Sony’s currently working on a sequel to last year’s surprisingly awesome The Amazing Spider-Man, which features Andrew Garfield as the titular hero fighting (among other things) nerdy Jamie Foxx and a pantsless Paul Giamatti. These are the kinds of roles you get when you’re an Oscar-nominated actor.
Anyway, Garfield took time out from filming The Amazing Spider-Man 2 to talk to Entertainment Weekly, where he revealed that he would love to see a Spider-Man who likes boys.
“I was kind of joking, but kind of not joking about MJ,” he tells EW. “And I was like, ‘What if MJ is a dude?’ Why can’t we discover that Peter is exploring his sexuality? It’s hardly even groundbreaking! . . . So why can’t he be gay? Why can’t he be into boys?”
Garfield even has an actor in mind: “I’ve been obsessed with Michael B. Jordan since The Wire. He’s so charismatic and talented. It’d be even better—we’d have interracial bisexuality!” The star has clearly suggested a sexually flexible Spidey to his director, Marc Webb, as well. When EW later mentions the idea to Webb, the director says, “Michael B. Jordan, I know.”
Oh, so he’s heard this too? “Uh, are you kidding?” Of course, there are plenty of fanboys looking at this screaming “CONTINUITY!” but let’s examine this, shall we?
First off, because comics tend to hit the reset button with alarming frequency, there have been numerous iterations of Spider-Man from other timelines and universes. Hell, in Spider-Man 3, they even retconned the death of Uncle Ben for the sake of plot convenience, an event that happened two films ago.
Second, from a purely character-driven perspective, what would change if Spider-Man was gay or bisexual? Peter Parker was meant to be a nerdy, socially awkward everyman with no money and love troubles. He’d still have the same basic character and story arch. The only difference is that Mary Jane would be . . . I don’t know, Marty John? Does that sound right?
The only reason they haven’t written a gay Spider-Man is because they don’t want to or they haven’t gotten around to it yet. Hell, they made a gay Wolverine and, amazingly, the universe didn’t collapse on itself. So who knows? Maybe we’ll get our gay Peter Parker someday.
Why you can trust Xtra
