The Pete Holmes Show: Xavier fires Gambit

Linkstorm: Nerditry

 
io9 has complied a list of great performances in geek and sci-fi roles. I don't know acting, but this article definitively proves that you can list about five of the ten shows on this list and I'll still agree with you because I'm preparing for an age where no one knows what Star Trek is anymore.

Hugh Jackman. Psy. It's cool.

X-Men as a Metaphor

I was recently reading MGK (who is awesome) and he wrote a piece on the X-Men and why they aren’t so great. I’m with him 50/50 on that, but what was noticeable about the comments (aside from being comments on the internet and making me sad inside) is that someone mentioned that the X-Men don’t work as a metaphor for oppressed minorities because oppressed minorities can’t shoot lasers out of their eyes.

Considerations for trolling aside, it’s worth a few words about why the X-Men are potentially representatives for minorities that are discriminated against and why they haven’t really done that so well thus far.

The concept that mutants shouldn’t be trusted because they are ‘persons of mass destruction’ is a fallacious one. It assumes that mutants are dangerous and non-mutants are not. Most people are dangerous; any one of us could, at any moment, probably take one of the unsuspecting drones around us down. I guess the concern of scale could be brought up; if Colossus went on a rampage through a shopping mall, you’d need a tank to stop him. Naturally, you’d want to follow him with a tank at all times. That would probably prevent him from going on any rampages at all. If he wants to go somewhere that you can’t bring the tank, he just shouldn’t be allowed to go there.

That’s obviously all wrong. In The United States, citizens are allowed to own firearms. We are allowed to buy all manner of things that we could turn into destructive, damaging weapons (chemicals, trucks, trebuchets). We have a pact with each other that we just aren’t going to hurt each other. The goal of a successful society isn’t to keep people from having the ability to harm one another, but to have people who wouldn’t want to do so.