Y'know, the bit about Raven's appearance actually resonated really strongly with me, and I'm beginning to realize that this is part of why I loved her so much in XMFC. I really get the impression that Charles stopped thinking of blue as Raven's actual appearance, even though it's clear that she'd be blue with him now and then. When she asks "Would you date me?" it doesn't even occur to him that she means "in my natural form", and he has to actually look over to her to see what she means by "looking like this".
And where that gets me is the awkward, uncomfortable place where a person who's been passing for white/default/non-mutant, on purpose or by accident, for as long as they can remember. When that default appearance starts to become reality to everyone around you, and you begin to believe you're the only one who even remembers you're not that outside shell, it's hard to stand up for yourself as a person who is not the default/norm, and easy for even close friends, loved ones, and family members to forget you're not. (I have family members who will always see my mother as Asian, but because I'm biracial, they seem to have coded me as white in their heads, for example; my grandmother has outright forgotten that I'm not white.)
I'm not sure how much they meant Raven's "passing" to be coded as "passing for white", but it sure worked that way for me. I could definitely see Charles no longer thinking of her blue skin as the norm, even when he saw it face-on. It's painfully easy to have that bit of you erased by the people around you, the less-than-visible non-norm part... it's not that people have bad intentions, they just think of you as being "like them", and in Charles's case, that meant "white and easily able to blend in". Imagine if she'd chosen a different ethnicity for her default skin -- would he have been more understanding, or would he have asked her why she couldn't just be white? (I actually think Raven would be a fascinating character to racebend for that exact reason -- we don't know (well, in movieverse at least) what her family's actual ethnicity is; what if she's not just hiding her blue skin but her heritage, too? Ow ow ow.)
OMG SUCH A TANGENT. Er, sorry? :D? But anyway, if you wanna fanwank that bit of dialogue, there's why I don't even need it fanwanked. It feels like seeing my life right up on screen.
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timeasmymeasure
Re: tl;dr I love Charles too
Date: 2011-10-09 10:37 pm (UTC)And where that gets me is the awkward, uncomfortable place where a person who's been passing for white/default/non-mutant, on purpose or by accident, for as long as they can remember. When that default appearance starts to become reality to everyone around you, and you begin to believe you're the only one who even remembers you're not that outside shell, it's hard to stand up for yourself as a person who is not the default/norm, and easy for even close friends, loved ones, and family members to forget you're not. (I have family members who will always see my mother as Asian, but because I'm biracial, they seem to have coded me as white in their heads, for example; my grandmother has outright forgotten that I'm not white.)
I'm not sure how much they meant Raven's "passing" to be coded as "passing for white", but it sure worked that way for me. I could definitely see Charles no longer thinking of her blue skin as the norm, even when he saw it face-on. It's painfully easy to have that bit of you erased by the people around you, the less-than-visible non-norm part... it's not that people have bad intentions, they just think of you as being "like them", and in Charles's case, that meant "white and easily able to blend in". Imagine if she'd chosen a different ethnicity for her default skin -- would he have been more understanding, or would he have asked her why she couldn't just be white? (I actually think Raven would be a fascinating character to racebend for that exact reason -- we don't know (well, in movieverse at least) what her family's actual ethnicity is; what if she's not just hiding her blue skin but her heritage, too? Ow ow ow.)
OMG SUCH A TANGENT. Er, sorry? :D? But anyway, if you wanna fanwank that bit of dialogue, there's why I don't even need it fanwanked. It feels like seeing my life right up on screen.