SJWs just can’t let go of their prejudices during the summer blockbuster season.
X-Men: Apocalypse opens on Friday. The ninth installment of the mutant superpower franchise includes Jennifer Lawrence, James McAvoy, Rose Byrne and Michael Fassbender.
But Bryan Singer’s $178 million blockbuster features a diverse array of mutants, with two Asian-American actresses in prominent roles—Olivia Munn as Psylocke (real name Betsy Braddock) and Lana Condor as Jubilation “Jubilee” Lee.
So why the controversy? It turns out Jubilee’s scenes have been cut and this has led to cyber-police calling out the makers of the cyber-mutant movie for shrinking her scenes and playing the race card in the process.
Despite the fact that the two-hour, 20-minute run time of X-Men: Apocalypse means it would always have been a tall order for Singer and scriptwriter Simon Kinberg to fully develop individual characters, many social media X-Men watchers are up in arms that Jubilee’s part has been trimmed.
One scene that has been heavily edited is Jubilee going to the mall with Jean (Sophie Turner), Scott/ Cyclops (Tye Sheridan) and Kurt/Nightcrawler (Kodi Smit-Mcphee):
Singer had second thoughts about the mall scene, in which the characters visited a record store and had drinks, and drastically cut it during the post-production of X-Men: Apocalypse. SJWs on social media are linking the decision to race:
Of all the characters in X-Men Apocalypse, the sole Asian character is being cut to basically having no lines in the movie…????????
— andres (@andres__1094) May 25, 2016
Asian chars added to make the cast racially diverse & not given any significant lines?LanaCondor & OliviaMunn play those characters in #XMen
— Smarajit Chakraborty (@smarajit92) May 20, 2016
Not only is their beef that Jubilee’s time at the mall has been truncated but it’s even a problem that she goes to the mall in the first place, even though the character is a “mall rat” in the original Marvel comic upon which the franchise is based.
I was waiting for jubilee to use her powers in Xmen… But all she did was go to a mall.
— Aiidyl (@dafugly_prince) May 24, 2016
Singer, who faced far more heat two years ago from sex abuse allegations, has been forced to justify himself in convoluted fashion. “I removed what would be considered a conventional amount from the movie to protect what we call the collective experience of the feature theatrically,” he told Fandango.
Translation: “I am the director. I do not edit my films to pander to the whims of SJWs.”
But if detractors can spare a second from their busy outrage-manufacturing schedule, they will be happy to hear that more Jubilee will be in the DVD. Singer told Fandango: “We do have a moment where Jubilee uses her powers that you’ll see on the DVD. I wanted more Jubilee.”
As for the actress herself, Condor has said of her character: “She also serves as kind of comedic relief at times when the real S-H-I-T is going down.”
She’ll need her sense of humor right now in light of the online mob that’s being whipped up around her role in the movie.
