Sometimes, you know people. You can just see what’s coming.
Does anyone remember that superhero franchise a few years back when a woman’s hopes, dreams and career were portrayed as JUST AS IMPORTANT as her relationships with the male characters
BECAUSE I DO AND IT WAS GLORIOUS
I’m still calling it now that if it ends up being true that there will be a Peter/Gwen/Harry love triangle in TASM2, NO ONE is going to say shit like, ‘Harry is a slutty bitch for trying to steal Peter’s woman~’ the way the fandom bashes Mary Jane as some sort of home-wrecker out to steal Peter from Gwen or her possible corpse.
Stay transparently sexist and misogynistic with your double standards, fandom!
No-one said that during the last lovetriangleriffic set of Spidey movies either, come to think of it. Everything that went wrong there was apparently 100% MJ’s fault…
(And I love Harry, as is hilariously obvious by just a glance at my Spidey tag, but he does get a pass from fandom for some pretty crappy behaviour. Like that time he was pushing MJ to dress how *he* wanted her to, or the time he yelled at her in front of everyone- we know *why* he acts like that, but it shouldn’t excuse him. Can you imagine what would happen if MJ or Gwen yelled at Peter to ‘keep your mouth shut about things you don’t understand’ in a upcoming movie? People would hate them for it!)
Mary Jane Watson and Peter Parker are both working-class characters in Spider-Man – and this is, as far as I know, always true across adaptations as well – but there is definitely a very gendered way in which the Spider-Man fandom expresses classism against them for that, which is especially evident when looking at how fans talk about them regarding their relationships with characters who are richer than they are.
I’ve seen many fans – both the usual douchebro fanboy types and a lot of women – call Mary Jane a ‘gold-digger’ for dating Harry Osborn, ESPECIALLY in the first ‘Spider-Man’ film directed by Sam Raimi. Many of these same fans will then cheer on Norman Osborn for basically calling her a slut who just wants Harry for his money, even though he’s the villain and it’s blatantly not true, re: why she’s dating him. And now with TASM2 coming out, people are bashing her for being a trashy working-class girl who’s going to ‘steal’ Peter from classy, fashionable Gwen.
Peter, on the other hand – I’ve NEVER seen anyone call him a ‘gold-digger’ for dating rich uptown girl Gwen Stacy. In both the 616-comics and TASM, Gwen is explicitly affluent – she lives in an expensive apartment in a rich part of town (courtesy of her big-shot lawyer mother, according to the TASM DVD commentary), her father in the comics belongs to the same rich man’s social club that JJJ and Norman go to, etc. Peter, on the other hand, is obviously working-class and is constantly in financial trouble.
Yet no one in fandom accuses him of being a gold-digger who’s only dating Gwen because he wants her money. If anything, he gets praised for dating well and having good taste in women. And likewise, no one calls him a gold-digger for being married to Mary Jane when she’s a successful model and actress in the comics, when she is presumably making more money than he does.
So basically, the classism in the Spider-Man fandom definitely comes out in gendered ways, and fans are constantly shitty about Mary Jane in really gross discriminatory ways based on her gender and working-class background.
Title: Masquerade
Author: sarah531
Rating: R
Characters: Harry Osborn, Peter Parker, Mary Jane Watson
Warnings: Some non-con kissing, homophobia from various characters- and some quite dark stuff going on really, although most of it is just implied
Summary: It’s prom night. Someone spikes the punch.
LEGO Spider-Man minifigures. (From Brickipedia.) Ain’t they cute?
I think the little Goblin is my favourite.
You know, the thing about the “Gwen fell in love with Peter while Mary Jane fell in love with Spider-Man” quote…It doesn’t make any sense! Because Peter is Spider-Man, they’re the same person!
So what I like to think it really means is, “Gwen loved everything about Peter but what she loved the most was his kind nature and intelligence. Mary Jane loved everything about Peter but what she loved the most was his selfless nature and bravery.”
In other words, they both loved him the exact same amount, for slightly different reasons that had nothing to do with how powerful/famous Peter was and everything to do with what sort of people Gwen and MJ were.
