The road to doing the X-Men justice in the Marvel Cinematic Universe is one that will no doubt come with many tasks and duties, each more important than the last; how will their absence be explained after all this time? Will they be able to find a way to finally not do Cyclops dirty in live-action? And then comes the ever-important question of how such an iconic team of superheroes will manage to fit into a series that many would argue is becoming a bit too big for its own britches.
But one question that some may be forgiven for getting stumped over is how the MCU is going to explain the source of mutant discrimination, which is as quintessential to X-Men stories as the mutants themselves. The Avengers are beloved celebrities in the world of the MCU, so what problem could people possibly have with more superpowered champions on their side?
Indeed, it may seem like quite the uphill battle to explain how mutant discrimination will exist in the MCU, but a recent discussion on r/marvelstudios has reminded everyone, and laid pretty bare to boot, that explaining the nuances of mutant discrimination won’t actually require much logic; real-world discrimination, after all, tends to be built on quite the opposite.
When posed with such a question among a sea of X-Men talking points, several users pointed out that bringing in a charismatic bigot and a cultural suspension of disbelief for the treacherous rhetoric they spew will handle that worldbuilding hurdle with a snap of the fingers, as it has so many times throughout history.
That being said, if Marvel does decide to do the extra legwork in that department, there’s no shortage of avenues to go down, even if they’re as questionable as retreading a lackluster Eternals beat or tarnishing Professor X’s character.
Whatever the case, the X-Men’s debut in the MCU as a whole will no doubt require the utmost care to get right, but as far as figuring out how to make the world hate mutants, the writing team will need nothing more than vague gestures at our own world for inspiration.