So I was reading graphic novels at Barnes & Noble today, and I found myself confronted with a bit of a moral dilemma over a contemporary social issue. Ok, so a little background first I guess. I had a talk with Rex some time ago about X-Men adoration, and I came to the conclusion that a person’s choice of favorite Marvel character often reflects the character attributes that he/she finds most important. For example, I value strength/invulnerability these days, and as such, my favorite X-Man these past few years has been Colossus. Whereas in my youth, as a scrawnier kid, I had Nightcrawler as my favorite cuz I valued speed and agility. In short, this character adoration reflects like everything that you aspire to be.
Anyways, so in the Ultimate X-Men series, it turns out they decided to make the character of Colossus gay. And the issue at hand is that, when I realized this, I inadvertently found Colossus falling from his place as the paragon of everything awesome in my eyes. Cuz of this minor little personal detail, I found myself looking up to the man of steel a slight bit less than I did before. And this troubles me because, ideally, why should his sexual preferences matter at all? (I mean, he’s STILL a ripped behemoth of nigh invulnerable organic steel that defends justice.) Why should a person being gay affect their suitability as a role model/idol? And what are the ramifications of this towards real-life celebrities coming out of the closet?
In my upper mind, sexual orientation doesn’t matter, but deeper in my heart, somehow for some reason it does. Logic tells me that there’s nothing wrong with homosexuality, but perhaps a baser gut instinct has something else it wants to say about the subject. It’s like the trained superego says “everything’s cool,” but the natural id is like “ehhhhhhhh.” I could lie and tell you that there IS no internal conflict over the subject at all, but I won’t, and there IS. For all my high flung talk of acceptance and tolerance of people’s differences, when it comes down to it, somehow it still DOES seem to matter somewhat. *le sigh* It’s easier to talk the talk than to walk the walk. =/
And I have nothing against gays. I mean, I have gay friends, and they’re absolutely great people, but I’m fairly certain I wouldn’t want to BE gay- does that make me intolerant or bigoted? Well hell, I wouldn’t really wanna be BLACK either- does that make me a racist? ...WAIT, don’t answer that! ahaha =P But I dunno, maybe it just means I’m happy about some aspects of myself just the way I am. And if that was my final conclusion from an afternoon of reading comic books, I’d say that’s not half bad... but I still gotta work on this (total) acceptance of others thing.
Anyways, so in the Ultimate X-Men series, it turns out they decided to make the character of Colossus gay. And the issue at hand is that, when I realized this, I inadvertently found Colossus falling from his place as the paragon of everything awesome in my eyes. Cuz of this minor little personal detail, I found myself looking up to the man of steel a slight bit less than I did before. And this troubles me because, ideally, why should his sexual preferences matter at all? (I mean, he’s STILL a ripped behemoth of nigh invulnerable organic steel that defends justice.) Why should a person being gay affect their suitability as a role model/idol? And what are the ramifications of this towards real-life celebrities coming out of the closet?
In my upper mind, sexual orientation doesn’t matter, but deeper in my heart, somehow for some reason it does. Logic tells me that there’s nothing wrong with homosexuality, but perhaps a baser gut instinct has something else it wants to say about the subject. It’s like the trained superego says “everything’s cool,” but the natural id is like “ehhhhhhhh.” I could lie and tell you that there IS no internal conflict over the subject at all, but I won’t, and there IS. For all my high flung talk of acceptance and tolerance of people’s differences, when it comes down to it, somehow it still DOES seem to matter somewhat. *le sigh* It’s easier to talk the talk than to walk the walk. =/
And I have nothing against gays. I mean, I have gay friends, and they’re absolutely great people, but I’m fairly certain I wouldn’t want to BE gay- does that make me intolerant or bigoted? Well hell, I wouldn’t really wanna be BLACK either- does that make me a racist? ...WAIT, don’t answer that! ahaha =P But I dunno, maybe it just means I’m happy about some aspects of myself just the way I am. And if that was my final conclusion from an afternoon of reading comic books, I’d say that’s not half bad... but I still gotta work on this (total) acceptance of others thing.
posted by Dear Daniel at 6:53 PM
1 Comments:
I think it comes down to a fine point of: are the character attributes that one finds important attributes that you admire and look for in other people, or yourself?
Because if it's the latter, then it makes sense that if Colossus is gay, then you no longer aspire to be Colossus, because (it appears from your post) that you've thought about your sexuality and if you were homosexual. I think most honest straight people with open minds have looked at themselves and wondered about their orientation. And once Colossus is no longer EVERYTHING that you desire to be, you start casting about for another role model, or patron saint, or avatar.
I think, also, admitting that there's some internal issue is a start. We're almost all of us conditioned with some level of bigotry (aside: ever listened to "Everyone's a Little Bit Racist" from Avenue Q?) and that awareness is what you build on.
Geekier talk: Ultimate is just one of the branches of the X-Men universe. Why make it the definitive one?
And my favorite X-Men of the moment is split. I like reading Sage, but I prefer to ogle Emma Frost....
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