brilcrist: X-men First Class WWII AU. We got:-Charles as a British Airborne Medic-Erik as a German SS Officer and there’s hint of Logan, yes~? whether he’s in a friend or foe’s position. This piece was suppose to be 2nd prompts for X-Men Reverse Bangbut at the end i decide not too, since i’ll be very busy on April-July and the theme is kinda depressing….TAT and well, i did a little research for the uniform, but if there’s mistake then please forgive me coz military uniform is kinda new to me:3 now if u excuse me, i need to start doing commissions n pending charity artworks~ Riiiiight okay so first and foremost: followers, PLEASE BE COOL. I’m dealing with this via reblog because I’m honestly not sure how else to deal with it, but I really, really, really don’t think the artist realized what they were doing, and I just. God, the degree to which I do not want hate to be the result of this is really pretty staggering so if we could just…not do that…that would be really great.  Okay. That said. Um. So, the thing is, Erik Lensherr/Magneto is, as a character, a Holocaust survivor? And that’s just not a side fact about him—his experiences in the camps shape his powers, his beliefs about mutant rights, the way he sees and perceives the world. His experiences in the camps are his motivation for….for almost all of his behavior, honestly. In XMFC, which this art is based off of, we see him in the camps, we see his mother shot to death in front of him, and then we see him hunt down and kill the Nazi officer who killed his mother, as well as other Nazi officers. We see him tell Charles that he knows that the government will come for mutants, will want to index them and pen them up; the entire beach scene is wrapped up in a Holocaust narrative (“They’re just following orders” and the reaction it produces). In the other X-Men movies, in the comics—this experience is a central part of Magneto’s character. I’d go so far as to say the central defining part of Magneto’s character.   And the thing about that is, it has weight! And it has weight because this really happened to people. I was taught Holocaust history by a Holocaust survivor, who rolled up his sleeve in that classroom in my temple on our first afternoon together and showed us his numbers; members of my family, of the families of so many other Jews I know, were in those camps. They were rounded up by SS officers and held; they were starved, tortured, and sent to the gas chambers; they were burned alive. The atrocities committed against Jews—and gays, and blacks, and so, so many people over the course of the Third Reich’s reign—cannot be overstated. This was a massive, horrific genocide, and believe me when I tell you, it has left a large footprint on those cultures it affected, particularly on my own. To depict a character whose defining trait is being a Holocaust survivor—whose motivations are pretty much all rooted in his experiences as a Holocaust survivor—as an officer of the SS in a World War II AU? Is…wrong. It’s appropriative, and it’s wrong. It’s diminishing the very real experiences of the very real people whose very real lives were tainted, ruined, or ended by the Holocaust. And I am sure that that was not the artist’s intention! But the point remains that it is wrong. Putting a character whose defining trait is his survivor status in the uniform of the very soldiers that tortured him and killed his mother in front of him and sent him to the camps and and and…that’s really. Really. REALLY not okay.  This is a breathtaking piece of artwork; it is clear that the artist is very talented, and I really do hate to have to make this post. But the point remains that what this—again, stunningly done—piece of artwork is doing is actively twisting a Holocaust narrative into something that is so disrespectful to the history here that it actually makes me feel a little sick to look at. Again, I do not believe that was the artist’s intention at all, and the last thing I want from this is hate for them. But something needed to be said, because that history does need—does very much deserve—to be respected.

brilcrist:

X-men First Class WWII AU.

We got:
-Charles as a British Airborne Medic
-Erik as a German SS Officer and there’s hint of Logan, yes~? whether he’s in a friend or foe’s position.

This piece was suppose to be 2nd prompts for X-Men Reverse Bang
but at the end i decide not too, since i’ll be very busy on April-July and the theme is kinda depressing….TAT

and well, i did a little research for the uniform, but if there’s mistake then please forgive me coz military uniform is kinda new to me:3

now if u excuse me, i need to start doing commissions n pending charity artworks~

Riiiiight okay so first and foremost: followers, PLEASE BE COOL. I’m dealing with this via reblog because I’m honestly not sure how else to deal with it, but I really, really, really don’t think the artist realized what they were doing, and I just. God, the degree to which I do not want hate to be the result of this is really pretty staggering so if we could just…not do that…that would be really great. 

Okay. That said. Um. So, the thing is, Erik Lensherr/Magneto is, as a character, a Holocaust survivor? And that’s just not a side fact about him—his experiences in the camps shape his powers, his beliefs about mutant rights, the way he sees and perceives the world. His experiences in the camps are his motivation for….for almost all of his behavior, honestly. In XMFC, which this art is based off of, we see him in the camps, we see his mother shot to death in front of him, and then we see him hunt down and kill the Nazi officer who killed his mother, as well as other Nazi officers. We see him tell Charles that he knows that the government will come for mutants, will want to index them and pen them up; the entire beach scene is wrapped up in a Holocaust narrative (“They’re just following orders” and the reaction it produces). In the other X-Men movies, in the comics—this experience is a central part of Magneto’s character. I’d go so far as to say the central defining part of Magneto’s character.  

And the thing about that is, it has weight! And it has weight because this really happened to people. I was taught Holocaust history by a Holocaust survivor, who rolled up his sleeve in that classroom in my temple on our first afternoon together and showed us his numbers; members of my family, of the families of so many other Jews I know, were in those camps. They were rounded up by SS officers and held; they were starved, tortured, and sent to the gas chambers; they were burned alive. The atrocities committed against Jews—and gays, and blacks, and so, so many people over the course of the Third Reich’s reign—cannot be overstated. This was a massive, horrific genocide, and believe me when I tell you, it has left a large footprint on those cultures it affected, particularly on my own.

To depict a character whose defining trait is being a Holocaust survivor—whose motivations are pretty much all rooted in his experiences as a Holocaust survivor—as an officer of the SS in a World War II AU? Is…wrong. It’s appropriative, and it’s wrong. It’s diminishing the very real experiences of the very real people whose very real lives were tainted, ruined, or ended by the Holocaust. And I am sure that that was not the artist’s intention! But the point remains that it is wrong. Putting a character whose defining trait is his survivor status in the uniform of the very soldiers that tortured him and killed his mother in front of him and sent him to the camps and and and…that’s really. Really. REALLY not okay. 

This is a breathtaking piece of artwork; it is clear that the artist is very talented, and I really do hate to have to make this post. But the point remains that what this—again, stunningly done—piece of artwork is doing is actively twisting a Holocaust narrative into something that is so disrespectful to the history here that it actually makes me feel a little sick to look at. Again, I do not believe that was the artist’s intention at all, and the last thing I want from this is hate for them. But something needed to be said, because that history does need—does very much deserve—to be respected.

Tags: tw: holocaust tw: discussion of torture tw: discussion of gas chambers tw: discussion of concentration camps