an elementary school classmate's peanut allergy caused them to move the field trip to a different restaurant....

[@davidbjacobs3598]

As someone with a peanut allergy... Yeah, that's pretty legit. A lot of kids were seriously offended by my inability to join the other kids for lunch for fear of death.

[@Gloomdrake]

@@davidbjacobs3598if I had a peanut allergy, I would simply be normal and not die after eating a peanut /s

[@gateauxq4604]

@davidbjacobs3598 have you ever tried not having a peanut allergy? 😆 These kids are all coming from hearing their ghoulish parents say this crap and probably worse. Why do humans have to be do gross?

[@joelanderson5285]

That wouldn't be woke, you don't understand the term you are defending.

[@DainnGreywall]

@@joelanderson5285 That's the joke... it's so terribly defined and people get "anti-woke" for the dumbest of reasons.

[@benwasserman8223]

I keep joking about this, but nowadays X-Men: TAS' Friends of Humanity would have plenty of booths at CPAC. And they would be on all the Joe Rogan/Alex Jones-type podcasts promoting Mutant conspiracies with a disturbingly high audience.

[@pathevermore3683]

William Stryker, Greg Locke or Robin Mullet guy?

[@christopherbennett5858]

And then we’d have characters like Fenris being similar to the likes of Blaire white where people would go “I’m not an anti mutant bigot. I follow Fenris”

[@omegaminoseer4539]

It would be even worse in retrospect as FoH would cast an even wider net than The (Alpha) Manosphere. There is a legitimate argument in favor against Mutants being in society, which would be justified by the Alex Jones/Friday Night Tights types. Now, there is a secondary issue of how these groups would use Mutants as a dogwhistle in real life, likely to deconstruct other social constructions by saying, "These groups are more likely to be MUTIES! We'd best isolate them!"

[@CrossoverManiac]

Uh...no. Stop projecting your hateful bigotry unto other people. A "conspiracy theory" about the actions that some rich, well-connnected people chose of their own free will (like the WEC undermining the middle class) will never be the same as you social justice cultists hating people for being the wrong race, sex, & sexual orientation, traits they have no control over. /watch?v=w0nc3XAsgHI

[@eaglest0554]

If spiderman were real fox news would basically be the real life daily planet, especially if they figured out he was low income and still living with his aunt.

[@ManuelFernandezDJ]

Even Captain America's creation was "woke..." At the time of his creation, Irish people were discriminated against for being newcomers in America with different cultures and religious beliefs. To give him our flag as his shield was an act of defiance at the time.

[@paolovantassel1989]

Cap's history of being "woke" goes way beyond that. That famous cover of him by Jack Kirby socking Hitler in the jaw? In its time, it was considered controversial because at the time, a lot of people saw Hitler and thought he had a formula for a better future, and saying otherwise would make a lot of people angry. A lot of people wanted to emulate Hitler's policies (witness the "Wall Street Putsch"), and Captain America smacking Hitler around was seen as a destructive influence. Then there was the time Jack Kirby got a bunch of Nazi sympathizers to turn tail and run from the Timely Comics office. They came to intimidate him into not making Captain America anti-Nazi, and all he had to do was show a willingness to fight them and suddenly they fled lest they wind up like comic book Hitler.

[@jasongarrett768]

CBN “reporter” throwing around the term “subhuman” when describing mutants is a bit on the nose but Claremont didn’t usually do subtle so it tracks. I have to say that I love the sometimes derided inclusion of aliens, humans, and other wildly different folks that weren’t strictly mutants in the X-family redefined and welcomed as heterogeneity and “queer mutanity”.

[@SebastianSeanCrow]

17:00 the XMen were def pushing boundaries before I was born. They had female characters who weren’t just love interests or getting fridged, they have an incredibly diverse cast, and they had covers with Jean and Storm on them during a time people weren’t just putting women by themselves or black women on comic book covers. There’s def times where they’re just goofy and times when it’s serious stuff and I think that potential is why so many great stories have come out of it.

[@cipherfresh]

I also hate how that the person who complained about Morph being non-binary in that article implied that people are only non-binary for attention.

[@JediMB]

It's a very typical stance for conservatives to go "I don't understand it, so it can't be real", followed by the most uncharitable conclusions possible.

[@kylemendoza8860]

​@@JediMB You were right I don't understand it. He is now I'm binary just because he can shapeshift. Sounds like we're saying non-binary is some shit we made up. Why does he even identify as mutant? If you're interested because he is one. Well you can shapeshift. Why don't we just call it thing.

[@CosmicJubatus]

funny thing is, they're the one's chasing clout... except they do it to get a bag while disregarding anyone who might actually be affected by the hot topic of the week

[@CosmicJubatus]

@@Antonio-vn5xc gender is a set of sociocultural expectations that are bestowed upon an individual & the latter's relationship with said expectations... these expectations dictate how people treat you & if you don't agree with the expectations, you won't feel comfortable with the actions steaming from them... so NB individuals are not asking for validation (in the sense that they won't feel more NB if you agree with them), but respect

[@Antonio-vn5xc]

@@CosmicJubatus I'm pretty sure gender is just to classify whether you give birth to babies or idk the correct term but inject seeds to make babies. Nobody is like I'm going to treat you this way whether your male or female cause they only like one of them lol.

[@icedcapplord710]

Chris Claremont, the writer whose run on X-Men basically serves as direct inspiration for the vast majority of the 1992 series' episode arcs, has been very bluntly outspoken about topics like bigotry, prejudice and race relations using the X-Men as a metaphor. A lot of the politically charged element of what made those stories so popular back then were from him. Having the human villains assume roles and archetypes like a televangelist preacher, a paramilitary group formed out of moral panic against mutantkind, and a guy like Donald Pierce who is both bigoted towards mutants, joining the Hellfire Club for the sole reason of killing every member because they were mutant, and also just racist towards anyone of any other ethnicity. There's like no subtlety to how "woke" X-Men has been or was before. You can't escape that element of the books when talking about it. These writers didn't want X-Men to be defined by cool people with cool powers, those powers cause a mass hysteria regarding human evolution's nature and racial co-existence that is intrinsically important to everything about these characters. There's been no point in time where X-Men, especially in its most popular form, hasn't been "woke"

[@dirtbag1713]

My favorite thing about all this is the people saying Morph being non binary is bad because gender/sex related stuff is bad for kids. Then they turn around and complain about Rogue and the Goblin Queen not being sexy enough. Which is it, bozos?

[@rockymilne]

I know, they only care when it's trans stuff. They don't care when it's cis. It makes sense for the character to be non-binary too, it doesn't really matter if Rogue has the same "assets" then before.

[@matti.8465]

And the stupid assumption that being non-binary is related to sex in any way, shape or form.

[@wiseguy01]

Shapeshifters being nonbinary just makes perfect sense in my opinion. If you can change into literally anyone and anything, adopting full biological functions... then the whole concept of gender and sexuality becomes meaningless.

[@spencersholden]

@@matti.8465they don’t understand that. They live in their own world.

[@T.R.R.Jolkien]

@@rockymilnethe same people that can’t define what a woman is complain about more women being hired for positions of power.

[@TheWarmachine375]

I hope Deadpool appears in X-Men 97. In the original series, he appears as a silent cameo via Morph transforming into him when being under Sinister's control as an unwilling antagonist of the X-Men.

[@jasondavis2995]

He showed up again on a train during the episode when Professor evil astral clone was terrorizing the X-Men. Right before the Phoenix would destroy it.

[@hughobyrne2588]

"Because, you know, that's how time works" Love this line.

[@hughobyrne2588]

"It's not your responsibility to rehabilitate the people that are yelling at you" - and I'm still, what, only a quarter the way through the video. This is the quality video that makes KZbin good.

[@BaronVonQuiply]

And yea, as foretold, the video was resurrected. In slightly less time, too.

[@SW-zb6bf]

Comics in general have always been woke since Cap punched Hitler hahahaha

[@wielderofthetriforce1934]

I can’t remember which comic it’s from but Cap literally has a line that basically goes “I’ve known good monsters, but I’ve never met a good Nazi”

[@sffb8295]

Don't forget the time Superman gave Hitler a "Non-Aryan sock to the jaw" lmao

[@54raynor]

The underlying subtext of Morph being nonbinary is that men yelling about it are threatened by it, since it implies that Mystique could also be non-binary. And since Mystique has traditionally been portrayed as a female sex symbol, it means that a fictional character who kickstarted a lot of male puberty could have been non-binary this entire time.

[@christopherbennett5858]

Which is why lots of aspects of Mystique were either only confirmed in recent years, original intentions now implemented or are cut from the movies. She has adopted and spawned children yet the ones who are biologically related are cast aside and the one she would risk her life for is the southern girl she raised with Destiny; a character first described as her best friend but always intended to be her true love. And now, in last year’s X men Blue, the reveal is that Mystique is Nightcrawler’s father, taking on the form of Azazel to impregnate Destiny. Which then literally takes away the idea of a man being an active participant in the creation of a child. A child that is beloved by so many. Heck, the fact that Mystique is depicted first as a child younger than Charles and being his sister could be a strike back against the fact that Raven Darkholme was alive before Xavier and Magneto and, due to Destiny’s name being Irene Adler, may have been Marvel’s depiction of Sherlock Holmes. Reminds me of how people, even dedicated Marvel fans cannot grasp that Selene is over three times older than Apocalypse.

[@beckyginger3432]

Well Mystique has "fathered" children in the past so you know there is definitely some gender fuckery going on.

[@kyleellis1825]

I'm only confused how they could abandon nightcrawler, if he's Mysitique and Destiny's kid.@@christopherbennett5858

[@SageOfLimitlessHands]

Except that isn't true at all. It is one thing if Morph spent equal time present as a female as he did male, but he clearly took a male form which meant that is how he felt regardless of how others might see it. I am simply referring to the confines of the show. That being said I understand why it is completely logical as to why he is nonbinary. Then again Mystique is a different story as she was born a female.

[@wiseguy01]

Shapeshifters being nonbinary just makes perfect sense in my opinion. If you can change into literally anyone and anything, adopting full biological functions... then the whole concept of gender and sexuality becomes meaningless.

[@Serpentking789]

As a wise person once said, "SUPERHEROES WERE ALWAYS WOKE, IT CAME FREE WITH THE CONCEPT OF FIGHTING SOCIAL INJUSTICE."

[@tinfoilslacks3750]

I mean most of Alan Moore's work is about how superheroes are implicitly crypto-fascist because they're an autonomous force beholden to nobody who impose their unilateral will on the world by virtue of their capacity for violence and this fact is obfuscated in traditional superhero media because the heroes are just arbitrarily aligned with the will of the masses who have absolutely no means of controlling or influencing them. It's complicated.

[@jeremiahbennett3004]

​@@tinfoilslacks3750what is a crypto fascist

[@bluespaceman7937]

Depends on which heroes. Moore also wrote the last Superman story and it didn't portray him negatively.

[@Ciderpunk-jj5es]

If Spider-Man jumps into a burning building to save people, he's not going to choose who gets taken out first based on their position on the progressive stack. Our definitions differ wildly.

[@nolanvaughan1335]

​@@Ciderpunk-jj5es Are you suggesting that a "woke" person would save people based on who they are in a "progressive stack"? Because terrible news, literally nobody would do that What even is a "progressive stack"?

[@tbeast151]

Bigots that watched the show and only got punches and pew pews out of it are coming to the realization the Xmen would hate the person they grew into.

[@iwouldliketoorderanumber1b79]

Exactly, people who have problems with people that’s different from them.

[@tbeast151]

​@iwouldliketoorderanumber1b79 That's the core theme of Xmen from the start Anti bigotry. They even highlighted this in the show when Bishop first appeared. When the bigots got rid of the mutants the show flat out stated the bigots just moved down the ladder to the next minority group. Something we are seeing now with trans people being the hot button topic for the rights manufactured culture war

[@christopherbennett5858]

@@tbeast151Fun fact; in Gerry Duggan’s book Marauders, where ShadowKat is the captain of a ship helping save mutants who can’t get to Krakoa, Emma Frost finds a bunch of mercenaries paid to spy on and kill the team. She uses her powers to get them to not only forget the past month’s intel gatherings but puts a psychic trigger in their heads where if they have a thought about harming someone they see as lesser than them (explicitly giving the examples “gay, disabled, trans etc), the thought will literally make them feel sick. Messed up? Yeah. Kind of badass because these guys would kill people? Yes.

[@Thareldis]

​@@christopherbennett5858the irony is that most peope harboring these kinds of thoughts do feel sick in a way, even if they don't see them as the reason for it. Having so much hate and misstrust towards other people destroys your mental health eventually. The irony then is, that these people then again blame their feelings of inadequacy and general problems resulting from all that on everyone else, instead of growing as a person and seeking professional help.

[@christopherbennett5858]

@@Thareldis Exactly. And then they either make echo chambers with other people, pass on the bigotry to children and/or go to prompt people who take advantage of said bigotry. That’s one of the reasons why societal bigotry is a thing.

[@maryfrancess93]

The outrage about rogue's butt reminds me of the outrage behind the she-ra redesign a few years ago. Or when gal gadot got cast as Diana and men complained her boobs weren't big enough, or people hating on Brie Larson for apparently having a flat ass. They don't love these characters as they claim at all. They love being pandered to. If their biggest concern is always some made up beauty standard they're as shallow as a puddle and one of those "fake fans" they love to complain about. They make it so much about themselves that every change is a personal attack. Imagine the self importance.

[@Lalaland666-k3x]

If “woke” means wanting people to be happy, safe, and comfortable in their own skin then yes, the X men have always been woke

[@marveler8994]

Honestly I see a major flaw in the whole "mutants are a terrible allegory for oppression" argument too because within the Marvel universe itself, majority of heroes and villains arent mutants and a bunch of mutants themselves just look weird without any real powers. In universe, heroes like the Avengers are praised while the Xmen are downplayed or just outright hated (not by everyone though), and that kinda reminds me of real life careers or whatever where the same thing can happen. Edit: Not at all a jab towards the video, this is great and informative, it's just something I've seen come up a bunch before

[@jeremychristianestillore1446]

What counts as real powers for you, at least within the limits of the Marvel Universe?

[@acereporter73]

I recall another KZbin rage farmer who made big, angry claims about Black Panther (2018) and declared that she did not need to watch the movie because she "just knew" what it was. You cannot discuss the qualities of something with someone who flatly refuses basic engagement with the content. Can't help them. Can't engage them in anything meaningful. The megaphone is always on full blast and they are just going to scream into perpetuity.

[@awandererfromys1680]

Black stormtrooper popping up in a Star Wars trailer. Oh sweet Odin, this grift has been going on for almost a decade now ffs...

[@daelen.cclark]

Should I know their name so I can block them?

[@awandererfromys1680]

@@daelen.cclark Well, mostly the same people who now complain about X-Men... It's all so tiring smh

[@jtlego1]

This is why bad faith "critiques" of bad or contested media drives me up a wall. If you're just gonna give up at the first hurdle and simply go on a "vibes" or "muh nostalgia" bent with it (while making the most surface-level misinterpretations of the media on purpose to make it look wors), then it's not a critique. It's just pissing and moaning into the wind.

[@matti.8465]

If you don't want to watch something, for any reason, you don't have to. But shut the hell up instead of critiquing your imaginary version of it.

[@theRealDemonPizza]

if the answer isn't supder duper yes, then idk what universe I've been living in for the last 30+ years

[@FinnA07]

Honestly this Video, gives me the vibe of COnservatives realizing Star Trek was progressive and The Boys made fun of them xD

[@BlueBeetle1939]

My only issue with this run of xmen is the continued lack of Dazzler

[@matthemming9105]

The danger of introducing Dazzler is that Longshot might follow. Though a Gambit/Longshot Himbo-Off would be epic

[@mikey-wl2jt]

Yeah well...dazzler was a product of the XXXXTREME! 1990s. I'm ok without her, but I respect the dazz fans.

[@jeanief.6036]

​@@mikey-wl2jt Dazzler is a product of the 90s? She's the Disco Dazzler, baby, that is one hundred percent the 70s.

[@mikey-wl2jt]

@@jeanief.6036 absolutely fair point! but I'd argue that the 97 dazz is very much post-disco.

[@jeanief.6036]

@@mikey-wl2jt she reinvents herself every decade, just like Cher or Madonna.

[@antarchy1]

I had a conversation with a X-MEN fan with real comic knowledge, but he completely missed the subtext. He read the comics like they were a Michael Bay movie.

[@matti.8465]

This anti-woke sentiment often comes off as hatred for everything new. That's why media from their childhoods is always excluded, because the problem isn't politics, it's "modern" politics. Even if oftentimes both things have the exact same commentary.

[@Ciderpunk-jj5es]

Colour-blindness and free-speech were 'good' and not 'bad' only 10 years ago.

[@Alkeeros]

​@@Ciderpunk-jj5esfree speech is still a good thing. The color blindness one is definitely a conservative crowd. That's okay, even liberals have bad ideas a lot of the time. We can always improve for the future

[@Ciderpunk-jj5es]

@@Alkeeros I guess there is an argument to be made that you're a Conservative if you espouse the left-leaning/progressive values of 20 years ago but not those of today, but I'll never say colour-blindness was a bad idea. The new mission for white people to 'save' black people is just a different kind of racism in my eyes.

[@randomusername3873]

​@@Alkeerosoh, so not being racist is conservative? Funny how the mask slips

[@GENERIC_CHANNEL_HANDLE]

Can't wait to see how many people bemoaning Rogue's "nerf" cry-babying over the Goblin Queen being "over-sexualized cartoons targeted at kids".

[@potentialsideeffects1085]

I still remember the episode of Star Trek: the Next Generation with genderless aliens.

[@SteinarrBattlefist]

Wasn't there another Trek series where a Klingon met an old friend who had essentially changed their gender and his only response was to correct himself after calling them the wrong name.

[@potentialsideeffects1085]

@@SteinarrBattlefist Deep Space Nine. Jadzea Dax, formerly Curzon Dax; Trills as a species were one giant trans allegory.

[@boiwifeyasmr4U]

That episode haunts me. How it ended was so deeply sad

[@Casshio]

You don't even have to dig that "deep". Just point to the first interracial kiss on television.

[@mandalorianhunter1]

Pillar did you need to make another video on X-Men being woke? I'm glad you did because i want to see more X-Men. Keep pumping out more of these videos.

[@rollingon5566]

I'm gender fluid/ non binary and on representation, I fucking love it. In media, while having just our people on screen is amazing, and it absolutely is.... The shapeshifter trope in this specific context is incredibly cohesive. When making good art, you need to tie as much interesting stuff together as possible and with amazing superhero media, like Daredevil, you need to use the powers to say or do something about the characters and narrative. Matt's blindness and heightened senses parallels Matt's faith. morphs shape changing gives them something to be different to be oppressed and is a good literal representation of how it often feels to be non-binary. In addition, since X-Men is packed filled to the brim with metaphor, if Morph was detached from this it would feel like erasure of a characters identity. Morph as non-binary has to be included or the X-Men need to be changed completely. And since I was introduced to Queerness through the X-Men, I literally couldn't live without it

[@PillarofGarbage]

Great perspective, thank you for sharing!

[@dumbumbumbum8649]

The problem isn’t that a shapeshifter would be nb. It’s that the only nb characters are always shapeshifters in some way. The problem is the limitation of representation. Characters like this don’t represent the nb people whose relationship with or detachment from gender has nothing to do with their own presentation. And, again, the problem isn’t with any specific character. In a world where lots of people are only exposed to certain things in media and the human brain is inclined to make judgements on whole groups based on single examples, diversity of depiction is incredibly important. Especially for umbrella identities like nb.

[@rollingon5566]

@@dumbumbumbum8649 I agree with you, there is a weird obligation for future creators to make more and better characters than the ones that come before them. I think 97 gets away with it though since the character is so old and those connotations have been attached to the character for a long time now. It'd be amazing if we got more representation in different ways, and if I'm being honest, I think that morphs is actually significantly different and much more nuanced from the alien archetype of previous forms of art, but regardless, this idea that morph is an Enby is only saying the quiet part out loud, it would be the same if we found out explicitly that Mystique was assigned male at birth

[@rollingon5566]

@@PillarofGarbage no problem! Thanks for making such brilliant videos and helping me feel safe and included in your community

[@darkmask5933]

Morph's only gotten more interesting come Episode 3; his weird meanstreak against Gambit, his reverting to his battered form when he hears Sinister is back, but of course what got people turning their heads was Morph's smirk and eagerness to join a naked Wolverine in the shower to "scratch his back". Personally, I like it. Morph's queer identity is present but isn't the main focus, it's just there.

[@lemmingrad]

I will say, I am very on board with a Wolverine/Morph ship, hell, it’s interesting if it’s unrequited love (Wolverine only has eyes for Jean), because it makes Morph even more woobie.

[@paolovantassel1989]

@@lemmingrad When one partner is a shapeshifter and the other can heal grevious injury in a few seconds, there are so, so many ways that could get, unusual.

[@camerondodge2070]

Firstly, I'm willing to bet those who think X-Men was never woke also think Rorschach is the hero of Watchmen. Second, I finally watched it, and the show is great. As someone who didn't grow up with the older show, I think this is a great adaptation of X-Men, and it makes me want to check out the older one. Third, those people complaining about the 'changes' to Rogue's design are missing out. Magneto still looks as great as ever, that silver fox.

[@BlankEmporium]

Rorschach is the hero of Watchmen, though. He's not a good person, but at the end of the day he's the only one trying to stop mass genocide.

[@camerondodge2070]

@@BlankEmporium I personally follow the theory of Watchmen not having a hero.

[@BlankEmporium]

@@camerondodge2070 Fair enough. It is subjective to some extent - but it still can't be denied that out of all the characters Rorschach is the only one trying to stop a genocide by the end of the day.

[@Chaosqueenngami]

The thing that fascinates me about the anti-woke crowd when it comes to character development, is that they can't seem to grasp the idea of people changing. Or even any change in general. I'm not the same person I was 20 years ago. I've been through stuff, I've learned and grown. They best written characters will do the same. Maybe Morph identifies as non-binary now because they just learned that was even a thing recently. Its only recently that I have been identifying as ace as I have been learning more about it. I deeply curious what a perfect fictional world would look like these people. The only thing I can think of is that it would be a static, unchanging and dead world.

[@arnowisp6244]

No. We grasp the Concept of Character development hench why so Many Lambaste the terrible woke shows that have Nonsense character development that feels forced than Natural.

[@Chaosqueenngami]

@@arnowisp6244 Or maybe bad writing is just bad writing. Bad movies and shows have existed long before conservatives co-opted and twisted POC vernacular to create a bigotry dog whistle word for themselves to engage in lazy media criticism. You're accusing "woke" shows of bad writing? Then use your words like PoG does and show your work. Prove you understand enough about what your watching to articulate what about it is bad beyond just "me no likey".

[@randomusername3873]

Woke characters are only defined by factor that don't change, like their race, gender and sexuality Character development is completely opposed to wokeness

[@Chaosqueenngami]

@@randomusername3873 Can you give me an example of a pandering character then? Because by your definition Ripley, John James Rambo, John McClane, James Bond and Dr. Peter Venkman all fit your definition. They end the movie as the same people they started it. Or does that only apply to people who aren't cis or white? Why aren't POC and LBGT people just allowed to exist in a movie? They just exist in real life, but they can only be in media if they have character development?

[@CandleLight129]

I'm so sick of these people who need to find something to be outraged about. Calling the X-Men, of all things, "woke now" is the most asinine thing I've ever heard.

[@mattpluzhnikov519]

In an earlier comment, someone made, imo, a veeeery elegant comparison, "Complaining how they made the X Men woke is like saying they made the tale of christ religious."

[@BioGoji-zm5ph]

Just wait until you hear their thoughts on Star Trek.

[@rockpaperscissors6521]

"I'm so outraged by other people being outraged (it's different when I do it) that I need to find something on youtube that I can post the most asinine comment ever upon." Okay, bro. You do you, I guess. LOL

[@christianyaerger1751]

Dude. X-Men is woke af -- and I'm 100% here for it!

[@ramunebradfordtake2710]

I'm confused by your statment. You do know that X-men comics were based after the civil rights movement....right. I mean if thats not "woke" based informationm I dont know what is .

[@artsycandy9183]

This whole X-men 97 thing, to me, brings to light that people forget human rights are not an inherently political "woke" agenda. Human rights pertains to morality. If you don't believe in equal and equitable human rights you are not a good person. That was a fact once that, despite people still ignoring it, was not so easily and openly disputed. We have to make that a fact again.

[@RobbiePDX]

It is still a fact. The bigots are loud, but they are severely outnumbered (the number of people who voted for Trump in 2020 make up roughly 22% of the population - and you have to consider how many of those votes were cast not due to any love for Trumps hate, but due to how thoroughly they've been convinced that Biden is worse). Hate can emerge victorious only temporarily. People will work from the inside to dismantle it. People will turn on it when the machine of hate comes for them. People come to see that the promises offered by their leaders cannot be kept, because their leaders do nothing to solve the root of the problems that have turned their followers towards hate. Authoritarian action taken in the name of hate inevitably leads towards violence inflicted on themselves; after all, how does a citizen of a hateful regime respond when their mother, father, sibling, or child is killed due to action taken due to misunderstanding? Lastly - in spite of all of this - hate simply cannot win; LGBTQIA+ people will still be born, and they will meet in secret until they realize their numbers are large enough to resist. New ideas will be had that will rise to challenge the failing regime. The targeted and the oppressed will congregate and resist. When it comes down to it, people will always fight harder for their right to live as opposed to their right to hate. It is not that we cannot allow hate to win - it is that hate is unable to win.

[@grantsampson776]

I used to watch Tyrone Magnus back in the days before he went off the "Everything is woke!!1!!1" deep end. Really a bummer to watch someone develop brain rot like that.

[@l.apastore4208]

I disagree. The X-Men are woke, and its enjoyable. But some of the issues Tyrone have with current media is valid. I share similar issues with it too.

[@grantsampson776]

@@l.apastore4208 Nah. There's a difference between valid criticism of overly pandering media and screaming 'woke' at everything like it's an argument in and of itself and Magnus went over that line a while ago. It's all knee-jerk emotions and no logical reasoning with him these days.

[@mordakie3805]

his content and commentary has always been trash

[@mordakie3805]

@@l.apastore4208 there is actual concern and criticism and grifting for "anti woke" views

[@l.apastore4208]

@@grantsampson776 I see his valid criticisms and I see him screaming woke at certain stuff that I disagree to. He’s not all bad. I disagree with the brain rot comment especially.

[@themegatonmenace1224]

Short answer: Yes Long answer: 0:00 - 51:07

[@jrgrimm6091]

I just get pissed by people who don't remember or have never heard of "God Loves Man Kills" which literally begins with the lynching of two black kids who may not have even been mutants

[@reggiebrown9508]

These the same people after watching Star Trek Discovery/SNW are saying Star Trek has become woke. Like they never watched the original series with a diverse cast with women and people of color in power not scene on tv in the 1960's.

[@Original_Syn]

The backlash against Star Trek for apparently becoming woke is hilarious considering that TOS was the first show to ever feature an interracial kiss on broadcast television during the 60s which was time when that type of relationship was seen as extremely taboo.

[@BlankEmporium]

You haven't watched Discovery, have you? It's not about the woke it's about shitting all over a beloved characters legacy and saying it's "Ok because it's modern."

[@reggiebrown9508]

What beloved characters? Discovery characters are new characters created for the show.

[@jonathanstern5537]

Having not read the issue with Morph's birth. I didn't think there was one. Now I know I was right. I kept saying, "We didn't know what Morph looked like at birth. They could have been just a white blob." LOL, now I know that they were just a white blob. I feel strangely vindicated.

[@Mae_forrest]

Thank you for all the hard work that went into this video, it's really well made!

[@eaglest0554]

I just realized how funny it is that "red pill" guys take imagery from a movie made by trans women to talk about how they're totally aware of the system everyone else is trapped in while simultaneously disparaging anything they don't like, including trans women like the ones behind the metaphor the love so much, by calling them "woke".

[@sandstormxx]

Great video! I'm not trans or non binary, and I can totally understand the frustration that trans and non binary folks have with rep being aliens or shapeshifters (she-ra netflix is another example of an nb shapesfhifter). I am for more trans and non binary rep that doesn't involved shapeshifting. However, from a worldbuilding perspective, I like it. The idea that shapeshifters would see gender the same way as we do just because, is so strange. They're a shapeshifter. They might experience gender and their body differently to us. Them preferring not to be put in the human binary of only man or woman makes so much sense to me. Like, does it even make sense that a shapeshifter would just believe in the gender binary we do? If Morph shapeshifted as a woman for a week-- and felt it was normal-- it would just make sense that they consider themselves non binary. I hate male/female being the default when creating fictional characters in the example of new mutant cultures. If ppl stopped this grift and actually thought about it they could have so much fun exploring other ways of portraying ppl in media, but they won't because they can't actually think of worldbuilding, or making something new, just 'ew nonbinary ew'.

[@christopherbennett5858]

Yeah, the aliens and shapeshifters deal isn’t great when they’re othered a lot. Plus the ability to change one’s shape in an instant often doesn’t reflect many aspects of the trans experience.

[@Thundermikeee]

the fact that to refute something properly takes way more effort than to just talk out of your butt is the reason my least favorite "debate" tactic exists: Just say a bunch of weak and easiy disproven arguments as fast as you can and when someone refutes them, point out that they didn't refute EVERY SINGLE ONE, therefore you are correct. It's amazing how often that tactic is employed to astonishing success. especially when it comes to social issues and science denial.

[@RobbiePDX]

Ahh, the Gish Gallop!

[@JOVONO]

Marvel can’t win either way If they alter a character in an adaptation they get called out for changing something and being woke And if they create a new character that happens to be inclusive then people still get mad People’s biggest argument is that instead of race-swapping characters when adapted that Marvel and Dc should instead make new original characters but then when they do people complain

[@arubinojr5670]

"Marvel can't win. If they change a character, certain people scream woke. If they make a new character, the same people scream woke. I just can't see what the connecting characteristic of all this could be."

[@boiwifeyasmr4U]

Yep

[@iliketurtles2531]

Kinda going off topic but when did race-swap become a good thing? Like people complained about whitewashing and how racist it is but when it's the other way around, it's suddenly good?

[@springgreen7930]

@@iliketurtles2531 Because black people have so little representation that stripping the only chance they had was seen as an outrage, while making a white character black is seen as a chance to be seen and represented. The reason people think of it differently it's because of the difference in results it gives off. At a basic level it sounds the same but the effects are not really identical

[@AgusSkywalker]

I started watching the OG series when I found out the revival was coming out. In the second episode we find out the president is a woman. While the US had Bill (rapist) Clinton as president, the series had "Hillary" as its president. And almost 40 years after the series the US will still not have a female president.

[@greysonpaxton8180]

I noticed the exact same thing on my rewatch

[@fumeck1674]

If Men = Women, Then the gender of the president doesn't matter. I don't see you complaining about the other 70 genders not being President; how NOT inclusive of you...bigot.

[@McSomething15]

A woman was president when the original series opened. That would be a lightning rod of criticism now.

[@purpleberry3564]

I'm so frustrated with those people that don't really understand what the X-Men is all about.

[@CreepingTerror]

I don't think I can think of a single example of "It's woke now!!!" where the thing in questions wasn't "woke"

[@lewsmith9708]

Of course Pat Robertson refers to mutants as "sub-human." Basically proving the point of that entire comic.

[@daelen.cclark]

All those “anti-woke” grifters & moral panics make me realize who the real comic fans really are!

[@dwainsimmons3447]

Me too.

[@kenlee4356]

Unrelated fun fact: cyclops is voiced by ray chase. Who also did the English dub for sukuna

[@GatekeeperGuardian-wv3cd]

He also did the voice for Donquixote Rosinante. I'm more just surprised he does voices for something other than anime except not really THAT surprised.

[@Kollieprime9]

He’s also tengen in demon slayer and noctis from FF15

[@mikhaelgribkov4117]

Which is funny because Cyclops can do cut move with X visor.

[@LDIndustries]

Gotta love the “message over escapism” critique because it straight up is an admission that you think escapism means getting to escape minorities.

[@Ciderpunk-jj5es]

Brilliant.

[@randomusername3873]

It's means escaping identity politics If you think that's the same it's on you

[@bisexualmajima]

@@randomusername3873 What, so, a world where all minorities are treated equal and allowed to express themselves the same as anyone else? Like most "woke" media is aiming for?

[@noahs414]

The "woke" definition ad pivot got me. Well done

[@Anubis_42]

It didn't matter to me that all the allegories used in X-Men weren't perfect fits for real world situations. What the comics did for me and even the original animated series did was teach me to see what discrimination was in the world. X-Men is woke because it made me aware even if it wasn't perfect at it.

[@goldcypher9938]

Thank you so so much. I appreciate the time and effort of bringing both sides and their reasons for saying what they say in particular

[@FelisImpurrator]

Damn. I half expected two seconds of "no shit, yes" and an immediate cut to 51 minutes of credits, not this gigantic sledgehammer of textual evidence I'm going to have to watch later because all the videos I have saved are eating my phone space.

[@parakathepyro]

Marvel was always political, Captain America was beating up Hitler on the front page of a comic before the US was even in WW2

[@juliankirby9880]

My Dad, specifically loved the X men back when I was a kid, loved that I watched the cartoon. He is the one who told me it was about civil rights and fighting for justice. Just goes to show how Fatherless the behavior of right wingers is.

[@akraenaakvakaly]

wait if i eat soup, and some people's brains are soup..... does that make me a zombie?

[@juliankirby9880]

Marvel Comics and Star Trek are why I am what Jordan Peterson would call a Woke Moralist, and have been since I was a wee lad. These people are so silly.

[@baycharles8328]

Woke is a sensible stance that shouldn’t be controversial. But its meaning has been bastardized. And the word itself gentrified.

[@MildMisanthropeMaybeMassive]

In a few years they’ll be whining THEY’RE MAKING STEVEN UNIVERSE WOKE!

[@einootspork]

I know you're just joking but this implies that in a few years there will be a Steven Universe revival/spinoff, which would be cool but I don't see happening.

[@truthseeker215]

The X men were created during the civil rights movement where black Americans were fighting for rights and X men mirror that dynamic.

[@azazel166]

Seeing Pat Robertson's mug reminded me how relieved I am that he kicked the bucket.

[@HonestOpinions4u]

How tolerant of you

[@azazel166]

@@HonestOpinions4u Who said I was tolerant?

[@DavidRYates-tk2tq]

​@@azazel166 nah, that reaction is perfectly tolerant. Tolerance is a social contract, people like Pat Robertson break that contract by being shitty bigots so, if your distaste for him is motivated by support for the targets of his bigotry, the people most in need of our "tolerance", then it is indeed "tolerant" to not like intolerant people.

[@daveherz998]

X-Men were always woke? Try Comics have always been woke! Marvel's oldest character, who actually predates Marvel comics, on the cover of his first issue, is punching a Nazi while wearing an American flag. If that exact same cover were reprinted today, there is a subsection of people who would lose their minds. How about Stan writing Peter Parker so Jewish that he didn't think he needed to explicitly say it? How about that the modern medium of comics was kind of created and popularized by 4 Jewish guys? Jack Kirby being told his Black Panther stories didn't have enough white people in them, so he had T'Challa fight the KKK in the next issue, which doubles as canonizing the KKK as Marvel villains There are so many examples, and, sure, a ton of them are X-Men, but the entire modern medium was woke from day 1 of the golden age, and nothing can ever change that

[@senittoaoflightning4404]

That isn't really "woke" (cause that just means "As a conservative, I don't like it"), it's more accurate to say left leaning up to leftist.

[@androsh9039]

Politics? In my superhero show? NEVER!

[@dawoifee]

Even if X-Men was not always woke it is okay to change over time, you know, like mutate.

[@guide3116]

This is a fantastic video keep up the great work.

[@ALaModePi]

As an aside, I do appreciate covering "who these voices are and why they might be doing this." Vested interests and other agendas are important to be aware of, especially in something as charged as this situation can be. I've been following the X-Men since the 60s, so I know the complaints are a pile of rubbish, but it's good to see a detailed rebuttal. I also appreciated showing how the arguments against this have been built up, specifically the idea that unfamiliar terms can be hijacked and "loaded up with moral panic." (Great phrasing by the way.) One thing I've discovered in other conversations with folks who hold very specific views is that for every one of those people who's up to their eyeballs in that view, there are hundreds who are just looking at what they write. I often respond to those posts simply to communicate with those others who don't already have their minds made up, who are still considering. A little calmly put information goes a long way in those cases even when you do think the originating comment comes from someone who's mind is soup. The other thing that runs as a subtext in X-Men is an interesting dichotomy of representation: As you said, mutants represent every other and also none of them (one that doesn't exist on our earth.) The juxtaposition is vital. In that salient run of "God Loves, Man Kills" it was clear in the writing that the "evangelist" wasn't supposed to be a stand-in for all evangelists and definitely not all Christians, something that Pat Robertson and others either missed entirely or chose to ignore. X-Men has portrayed both humans and mutants as complex characters whose motivations and choices are widely varied. Sure, some of the FoH are portrayed with all the depth of character that Nazis and Imperial Japanese were portrayed with in war-time Captain America comics, but the over-all impression is that you shouldn't characterize a person by demographics, but by actions. It's a statement against prejudice contained within decent characterization.

[@maxtube444]

as a genderfluid folk myself, I’m just really glad that us non-cis-people are getting more representation in media

[@Ace20999]

I was so happy that Morph was non binary they were my second favorite character in the original and I always read them as queer and identified with them because of the identity crisis they go through in the series not the being evil part of course but the fact they felt like they couldn't be vulnerable around their friends. Once I read the Exiles 2000's run it made a lot more sense because the writers made it less ambiguous about morph's identity and how they struggled with who they were as a person. To be fair the Exiles run while really cool and fun it can be quite misogynistic and homophobic at times but when the story starts getting more serious it really fleshes out Morph quite well.

[@corsayr9629]

To answer your question RE: the value of these videos. I think your own hypothetical "skeptical fan" would be helped by this video. He was poisoned months ago to think it wouldn't be good so he didn't watch it. But he watched those review videos of it on YT so your video could get on his radar even after a month had passed because the bots sense he might be interested in this stuf. You give the "Skeptical fan" some perspective and maybe he goes and watches it himself. You're doing good work! By the way, regarding the quote, my reaction was that the text of the quote was so irrefutably true that the attestation was no longer relevant, so I didn't really even register it until you corrected yourself. But I might have remembered you saying it later if that quote came up without too much time passing. 🙂

[@something-from-elsewhere]

The hecking "insomnia woke threat" joke in the ad was way funnier to me than it ever had any right to be >w

[@nielsfrederiksen6636]

ill be honest. I am the sceptical X-men fan you described. While it might seem pedantic, I really appreciate how you went over the finer details, definitions and nuances, even when they complicate or muddle the point being made. There is an honesty to it that the "'other side" never really bothers with. So thank you for this video. If nothing else, you certainly moved 1 person.

[@PillarofGarbage]

Very glad to hear that!

[@christophertablante7680]

The evangelicals missing the forrest for the trees was just, chef's kisses... "Writers use the chance to poke fun at evangelicals who are bending religious teachings the wrong way." Evangelicas: Nu-uh, its pornographic blasphemy!

[@Ravi9A]

This is why you can never attack today's political movements with history. There is no claim superior to the claim that today specifically is the problem.

[@GdnationNY]

Thanks!

[@PillarofGarbage]

Thank you too!!