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yeeclaw · 1 month

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As much as I enjoyed seeing Laura in Deadpool & Wolverine, one thing has been bothering me since opening night, and I can’t shake it:

Why did Marvel design her a shirt that says “Savage”?

It’s a fictional band t-shirt. I spent hours reverse image searching and browsing album covers and tour posters of bands with related names, album titles, and song titles, and while it’s clearly inspired by real rock bands and tours, it was nevertheless made up. They actively chose to make up a shirt with a derogatory racial term for a group Laura and the actress who plays her is not a part of for her to wear. Someone was paid by Marvel to design it. Why?

Now companies are selling copies of the shirt, so more people will be out in the world wearing a shirt with a term that, whether you want to call it a slur or just a “derogatory racial term,” has a dark, violent history and makes many Native Americans uncomfortable. It is a word that was used to justify cultural genocide within my parent’s lifetime, that has been used as a justification for racist discrimination and hatred within our lifetimes, not just Logan’s lifetime.

Logan had band logos, too. They used Awaken the Dreamers by All Shall Perish. The title track is about fighting for human rights and ending oppression, the design features the Statue of Liberty holding a gun, not a torch, surrounded by the silhouettes of swarming military planes. Now in Deadpool & Wolverine, we’re casually using the word savage, sticking it on a “feral” character with a reputation for violence. It could be powerful if Laura were Native. She escaped from a government run institution systematically abusing and dehumanizing children based on their heritage. Logan cast primarily people of color to play the X23 children. Gabriela Lopez died at the Liberty Motel and Logan died at what was described at “the last stop on the mutant underground to Canada”. They utilized the mutant metaphor very deliberately, and I feel that Deadpool & Wolverine’s choice of costuming for Laura did that a disservice.

(Yes, I’m aware of Savage Wolverine. Its potential as an Easter egg for a racist comic book title doesn’t make it not racist)

#Deadpool and Wolverine #Deadpool 3 #racist language #anti native racism #Marvel #Deadpool & Wolverine #The first part of Logan was filmed right across the street from the Santa Ana rez and bordered to the north by the Zia Pueblo #The cast stayed at the Tamaya Resort on the Pueblo while filming there.#The gas station scene was the Laguna 66 Pit Stop on the Laguna Pueblo.#Eden was less than 4 miles from the Poshuoinge Pueblo ruins.#Chama - where the final scene was filmed - is situated between the Jicarilla Apache Nation and Taos Pueblo.#I’m not Native. I’m local enough though that when I watch Logan I see Indian Country.#I think that made it all the more jarring to me to see ‘savage’ in D&W.#(Not being reclaimed or subverted but casually on a white actress)#idk... I know it doesn't bother everyone & like I said I'm not Native. but as a white woman who's heard that word weaponized #(& a diehard fan of Laura for the last 20 years so believe me I’m not looking for something to be mad about)#i don’t think the mutant metaphor is enough to make it okay for a white actress to wear that shirt #(first post in the morning pre-coffee no editing we die like fic authors with no betas)

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