Samarth Srinivasa
Samarth Srinivasa
Professor Watschke
Humanities 1
14 November 2018
Humanities Essay #2
“X-men: Days of Future Past”, particularly the dispute between the X-men, The
Brotherhood of Evil Mutants, and various U.S. Politicians, confronts the issue of
segregation, discrimination, racial tension, and civil rights that has caused divisions
throughout the country since its conception while using colorful frames and graphics
techniques to further emphasize this concept. “ Days of Future Past” persuades the
audience to ponder about the complexities of a cultural phenomenon that continue to
create tension and debate across the world, by applying the same concept to the X-men.
In the Comic, the X-men are seen as a “different race”, and are thus persecuted by the
humans. In Retaliation to this persecution, a group of Mutants dub themselves “The
Brotherhood of Evil Mutants”, who see mutants as an evolved form of humans, and are
thus entitled to rule over mankind. As the forces of good and evil clash throughout the
Samarth Srinivasa
comic, the graphic frames and the themes highlight themselves similarily weave
themselves through the story.
In “X-men: Days of Future Past”, mutants are persecuted by politicians and other
powerful individuals due to their “Misfit Identity”. In the first few pages of the comic
book, Cyclops mentions an anthropologist by the name of Bolivar Trask who spoke of
the mutants as a menace and turned the X-men into “Public Enemies overnight”. This
Anti-Mutant Ideology that Trask employs is similar to oppressive forces like the Ku Klux
Klan, who deny some groups civil rights, merely for being different and a minority in
society. This “Racial Discrimination” is further shown through the graphics in the comic
book, where many of the X-men are seen in colorful costumes in public, which helps
identify the X-men from the “Normal Humans”, when in reality many mutants normally
dress like “Normal Humans” in private and are not as different as regular people. This
display of the blurred lines in reality between the “Different” X-men and the normal
mutants showcase how many people view groups as different when in reality they are
much more similar and “Normal” than they realize.
Samarth Srinivasa
The “Misfit Identity” accompanied with Mutants become further emphasized with
the similarities between the discrimination that the LGBT community faces and the scorn
that mutants face. The Mutants can be seen as an allusion to the LGBT community, as
many of the mutants develop their powers during adolescence and many mutants “Hiding
in a closet” due to the scorn they would receive from politicians and the media for being
“Born Different”. This is especially prevalent in characters that are both LGBT and
Mutant, such as Mystique, who has to d...
