A lot of people have made me notice that Mystique is becoming the most prominent character from the movies, and I always accepted this because Mystique is one of my favorite X-men villain/anti-hero.Please don't hate me but I dig her being the superhero, for many reasons.
The worst argument someone could give me, that annoys the crap out of me, is the "It's not in the comics", that argument is not actually valid unless you are angry and I get that some people hate the X-men movies (I'm not blind there is an MCU minority that is very loud telling us "Give the rights back to Marvel")and I respect their point of views...just don't bug the rest of us with it.
But my opinion of Mystique goes far beyond this is a bad or good, it is why?
And to do this you have to understand some basics about mutants: Mutants are an allegory for any type of oppressed minority and therefore there are characters that represent some of these minorities in a proper way. For example, there is the legacy virus is an allegory to HIV which is not representative and the resolution to it was very cheeep...but we will not get into it.
The importance comes in how the movies present this conflict
Adaptation of the conflict
The first X-Men movie was all about Xenophobia, the second one was about Homophobia, the third one (I'm taking my calming pills) is about whether we should or should not cure homosexuality...damn you Brett Ratner. X-men First class was coming to terms with your identity be that cultural or sexual; X-men Days of future past is the most prominent in the sense that it manages to cram Antisemitism, Xenophobia and Homophobia in one movie and apocalypse was about a torn family.
Now how do this adaptations work...pretty simple: Blue mutants are Latinos and Afros, blue it's a color very distinctive and very easy to spot...and it's considered unnatural in the X-men movie realm; Beast and Nightcrawler have gone a long way to accept who they are and that is their skin they could not choose it...the story is longer but short is better here.
Antisemitism is done via framing and locations, the dystopian future of X-Men DPOF is reminiscent of concentration camps and there is a truck putting a hundred corpses in the prologue alone; Bolivar Trask is framed as the Hitler of the story and is Sentinels are his Nazis (one day ill make a video explaining how brilliant DPOF actually is).
Rouge and Iceman, and other characters are Homosexuals, Iceman was going to be Singers allegory for Gay people but Rather thought that was dumb so he said Rouge will be the allegory and he gives her the mutant cure... (Don't break the keyboard, don't break the keyboard).
Mutants speak walk and talk like this minority's, X-men 2 present's the president of the USA like Ronald Regan through the HIV crisis "Let them die" kind of vibe, Senador Kelly from the first movie is a Christian Extremist and Mystique his antithesis as a character. And William Stryker has this Dr.Death undertone with the experimentation of mutants, and he is an homophobe too...cuz he rejected his son just because he is a mutant.
As an adaptation the X-Men movies have succeeded in portraying the conflicts of minorities, except for the curing homosexuality thing.
Isn't it obvious?: she is blue, she has had an identity crisis and accepts who she is, she transforms between genders all the time. That makes Mystique an Afro-American, a gay person, a transgender woman/man and through framing a Jew.
Mystique has always been this proud image of mutant-hood, in X2 there is a scene when Nightcrawler engages her and inquiries about her powers and why doesn't she hide and look like everyone else and she refuses to do it because she is not afraid of what she is, this ties into the theme of the First Class movie and develops even further on DPOF.
She is the main character to come to terms with her mutant identity and the only one that expands upon her new found faith in herself ; if you compare her to Magneto or Charles they just don't care about their powers but how the world treats them and the actions that they need to do for the better future while Mystique focus is what she is and what others like her have been trough.
There was the Rouge problem in X3 where she wants to be "Normal" and succumbs to it because she just can't deal with it anymore you have Mystique on the other side that wants to do the same things but does the opposite and that is why she is powerful to Afros, Latinos and the LGBT community.
She literally holds a gun to the Hitler allegory and decides to be the anthropomorphic better man and let him live so that the future can be saved, Bolivar Trask is all the evils in the world and she decides to spare him even after all the atrocities...and the point of it is showing how much abuse these minorities have suffered but still be above the enemy and demonstrate compassion that their adversaries are not willing to give.
So for her to become a hero is a good arc because; how are you going to turn into villainy a character that embodies all the suffering of minorities that has overcome her fears and doubts and become the better man?
The movie version of Mystique has succeded her comic cunterpart, in so many diffrent ways that the comics are hardly relevant to the discussion. The message that she leaves is uplifiting
Antisemitism is done via framing and locations, the dystopian future of X-Men DPOF is reminiscent of concentration camps and there is a truck putting a hundred corpses in the prologue alone; Bolivar Trask is framed as the Hitler of the story and is Sentinels are his Nazis (one day ill make a video explaining how brilliant DPOF actually is).
Rouge and Iceman, and other characters are Homosexuals, Iceman was going to be Singers allegory for Gay people but Rather thought that was dumb so he said Rouge will be the allegory and he gives her the mutant cure... (Don't break the keyboard, don't break the keyboard).
Mutants speak walk and talk like this minority's, X-men 2 present's the president of the USA like Ronald Regan through the HIV crisis "Let them die" kind of vibe, Senador Kelly from the first movie is a Christian Extremist and Mystique his antithesis as a character. And William Stryker has this Dr.Death undertone with the experimentation of mutants, and he is an homophobe too...cuz he rejected his son just because he is a mutant.As an adaptation the X-Men movies have succeeded in portraying the conflicts of minorities, except for the curing homosexuality thing.
"Mutant and Proud"
Mystique has always been this proud image of mutant-hood, in X2 there is a scene when Nightcrawler engages her and inquiries about her powers and why doesn't she hide and look like everyone else and she refuses to do it because she is not afraid of what she is, this ties into the theme of the First Class movie and develops even further on DPOF.
She is the main character to come to terms with her mutant identity and the only one that expands upon her new found faith in herself ; if you compare her to Magneto or Charles they just don't care about their powers but how the world treats them and the actions that they need to do for the better future while Mystique focus is what she is and what others like her have been trough.
There was the Rouge problem in X3 where she wants to be "Normal" and succumbs to it because she just can't deal with it anymore you have Mystique on the other side that wants to do the same things but does the opposite and that is why she is powerful to Afros, Latinos and the LGBT community.
She literally holds a gun to the Hitler allegory and decides to be the anthropomorphic better man and let him live so that the future can be saved, Bolivar Trask is all the evils in the world and she decides to spare him even after all the atrocities...and the point of it is showing how much abuse these minorities have suffered but still be above the enemy and demonstrate compassion that their adversaries are not willing to give.
So for her to become a hero is a good arc because; how are you going to turn into villainy a character that embodies all the suffering of minorities that has overcome her fears and doubts and become the better man?
The movie version of Mystique has succeded her comic cunterpart, in so many diffrent ways that the comics are hardly relevant to the discussion. The message that she leaves is uplifiting
