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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Kahuna Burger" data-source="post: 916415" data-attributes="member: 8439">Totally leaving aside the article which started this thread, I'd say that there are more paralels that can be drawn between mutant identity and homosexuality than any other "outsider" status. The big difference is the seperation from your own family and the need to form extended families based on your shared outsider status.Now I won't claim that that similarity was intended by any of the orriginal or even secondary writers, but because you have mutant children of "normal" parents discovering they are mutants in their adolesence the themes of isolation, not having anyone to explain what is happening, hiding your identity even from your family, etc are going to be strong themes. And those are not generic "minority" or "outsider" themes, but themes that bear the most resemblence to glbt expereince. The funny thing is, Stan Lee could write an official statement that mutants or the xmen have nothing to do with homosexuality, and it wouldn't change the paralels. The social dynamics of mutation make it a stronger analogy for homosexuality without any intent. I'd also say that the intent was probably more towards a nazi/jew plight analogy, what with the Mutant Registration Act and Tales of Futures Past concentration camps. But Jews and most other minorities are not (generally speaking) thrown out of their own homes by their majority parents and hope for an older wiser minority figure to come along and tell them they have a future... or fall in with a more predatory figure just to belong somewhere. Its kinda funny to think that these stories could easily have been written with no idea that there was a group out there they so well described. Enough to make me rethink that "Death of the author" stuff my college writing prof babbled about....</blockquote>

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