Why The Internet Is Disturbed By This ‘X-Men’ Poster *Trigger Warning*

[Act_of_Reparation]

182. Is Mystique female?

Bear with me here; major nerdiness ahead:

Mystique's mutant power is the ability to reorganize her body on the cellular level to take on the physical appearance of anyone she so wishes. Mystique is usually assigned female personal pronouns because she was biologically female at birth, but her ability to shapeshift makes her sex somewhat ambiguous. Her lack of nipples and generative organs goes beyond the need to censor nudity and, in my interpretation, gives the character an air of sexual ambiguity that is reinforced her mutant supremacist sentiments. Constrained gender and constrained sexuality is for lowly H. sapiens, while H. superior can be whatever it wants at any given moment.

For those unfamiliar with the X-Men, this poster may appear tasteless. No argument there. But the character of Mystique is well established with those familiar with the preceding X-Men films. What they see is a very powerful mutant at the mercy of an unknown assailant. To see a character that has faced Wolverine, Sentinels, and Stryker's special ops units and come out no worse for the wear every single time, in a position of helplessness. No one familiar with any of the preceding X-Men films should see Mystique -- a hardened killer of men -- as a helpless victim of male aggression.

At the end of the day, context is important, and Fox seems to have forgotten that when placing this ad. They should not have assumed that every passerby would be familiar with the depicted characters, and probably should have given more thought to how it would appear to those unfamiliar with this IP.