The greener the berry…

by Guest Contributor Cheryl Lynn, originally published at Digital Femme

Back when I used to read Uncanny X-Men, I would always wonder why writers had mutants face events that actual minority groups dealt with decades ago. Slavery. Segregation. Attempted genocide. After all, why not tap into some of the very real plights that minority groups currently have to deal with? Demonization in the media. Housing discrimination.

Sexual exploitation.

I wonder if the creative teams working on Marvel’s X-books are taking a step in that direction or if the preceding mock Utopia ad is one hell of a coincidence. Because the first thing I thought of when I saw the advertisement was how the green skin of the women had been held up as some kind of novelty or amusement for “normal” men to enjoy. And I can’t help but think of Black and Latina women in the Dominican Republic and Asian women in the Philippines who are considered that same kind of novelty act.

It’s not funny. It’s creepy. It’s disgusting. And it’s infuriating.

So seeing that ad got my hopes up. It made me wonder if Marvel was going to use the X-books to shine light on a problem that many either know nothing about or refuse to acknowledge. Marvel certainly isn’t afraid to tackle sensitive subjects. But that’s usually reserved for mature books such as those in the MAX line. To see something like this alluded to in an ad for a regular Marvel book is surprising. And impressive.

Unless the advertisement was intended to be humorous.

Which will pretty much cause me to wild the hell out.

ETA: David Brothers apparently has no regard for the safety of those at Wizard, because he’s telling me that this is a mock ad from Wizard that is intended to be funny.

I’m not laughing.