When Bryan Singer asked me to be in these films he sold it to me on just this point: as a gay man you can identify with mutants – people who have talents [but] are despised by society as they’re different. In many areas of the world being gay is still a mutancy which is clearly not tolerated in some societies. You can be put to death for your sexuality. Not in this country. We have advanced – it’s been one of the great joys of my life – since these films have been made.”
— Sir Ian McKellen, star of X-Men: Days of Future Past, discussing the appeal the popular comic-based franchise films hold for queer viewers
H/t: Pink News
AxelDC
Have you ever tried NOT being a mutant?
Bee Gaga
You think having played a comic character for the past 13 years now Ian would know the story of the comic series. The X-Men purposely are made to resemble disenfranchised groups, most specifically gay people and black people (Magneto is suppose to represent Malcolm X, Professor Xavier is suppose to represent Dr. Martin Luther King). The writers have brought these things up SEVERAL times.
SpunkyBunks
When a grown man tells me how much he loves comics/cartoons, and how he relates to them tells me that I gotta go.
Mezaien
@SpunkyBunks: Hurry up and leave! I`m 66Yo HOMO and in the 60`s I collect ” Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers” comics I love them and they are now in the thousands if I sale!?.
Scribe38
14 year old me loved the X MEN for the vary reason he is talking about. Mutants discover powers at puberty, and has to hide from the world, because they are hunted. Parents turn over their Mutant kids to be cured. Some mutants commit suicide. Some fight with the system to change things and others use force and demand change. Yeah it began a commentary on race, but it fits a lot of boxes. I was a young, black, gay, nerd and it spoke to me and kept me sane.
Billy Budd
I Love Sir Ian McKellen. I recommend you to watch “Gods and Monsters”, a truly great movie.
TastelessChap
@Scribe38 Ditto! But I was 19 at the time. I was glued to the TV every Saturday morning, watching their struggle play out while I was living through my own.
AxelDC
People who are too old for comic books are too old to be alive.
Black Pegasus
Sir Ian’s portrayal of Magneto made him one of my favorite actors. His sentiments about marginalized groups are accurate. I can’t help but to feel a kinship with the mutants as their stories are told onscreen.
Btw- Days of Future Past was a great movie… It wasn’t ‘epic’, but it wasn’t bad either.