Scoring at an adjusted 7.5% of approximately 575 scoring votes, Spider-Man HATES women!
BUT in all seriousness, I don’t know what the heck happened here on this poll, but this is not an accurate outcome. One tag even reads “#it’s actually hard to find a piece of media that dislikes women more”, and aside from that being stupidly hyperbolic, I don’t see it.
To call Sam Raimi a human bastian of good taste and respectability in handling female characters in most of his works would certianly be a demonstrable falsehood given the evidence in all the non-Xena filmography (Evil Dead, Darkman, A Simple Plan, Drag Me To Hell, Oz The Great And Powerful,Doctor Strange In The Multiverse Of Madness), but for the Spider-Man trilogy, it was more mixed. Yes, Mary Jane Watson, Aunt May, Betty Brant, Ursula Diktovich, and Gwen Stacy weren’t all handled the most exceptionally well as characters, nor as important and proactive as the male characters (and there is straight up no excusing how dirty Rosalie Octavius and Flint Marko’s wife and daughter got handled), but each of them were respected “as people” as it were. Every form of mistreatment that got directed at these women, physical or otherwise, was condemned within the films’ narratives as being unambiguously wrong and warranting shame and consequences. Even if not as much attention was spared for them, the female characters had their own life stories, personalities, desires, and personal autonomy, and it was generally respected, because their basic humanity was never denied.
Not sure if I can really ellaborate any better. @raimispiderman, you maybe want to take your own shot at this?
Yeah, I feel that people have not engaged with this poll in good faith. Looking through the blog, it seems that people really seem to vote depending on what movies are fashionable at the time, so old Marvel blockbusters are right out.
But no, the Raimi Spider-Man movies don’t hate women. The Raimi Spider-Man FANDOM (present company excepted) hates women, and I feel people are conflating the two.
In Raimi Spider-Man fandom, you can barely go a day without encountering a Reddit post or YouTube video calling Mary Jane a whore, a bitch, promiscuous and so on. It’s frustrating as hell and I worry that the hatred for her bleeds into general perception of the character and makes people think she’s badly written. But she’s not, because here’s the secret:
MJ is promiscuous! It’s a major part of her character in the films! She likes to be in relationships and, presumably, likes to have sex. Her comic book counterpart was much the same. In the movies MJ darts about from Flash to Harry to John to Peter to Harry again, never finding what she wants to help her overcome the abuse her father subjected on her. MJ is a messed-up, traumatized, self-centered, not always very nice person…
…and the film never judges her. Not once. She is a woman who has a lot of sex, who cheats, and yet at every turn the film demands she be treated with respect. (This, I feel, may be the exact reason why fandom hatred for her is so commonplace.)
The whole ending of the second movie is about Peter treating MJ with respect, in fact.
Norman/Green Goblin does not treat MJ with respect, and loudly implies she’s a gold-digger and a whore during the Thanskgiving scene.
When Norman does that to MJ, we’re meant to be on her side. The moment is about her and her feelings, not Peter. She tells Harry off for not standing up for her (even though he did!) and storms off. Her rage is validated.
I’ve always found it fascinating how the Raimi Spider-Mans keep Norman the same misogynist he was in the comics. Look, I made a whole gifset about it! When Norman makes a rape threat towards MJ later – and a rape threat is exactly what he made – that is the point of no return for him. He’s punished with a blade through the crotch. (I resent massively that No Way Home walked back on Norman being a monster with or without the Goblin persona, but I suppose there’s nothing I can do about that.)
MJ is not punished for cheating on Peter. When Peter pushes her and hurts her in Spider-Man 3, the audience is meant to be APPALLED. I mean, watch the scene!
But maybe don’t read the comments.
Peter’s hitting MJ is his lowest possible point, and he needs to redeem himself from that point on. Basically: all the male characters in Spider-Man are judged by the narrative when it comes to how they treat MJ.
Peter shoves MJ to the floor? Narrative’s gonna make you work to redeem yourself for that one.
Harry grabs MJ by the throat while dosed up on goblin juice? Death. But redemptive death, because we like Harry.
Norman threatens to rape MJ? No penis or life for you.
Eddie/Venom sexually assaults MJ by web-slinging her out a taxi and commenting on her body? Deaaaaath. The Spider-Man films give absolutely no quarter to misogynists and this is all done via the character of MJ. She is the film’s moral center – while also being a messy, selfish, impulsive gal. She’s not pure. She’s not innocent. She has a lot of sex. But Peter and the narrative hold her up as someone valued and important.
The Venom thing brings me to Gwen. Gwen also suffers misogyny (and sexual harassment) at the hands of Eddie. In Spider-Man 3 it’s established that Eddie and Gwen went on one date and it didn’t really go anywhere. They didn’t have sex (Gwen is firm on this point) but Eddie feels entitled to sex from Gwen anyway. (Sorry, Venom fans. Spider-Man 3 is not easy on him). Eddie declares his intent to marry Gwen when she is not around and seems to be practically stalking her. But!
Gwen never once actually tells Eddie to go away. She’s unaware of his true intentions towards her and when he approaches her with a camera at the Spider-Man festival, she smiles and poses. The closest she comes is telling Eddie “not tonight” about a date. But in the Raimi Spider-Man films (and this means a great deal to me) Gwen’s lack of a firm no still actually means no. Eddie is still in the wrong for stalking her, and the narrative takes great pains to make this clear. Eddie never gets a redemption, and as soon as he starts talking about Gwen and MJ as if they’re property, MJ drops a cinder block on his head.
This isn’t even getting into Aunt May. Aunt May is frankly one of my very favorite things about the Spider-Man movies and if MJ is the moral center of the story, May is the beating heart. She’s a support and mentor to Peter but the movies always make it clear that she has her own issues and problems to deal with. The movie doesn’t shy away from her anger. She’s allowed to be furious at Peter for his part in Ben’s death, but I always thought the best scene with May is at the beginning of Spider-Man 2, when Peter refuses to take a few dollars from her and, just for a second, she absolutely loses her cool with him.
I would like to mention Ursula as well but this post is long enough already. I’ll just say I love her and I love how they were able to cram plenty of characterization into her five minutes of screentime. For example, although she has a crush on Peter, she still encourages him to call MJ.
ANYWAY.
I feel like the result of this poll is a result of several things:
People mistaking depiction for endorsement. The Spider-Man movies depict A LOT of misogyny and sometimes this is done well and sometimes it isn’t. For example, I do not think the attempted rape scene in Spider-Man 1 was done well, even though I guess it ties in well with the misogyny mini-arc that ends with Norman losing his knob. But hopefully this little essay explains why the movies don’t support the views of their most misogynistic characters and actively go against them.
MJ being a really messy character. She’s not always a good person and I think people mistake that for bad writing. Nope, she’s just traumatized and difficult and (understandbly) selfish. That scene of her father screaming at her and calling her “trash” is in the movie for a reason. Her not being able to accept bad reviews of her acting because she hears them in her father’s voice is also in the movie for a reason. Oh, you want more complex female characters? You couldn’t even handle her!
The aforementioned misogyny of the fandom bleeding into public perception of the actual work (see also: Star Wars)
MJ needing to be rescued (sometimes from rapists) a lot. I’ve never thought a female character needing to be rescued a lot is sexist. Yeah, it would be cool if MJ grabbed a tire iron and defeated Norman in combat, but she’s not that person. She’s not a strong female character – she’s a weak female character. And the narrative wants you to respect her anyway.
It hsa occurred to me that actually, one of my VERY FIRST published articles was about this very subject! All the way back in 2016!
Whether it’s actually canon or not that Gwen is trans, I truly loved her character arc and the little bit of trans rep that we did get in this amazing movie! Please go watch Spider-Man if you haven’t yet, it’s truly a love letter to all animation fans!!
So the infamous Spider-Man story Sins Past is about to be retconned, according to some leaks that have just come out about the end of Nick Spencer’s Spider-Man run. I’m… not looking forward to it. (You’re bound to hear all about it on harryosborn.net.) For a start I suspect it’s not going to deal with the actual sin.
In the years after Sins Past came out there was so much complaining about how the story “ruined” or “tainted” Gwen. But let’s look at what she actually does in the story, shall we? Not much, because the story doesn’t seem nearly as interested in her as it is in her uterus, but-
Gwen finds herself attracted to Norman after he (during one of his spates of non-villainy) helps rescue her and her dad. Okay, fair enough. Gwen actually wasn’t technically Peter’s girlfriend at the time, and even when she was it didn’t seem completely exclusive, since Harry and MJ were in the mix there too. So she was really free to pursue whoever she wanted. Norman is, uh, an odd choice but his design was based on Tommy Lee Jones around this time and I’m sure Tommy Lee Jones had his share of female admirers, so whatever.
Now let’s look at what Norman does in the story!
He has a girl young enough to be his daughter turn up at his house and fawn over him. Norman must have known Gwen as a teenager at least a little, surely, since she and Harry were close friends since high school. He must have some idea of her personality, that her mother was dead and she was devoted to her father. And then…
What exactly passed between them to make them instantly fall into bed together? We don’t know, but we do know that it’s heavily implied this is the first time Gwen had sex with anyone–
-that Norman wielded quite a lot of power and influence at the time, even without bringing his superhero alter-ego into things-
-and that, this is rather crucial I always thought, they didn’t use protection! That’s where the twins came from!
Does any of this sound like a regular “affair”? No! You know what a decent man does if a girl so much younger makes a pass at him? He SAYS NO!
But that’s not what happened. Gwen soon found out what sort of man Norman was and found herself pregnant. (You’ve got to wonder if she considered getting an abortion, but the story isn’t interested in that.) She gave birth to the twins and then Norman murdered her. The Death of Gwen Stacy was written long before Sins Past came out but one thing SP didn’t retcon was that Gwen meant less than nothing to Norman.
Oh, and eventually he then proceeded to creepily hit on her alternate self too.
….Where there was an even bigger age gap, I’m assuming.
Long story short, Norman is a misogynist who took advantage of a younger woman, and Sins Past justnever really acknowledges it. The Gwen/Norman encounter is treated like a regular affair, albeit one where superpowered sperm is involved (ugh) but it wasn’t. Yes it wasbetween two consenting adults, but oh god the power dynamics. It’s a story that plays out time and time again in real life and yep, always ends badly for the woman.
Gwen was Norman’s victim in all of this but was treated like his collaborator. That’s the real sin of Sins Past.
El Sorprendiente Hombre-Araña Vol 1 128: “El Casamiento de Peter Parker” / “The Marriage of Peter Parker”
For people who haven’t been on Twitter lately, it turns out that there was a brief and extremely rare run of original, officially-sanctioned Spidey comics published in Spanish in Mexico in the early 1970s in which Gwen Stacy, who was a very popular character in Mexico, did not die and eventually married Peter Parker. There are about 45 original Spidey comics that were published by La Prensa, written by Raúl Martinez, and drawn by José Luis González Durán, the first Latino to ever officially draw Spider-Man.
If you’d like to learn more (and speak Spanish), there’s more info here!
Well the awfulness of the current comics shows no sign of going away anytime soon, so let’s jump back into this! Where we left off, Harry’s father had just overcome his first bout of supervillainy, but it would be faaaaaar from the last.
Here’s Harry’s very brief appearance in #41. Looks like his school bully days are behind him thanks to the previous story’s events! Meanwhile, Peter’s getting interested in Gwen.
#42 shows Harry defending Peter to Flash! Hooray for character development! Also Peter loves his motorbike a little too much.
Harry and Gwen’s relationship is a bit hard to pin down during this point, are they actually dating in the non-exclusive way or just friends?
And here’s Harry’s last appearance in these three comics. You’ll note that once more he sticks up for Peter. But now we’ve turned a corner into the real world and a still very relevant era of American history, the Vietnam war. Now I admit I don’t know much about it, being neither American or Vietnamese, but I know the basics. Flash has already been drafted, and these three panels rather make it sound like Harry is distressed at the possibility of Peter too being made to go to war.
Stan Lee’s thoughts about Vietnam I don’t actually know, but I’m gonna see if I can find out before the next one of these posts. I’d be interested in that. Harry is absolutely correct here in that a young man forced to join the military and kill people in a war is nothing remotely humorous.
Welcome back, true believers! Okay so the other day this happened in the spideycomicsverse and it reminded me to kick this little project back into gear.
So! Last post we met Harry for the very first time and he was, to be honest, incredibly meh. But only SO FAR! Because the man who would end up being the Big Bad of the Spiderverse is coming and Harry just so happens to be his son and heir.
But before any of that takes place, here’s ASM #34, in which Harry continues to be Flash Thompson’s rather uninteresting henchman.
Harry thinks Peter is a snob, which is kinda weird seeing as Harry is the son of a wealthy businessman and Peter is a broke orphan. You’d think it’d be the other way around. (I suppose he means intellectual snobbery.) Geez you’d never expect them to end up with one of the most enduring friendships in all Spider-Man media would you?
On to ASM #37 and this is the VERY FIRST TIME (I think) Norman Osborn is ever named. Humble beginnings and all that.
But first we meet Gwen’s Giant Hand.
Original Pre-Death Gwen is almost completely forgotten but she was hella cool. In amongst all the giggle-worthy Sixties slang you get the idea that geez it must really have sucked being a female science student in that era so no wonder she’s angry all the time.
Hereeeeee’s Norman!
And he’s a PRICK!
Even taking the very different approved fatherhood qualities of the ’60s into account Norman’s just a kinda a dick to his son here. Of course, we’ve barely scratched the surface of that yet, we have many issues and many increasingly disturbing modern-day retcons to go.
Now, in ASM #38 we’ve got Norman being more affable to his kid, and then dressing as the guy from Breaking Bad before Breaking Bad existed.
But this is primarily about Harry so what’s going on over at the college? Well, there’s a protest it seems.
This little scene remains a complete and utter mystery to me. What are they protesting about!? Based on the dialogue given to the student protestors Stan Lee does not seem to like them? For some reason? But there were SURE AS HELL things to protest about in the ’60s so this bit just comes off as really uncomfortable and Old Man Yells At Cloud.
(This is Lawrence Welk, by the way, and I don’t know what that insult is supposed to mean either.)
Man you sure can be clueless about a lot of history via comics! (No I’m not American.)
Anyway Harry in this issue is just a regular old weaselly coward, nothing’s changed there-
-but things are ABOUT TO! Stuff happens next issue which shaped ALL of Spider-Man comics to come!
