Due to contract negotiations between Marvel and Sony Pictures, Spider-Man will always be “Caucasian and Heterosexual”.
[toggler title=”TL;DR” ]The hacking of Sony Pictures reveals a licensing agreement between Marvel and Sony Pictures that shows Spider-Man will always be a Caucasian, Heterosexual male, and is not a homosexual unless Marvel has portrayed that alter ego as a homosexual.[/toggler]
[dropcap size=small]O[/dropcap]ver the past several years, the live-action Spider-Man movies have had a few changes. The actor who plays our favorite web-slinging superhero has changed. The plot and the main antagonist of the movie has changed. But one thing hasn’t changed and probably never will unless Marvel ends up facing a certain amount of pressure from upset fans. Spider-Man has been, and always will be, a white, straight, middle-class American male in the movies. To put it simply, Spider-Man will always be Peter Parker.
The idea that Spider-Man could be anyone/anything other than the Peter Parker that we are all familiar with, or any other superhero and villain for that matter, has started to gain popularity in recent years. If Sony and Marvel’s 2002 Spider-Man or their 2012 The Amazing Spider-Man had been portrayed as anything other than the stereotypical Peter Parker, you can be sure that the film probably wouldn’t have done so well in the box office, or with the majority of it’s fans. But a lot of critics and fans have applauded Marvel’s recent efforts to change the gender and sexual preferences of its beloved superheroes and villains. Of course these changes are in the Marvel Universe (comic books), and not in the Marvel Cinematic Universe (movies).
However, it is 2015 and the acceptance of new/renewed and diverse superheroes and villains has grown. Aside from some die-hard fans, the idea that Thor is a woman and Batwoman is gay doesn’t really piss off most comic book fans. So with that being said, why isn’t Spider-Man anyone else? Let’s take a look at that legal licensing agreement between Sony Pictures and Marvel before we jump into possible explanations.
Talk about some strict character traits. The only loophole that can be found in this set of character traits is that it doesn’t ban Spider-Man from using illegal drugs, but it’s highly unlikely Marvel and Sony Pictures would show Spider-Man using marijuana or anything like that.
What really makes this licensing agreement interesting is that it went into effect one month after Miles Morales, a black, Latino teenager became the next Spider-Man in a comic book. The comic was quite popular among fans, but yet Marvel still didn’t want him as the next Spider-Man in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Why wouldn’t Marvel not want a new, ethnically different Spider-Man in their movies?
For starters, a typical white, straight American teenager appeals to a much larger audience than say, a black/Latino homosexual/bisexual, female teenager. The larger the audience your movie appeals to, the more money you make. Another reason could be that Spider-Man is one of the most popular Marvel superheroes that has ever been introduced. Changing who Spider-Man is could upset numerous fans of the iconic web-slinger.
But the most probable reason aside from appealing to the largest audience is that the Marvel Cinematic Universe movies are based off of (with different interpretations of course) the original, popular comics. Marvel is taking the stories of these popular characters that an incredible amount of people grew up reading and loving, and transitioning them into a movie. Changing the appearance of Ultron from what he looks like in the comics is one thing. But changing who Spider-Man is, and changing his origins would upset a lot of fans. It wouldn’t fit in with the past movies that Marvel has produced.
Maybe some day in the future after Marvel’s Phase 3 is finished, the entertainment juggernaut will go back and do an alternate universe version of its iconic superheroes. Or maybe they’ll introduce a series of movies that follows the Secret Wars series. For now, we can only hope and wait.
