ms-akaya:
gyzym:
So, there is a post on my dash containing some Mystique hate; it is not the first post I’ve seen like it, and I’m sure it won’t be the last. I’m not reblogging it and adding this as a commentary because (to my own continual surprise) I’ve gained some recognition in the XMFC fandom, and…
I feel like I need to say some things about this topic as well. I agree with IntoWhiteness, not only because she makes a few valid points, but because for some reason people in X-Men fandom either have no idea abot Charles, or are simply ignoring the matter. So, to make a few things straight.
1. Charles is one of the most powerful mutants ever. He can literally fuck with your brain, but more often than not he chooses not to. Not because he’s a goody-two-shoes, but because he is aware of his power and it’s his way of having at least that much control over it. It’s because his power sometimes terrifies even him. You think it’s easy to maintain control over something like this? Really?
2. He is not a spoiled rich boy, who is naive and doesn’t know about life. Charles childhood wasn’t happy. He was abused by his stepfather, his mother didn’t care about him and his relationship with his step-brother is far from being great.
I dare to say he never had an actual childhood, imagine that you hear thoughts of others from the very young age, it doesn’t matter if they’re nice or not, they’re not your thoughts. Imagine that you cannot stop them, that they are violating your mind on daily basis.
Oh, yes. Naive little Charles MY ASS. :| Please learn the facts, before you start portraying him as a ball-less damsel in distress that doesn’t know how to make his own goddamn tea, alright.
3. People with a background like Charles have different methods of coping, the fact that he is so desperately believing that people and mutants can co-exist is because, it’s the only thing that holds him together. A ray of hope that there is a better future and one of the reasons he bonded so well with Erik, was because they both had less than pleasant experiences with people and because above other things.
4. It’s also one of the reasons why I don’t like XMFC’s Raven, it’s because she is so concerned with her appearance that she is blind when it comes to the most important person in her life, that being Charles.
Charles, who is the only person trying to explain her how the world works, the only one who tries to protect her in all this shit. It’s like she doesn’t hear his words at all.
Mutant and proud? Tell me you’re joking. In the older X-Men films and comics, yes. I can agree with that, in the XMFC? Not so much, notice how she needs a man to tell her it’s alright for her to be herself. I’m sorry, but that is not strength that is desperation to be accepted, nothing more.
/ end rant
Okay, so! Before I respond, I have to get some general statements about me and how I internet out of the way. It is really important to me to be kind and respectful in my interactions with folks, and I make a really serious effort not to, er, draw critical attention to people, just concepts. As such, generally speaking I would just let this lie—you are, of course, entirely entitled to your opinion, and if this hadn’t been a reblog of my post I definitely would have left it alone. However, given that this is now attached to the essay, I’m going to go ahead and respond to the things that don’t necessarily sit right with me. This is not, I repeat, not meant to be an attack on you in any way, it’s just me going through and offering up my views in response to what you said—I have nothing but respect for you and your thoughts, for all that we disagree. [On that note, to my followers who are reading this, you guys are always awesome and I know I don’t need to say this, but for the record: the last thing I want to do, ever, is rain down negativity on someone’s head, so let’s be awesome and respectful and cool, yeah? If I find out OP is, you know, getting angry messages or hate of any variety, I’m going to be bummed out in a really large way. Okay? Okay.]
So, let’s go through in order!
1) When did I say it was easy for Charles to maintain control over his powers? I don’t think it is—I imagine it must be incredibly difficult, even moreso when he was a child, meeting Raven for the first time. It must have been nearly impossible for him control his powers at that age, hence why I said “unthinkingly scanned her innermost thoughts,”; I can’t imagine it was the kind of thing he did consciously, because the fact that he can control it at all is nothing short of miraculous, and I legitimately don’t think it was in any way malicious.
That being said, this is an essay about Raven, which, as such, discusses things as Raven would have experienced them. Had I been writing an essay about Charles Xavier, I might have gone into how difficult it must have been to be barraged constantly with other people’s thoughts, and the effects hearing what people were thinking about him might have had on his self esteem, and the thick, churning guilt he must have felt every time he picked up on something he wasn’t supposed to. But this is an essay about Raven, so instead I talked about it from that angle—how invasive it must have felt for her. Because it’s an essay about her.
2) Where did I say Charles was a naive spoiled boy who doesn’t know about life? I would never say that, because I don’t think it’s true. I called him privileged, which wasn’t intended to mean naive or spoiled—it was intended to mean “availed of certain advantages that color the way he sees the world.“ Even ignoring the mutation aspect of things, Charles is a white, monied, attractive, Oxford-educated male in the 1960s—thus, he sees and interacts with the world as a white, monied, attractive, Oxford-educated male in the 1960s. He is not forced to confront the sexism, racism, or classism of the time in the way someone else might be because of this fact. Of course this doesn’t lessen the weight or effect of his abusive childhood, which is tragic on all counts, and no less tragic for this. But, in the same token, his abusive childhood doesn’t lessen the weight of his privilege. The idea that someone’s privilege is cancelled out by oppression or hardship they have experienced is a fallacy; it’s like saying “I was in a terrible car accident when I was a child, so my house can’t be on fire!” While the car accident doesn’t make a fire less valid, or vice versa—and while the experience of the car accident may have some effect on how the speaker deals with the fire—the fire doesn’t cease to exist simply because the speaker has already suffered the car accident.
On top of that, we have the fact that Charles is telepathic, and has recourses available to him that a non-telepathic person wouldn’t. Again, this does not lessen the things that he’s been through! But, again, it does color the way he sees and interacts with the world. That does not in any way make him “ball-less” or “a damsel in distress,” and I’m perplexed as to where I suggested it did. And, again, I didn’t feel it necessary to cover any of this in the initial essay, because it was a Raven character study, and so what was relevant to the discussion were those things Raven had seen, felt, and interacted with.
3) Of course people with traumatic backgrounds have different ways of coping with reality; I know that very well, on a very personal level. In fact, people with all backgrounds have different ways of coping with reality—that’s, you know, a basic human condition. That said, Charles’ hope for peaceful co-existence between humans and mutants was not something I ever expressed an issue with, because I don’t have an issue with it. I did refer to “Charles Xavier’s bullshit,” in regards to Moira McTaggert, which was in reference to the scene where Charles tries to feed her a line he uses regularly about her auburn hair mutation gene and she shuts him down. I did mention that Raven calls Charles out on his shit, which she does, in fact, do—even if we just look at that scene in his apartment, where he tries to placate her by saying “You’re my oldest friend,” and she points out “I’m you’re only friend,” we see that she’s willing to stand up and make her argument. She’s not always tactful about it, but she’s willing to do it. I don’t have any issue with Charles’ hope for the future—I don’t even necessarily have an issue with the way he goes about acting on it, because while it’s flawed, he’s a person like any other person, and people are flawed. My issue is with the idea that it’s a black-and-white, clear-cut thing, that Charles is right and that’s that, when in fact it’s all much more complicated and messy than that. And, again, this was an essay about Raven, discussing Raven’s point of view, so this didn’t seem particularly necessary to go into.
4) The most important person in Raven’s life is not Charles. The most important person in Raven’s life is Raven. Her relationship with Charles is certainly the most significant one we see portrayed, but that does not mean she should make decisions as to her own personal existence based on him.
Charles does try to explain to her how the world works, but, as mentioned above, even if you discard the mutation factor, the way the world works for a wealthy, male Oxford professor in the 1960s is different than the way it works for a financially dependent female waitress in the same era. That’s just basic historical fact. And, more importantly, why does Raven need someone to tell her how the world works? Why isn’t that a decision she can make for herself, based on her own experiences? Why are Charles’ interactions with the world more valid than her own? You could, I suppose, argue that she’s the younger of them, but it’s not a significant enough age difference to have a bearing on Raven’s ability to make her own decisions, and it might not even be true—we know, both from the comics and from hints in the film, that Raven’s mutation causes her to age differently, more slowly, than other people, so it’s hard to know how significant that gap is, and in what direction it flows.
You mention above that, as someone who has suffered trauma, Charles’ hope may be the only thing that holds him together, with the implication that this excuses his less-than-sensitive behaviors in furthering his goals. Why is this courtesy not extended to Raven, who was homeless and alone when Charles found her, a child stealing food in order to survive? Does that not constitute a traumatic childhood experience? Can we not look at her desire for affection and acceptance regardless of her appearance and recognize that it is, in least in part, a consequence of having been abandoned and left to fend for herself as a child because of what she looked like and who she was?
You ask that I notice that Raven “needs a man to tell her it’s alright to be herself.” I did notice it—in fact, it’s one of the main points in my essay, the fact that I wish we’d been given a story that didn’t include that old, tired narrative, that I wish we’d been served a storyline in which Raven’s self-acceptance wasn’t hinged on male characters, that I hoped fandom could look past that to see the person underneath. You say that this is desperation to be accepted, and I ask what the point of the X-Men franchise is, if not acceptance and the struggle to attain it? Why is acceptance something Raven isn’t allowed to want?
You say that because of this desire for acceptance, Raven isn’t strong. But that’s not what I mean when I say strong female character—I don’t mean ‘female character who never needs anything from anybody,’ or ‘female character who never seeks emotional validation’ or ‘female character who is never vulnerable.’ How unfair, the idea that women must be cold, unfeeling, entirely self-actualized to be strong; how harmful to women, how dangerous. When I say strong female character, I mean a woman portrayed with her own voice, personality, ideas, hopes, and dreams. I mean a woman with negative and positive traits, with flaws and merits, with failures and victories. I mean a woman who is portrayed as a person, and whatever your feelings about Raven, she is most certainly that.
