X2: X-Men United was released in 2003 to glowing reviews and, in a recent interview, Nightcrawler actor Alan Cumming described it as "the gayest film that I've ever done."
The actor would go on to praise the fact it was directed by a queer director and starred other queer actors, saying the franchise "[helped] people understand queerness, because you can address it in an artistic way, and everyone is less scared of the concept."
It's no secret that filmmaker Bryan Singer set out to use the X-Men as a means of highlighting bigotry (and the experience of coming out), and writer David Hayter has now shared his enthusiasm for Cumming's take on the iconic team.
"I was thrilled when I heard that Alan Cumming had called X2 the gayest film that he had ever worked on," he told TMZ. "Yeah, it made me really happy. I was so glad that we had done right by him. He is such an icon for gay rights."
"Ian McKellen also recognized the allegory of it from a gay perspective, but also, our overall goal with the X-Men in general was just exclusion for anyone. Anyone who faced hatred, or exclusion, or judgment, and still felt compelled to do the right things."
"We had a number of key creatives behind the camera and on camera who were gay," the writer added. "So, obviously, that element was on our minds, and the fact that that came through was [great], and felt fulfilling for Alan, really meant a lot to me personally."
While it was widely accepted at the time that Singer was exploring queerness through an X-Men lens with his Marvel movies, the same happening now would likely be singled out as an example of "woke-ism." Racism and bigotry remain a huge part of the mutant story, though, and Marvel Studios and Disney won't be able to shy away from that.
Elsewhere in the conversation, Hayter pointed to a scene with Iceman revealing his mutant powers to his mother as being a moment meant to speak to the LGBTQ+ community. However, as he alludes to above, the feeling of bigotry was also meant to reach a wider audience.
"That line when Bobby, Ice Man's mother says to him, 'You know, have you ever tried not being a mutant?' It's just so devastating, and it really illustrated what people go through when they're facing bigotry in their own houses."
"It's like, you cannot be what you are not, and the fact that people want you to be something you're not," Hayter notes. "The fact that people want you to be something that you're not is so painful and so difficult to face."
What do you think about Hayter and Cumming's interpretation of the X-Men franchise?