Can I say all of the above, depending on the specific X-person and period of time?
I'd say that, originally, the X-Men as metaphor for Jewish people would be the dominant one, because so many of the Golden and early Silver Age comics creators were Jewish, as Men of Tomorrow says, with Xavier / Magneto dividing upon assimilationist / separatist lines (i.e. Magneto as quasi-Zionist figure?)
But with someone like Nightcrawler you have a character whose physical difference is more evident, so the metaphor there is maybe more Black people.
The gay people one I think would be a more recent aspect, simply because of the X-Men originating pre-Stonewall.
Of course you also have Xavier/Magneto as Martin Luther King/Malcolm X (not that either direction there is flattring, as MLK was a pacifist and Malcolm X wasn't genocidal).
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andrewducker) wrote2007-07-06 07:20 pm
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I'd say that, originally, the X-Men as metaphor for Jewish people would be the dominant one, because so many of the Golden and early Silver Age comics creators were Jewish, as Men of Tomorrow says, with Xavier / Magneto dividing upon assimilationist / separatist lines (i.e. Magneto as quasi-Zionist figure?)
But with someone like Nightcrawler you have a character whose physical difference is more evident, so the metaphor there is maybe more Black people.
The gay people one I think would be a more recent aspect, simply because of the X-Men originating pre-Stonewall.
These are all speculation...
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