This reminds me of a college professor I had that thought every major literary work, ever, had some feminist subtext. It was all in her head, and we all knew it.
(interviewer) It seems that "X-Men" and "X-Men 2" represent your identities as a Jew living in America and as a gay man respectively, because in this one there is a homosexuality/homophobia subtext...Here's a quote from an interview with Ian McKellen:
(Singer) Well, yeah. That is also a very relevant analogy because where certain races, even a Jewish boy or a Jewish girl, will be born into a Jewish family, or a Jewish community sometimes, or an African American or whatever minority in any given area, a gay kid doesn't discover he or she is gay until around puberty. And their parents aren't gay necessarily, and their classmates aren't, and they feel truly alone in the world and have to find, sometimes never find, a way to live.
(interviewer) So you're exploring your own situation in these films?
(Singer) Absolutely. And what better way than in a giant, action, summer event movie! I could think of no better place to spill out one's own personal problems and foist them onto the world [laughs]. And for that, I apologise.
VN: As a gay actor and activist, did you respond to the X-Men movies' call for tolerance?Unfortunately, even though, I'm straight, I suspect this means my "gaydar" is more finely attuned than some. Both the director and the lead actor state flatly the film is about outcasts, but specifically about gay politics. Singer points out the distinction made between homosexuals and Jews or blacks, in that Jews have Jewish parents and blacks have black parents. The scene I was talking about makes no sense if applied to those groups, as black kids have black parents and Jewish kids have Jewish parents. It would make no sense if the scene was about black parents confronting their son about being black. Both films are clearly about identity politics, specifically homosexual identity politics. I don't think I'm reading too much into those statements.
Ian McKellen: "That was how [director] Bryan Singer pitched it to me - this is about gay politics. What do you do if society treats you as a mutant? Do you say, I'm sorry, let me join in? Or do you say right, I'm going to take you on - I'm different and I'm proud of it? Do you accommodate people's fears and try to understand them, or do you take on the world even if that leads to a violent confrontation? So it was presented not as a comic fantasy of escapism but as something rather gritty and crucial - not just to a gay director and actor, but also to young gays, young blacks and young Jews who regard themselves as mutants because of the way we treat them."