Why I Walked Out on Spiderman

I finished my Ph.D. in 2001, and, unable to find an academic job in a university near a gay neighborhood, ended up moving to Wilton Manors, Florida, to share a house with my friend Yuri.  I lived on writing and two part-time jobs, fitness trainer and English/composition instructor at the police academy.  

Wilton Manors was like West Hollywood: as you traveled from the gym to the restaurant to the bookstore to the gay clubs, you rarely if ever saw a straight person.  After four years as a stranger in New York, it felt like home. 

But you still had to choose your movies and tv programs carefully.  Homophobic slurs weren't as common as in the 1980s, but offensive stereotypes still appeared, and the heterosexism was rampant: LGBT people did not exist.

Most of the movies I saw in 2002 had strong gay subtexts.

1. Orange County   Arlo and Chad.

2. Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers. Sam and Frodo subtext.

3. Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets. Harry and Ron subtext.

3. Chicago. Strong lesbian subtext.

4. Spy Kids 2.  Children's movie starring Daryl Sabara (left, later photo), who doesn't express any hetero-horniness.

5. Big Fat Liar. Children's movie starring Frankie Muniz of Malcolm in the Middle, who befriends a girl but doesn't fall in love with her.

6. Clockstoppers.  A boy (Jesse Bradford) and a girl stop time, but don't fall in love.

Even though I was very careful, three intensely heteronormative movies still made it through my defenses:

1. 28 Days Later.  Cilian Murphy wakes up in the zombie apocalypse, and hooks up with two survivors, a man and a woman. I'm all set for a nice triangulation, when all of a sudden the man dies.

Why does the man always die?  Why do the last two people left always, always, always have to be a man and a woman? I felt sick.

2. Igby Goes Down.  The title made it seem obviously gay-themed, and I heard the star, Kieran Culkin (left), was gay.

It wasn't gay-themed.  There were no gay characters.  Instead, there was an amazingly homophobic portrayal of a bi drug dealer.  

More after the break

Spider-Man: Dark Age. Fan-movie with limited heterosexism, and a gay-subtext boyfriend

 I have been eagerly anticipating the fan-movie Spider-Man: Intro the Dark, directed by Timmons Flowers and Jak Kristowski: no girl is mentioned in the trailer or in any of the comments by either of the showrunners. This is a big deal: the Spider-Man mythos is usually loaded down with heteronormative erasure ("Like all stories, this story is about a boy and a girl.") 

Scene 1: After a news report about an explosion in Rosenberg Labs, we cut to a high school shot.  Peter Parker (Joshua Morgan) enters his class and talks to his bud about asking "Ruby" out.  Ok, so he's established as heterosexual at minute 0.30.  Two other guys discuss meeting at Peter's house after school.

Scene 2: Home.  Peter is greeted by his mom  Cut to breakfast, where they all discuss the explosion. Dad says he's going to be gone three days to help with cleanup, and he'll be back tomorrow night.  That's two days.  Continuity?

Scene 3: Peter playing chess with his bud, who he calls Veon, but is Eddie in the closing credits (Ja in the closing credits, Jaizier Mallett on the IMDB).  He says "checkmate," although the pieces on the board are random; no checkmate.  Eddie leaves. 

A Harvard recruiter calls, wanting to talk to Peter because of his excellent skills on the guitar.  Really?  Does Harvard have a big guitar program?  Could we see Peter playing the guitar?

The full review is on Righteous Gemstones Beefcake and Boyfriends

"Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse": How Is This Not a Coming-Out Movie?

Spider-Man, introduced in 1962, was one of the first in Marvel Comics' stable of flawed superheroes, a welcome counterpart to DC's indefatigibly stalwart square-jaws:  high schooler Peter Parker is bitten by a radioactive spider, gets spider-powers, and doesn't know how to save the world while negotiating teen angst.  Many high schoolers in the Vietnam-Nixon-Kent State era could relate.

Since then Spidey has spun off into comic books, movies, a tv series, a Broadway show, and dozens of "what if?" alternatives, some of whom come together in the gay symbolism-packed Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse.

In a trippy near-Earth,  Miles Morales (voiced by Shameik Moore, top photo) is a outsider (gay) kid, obsessed with comic books, street art, and his hero, Spider-Man.

His (homophobic) straight-laced father, police officer Jefferson Davis (Bryan Tyree Henry) doesn't like (gay people) Spider-Man.

Time out:  who decided to name a black guy after the President of the Confederacy?

Miles (realizes that he's gay) is bit by a radioactive spider, joins a gym (gets muscular overnight), and excretes sticky webs  (you figure it out).

He sneaks out to visit his Uncle Aaron (Mahershala Ali, who played a gay character in Green Book and the father of a gay kid in Moonlight).

Aaron is estranged from Dad because he's (gay) a screw-up.  He gives Miles lessons on how to talk to girls (guys): hand on shoulder, intense gaze, sultry "Hey."

Spider-Man dies, and Miles must take his place.  He negotiates high school, not telling anyone that he is (gay) the new Spider-Man, wishing that he wasn't the only (gay person) Spider-Man in the world.

Due to a space-time vortex created by the (heteronormative) Big Bad, Spider-People living in alternate worlds  are swept away from home and  end up in Miles' world.

Miles bonds with Peter B. Parker (Jake Johnson), a middle-aged Spider-Man who married his girlfriend Mary Jane, but now is divorced because he is (gay) a screw-up.

The other (gay people) Spider-People include Gwen Stacey, a (lesbian) female Spider-Man; Spider-Man Noir, from a film noir world; Peter Porker, aka Spider-Ham; and Peni Parker, a girl from a distant future world.

The  (gay club) secret Spider-Man group works together to defeat the (heteronormative) Big Bad and (assimilate) get back to their home dimensions.

Miles now accepts his role as a Spider-Man (gay person).  Still in disguise, he rushes up and hugs his Dad, who is shocked by his (gay) affection. Dad says "I don't approve of your (lifestyle) methods, but I respect you."

Miles concludes:  "When I feel alone, like no one understands what I'm going through (as a gay teen), I remember my friends who get it. I never thought I'd be able to do any of this stuff, but I can. Anyone can (be gay) wear the mask. You could (be gay) wear the mask. If you didn't know that before, I hope you do now. Because I'm (gay)  Spider-Man. And I'm not the only one. Not by a long shot."

The 10 Ultimate Hunks of the Ultimate Spider-Man

I was never a big superhero fan to begin with, and Spider-Man was at the bottom of my list.  He's got a crush on a girl, his name has a stupid hyphen, and the 1970s tv series had an awful theme song:

Is he strong?  Listen, bud...he's got radioactive blood.

And I walked out of the 2003 Spiderman during the first scene, when Peter Parker, narrating, insists that "Like all stories, this story is about [a boy and] a girl."  Horrifying heterosexism!

But I may have to rethink my anti-Spidey sentiments.

The Ultimate Spiderman (2012-), an animated series on Disney XD, has a teenage Peter Parker being trained by the Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (I don't know what they are, either).

During his adventures, Peter encounters teenage versions of just about every superhero in the Marvel Universe, mostly being voiced by uber-muscular actor/models. The 10 Ultimate Hunks are:

1. Drake Bell (top photo), formerly of the gay-subtext heavy Drake and Josh, as Peter Parker.

2.Ogie Banks as Luke Cage (the African-American Hero for Hire of 1970s comics).

3. Greg Cipes as Danny Rand, aka Iron Fist.

4. Matt Lanter (left) of 90210 as Harry Osborn, Peter's best friend, destined to become his nemesis, the Green Goblin

5. Logan Miller (left) as Sam Alexander, aka Nova.

6. Travis Willingham as the blond god Thor.

7. Roger Craig Smith as 1940s Superhero Captain America

8. Oded Fehr as some sort of mummy superhero.

9. Bodybuilder Terry Crews, formerly of Everybody Hates Chris, as Blade.

10. Disney teen hunk Ross Lynch as my favorite Marvel comics character, gay-coded werewolf Jack Russell, Werewolf by Night.


See also: Bring on the Spider-Men.

Bring on the Spider-Men

I'm not a big fan of superheroes in general, and Spider-Man is at the bottom of my list.  I walked out on the first movie (2002) starring Tobey Maguire, and I've never seen The Ultimate Spider-Man, in spite of its 10 Ultimate Hunks.

So the Broadway musical Spider-Man: Turn Off the Night (2011-2014) was not high on my must-see list.

It was one of the most expensive musicals in history, riddled with production accidents (Spidey has a lot of web-swinging to do).

It was panned by critics, who complained that it combined the worst set-pieces of the 2002  with pretentious Greek-chorus stuff, and ignores Spidey's comic book origins.

It was certainly heterosexist, with Mary Jane being captured and melting into Spidey's arms every five minutes.

But it has something that the comic book never had:  multiple Spider-Men.

You need a lot for all the stunts, and because they keep getting injured.

Spider-Men include man-mountains like Matthew Wilkas (top photo), Reed Kelly (left), Adam Ray Dyer (below).










Jake Odmark, Justin Matthew Sargent, Matthew James Thomas, Marcus Bellamy, and on and on and on....






And the Spider-Men's costumes seem particularly bulge-worthy.  Apparently being bitten by a radioactive spider adds considerable bulk beneath the belt.  How many can you count in this curtain call of four Spidermen sans mask?

How about now, with nine Spidermen strutting their stuff on Times Square?

New productions are being planned for major cities in America and Europe, so you may yet have a chance to gawk at your Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Men.

Matthew James Thomas and Company: The Bulging Biceps of Spider-Man

Mathew James Thomas is best known for playing the alternate lead in Spider-Man: Turn off the Dark on Broadway (2011-2012).  I didn't go as a matter of principle -- I hate Peter Parker in any incarnation.  But I understand that his costume was the most bulgeworthy since Burt Ward's tights on the old Batman tv series (scroll down to see it).

He's also displayed his very tight, hard physique elsewhere, in Pippin (both on Broadway and at the A.R.T. in Boston), Fame, Romeo and Juliet, and Dorian Gray, a musical version of the gay-subtext Oscar Wilde classic.

He hasn't done a lot of movies, but you can see him in Billy Elliott (as a gay kid that Billy beats up) and About a Boy.

And on tv in Bad Girls, Trevor's World of Sports, Doctors, Genie in the House, and Midsomer Murders.

He starred in the Fame clone Brittania High (2008) as Jez, a rich kid who befriends street dancer BB, with the gay subtexts usual in such teen soaps.

Ok, ready for the Spider-Man costume?

 Explain how that got past the censors.

Of course, the other two guys who played Spider-Man, Matt Caplan and Reeve Carney (below), are equally bulgeworthy.  Maybe it'st the costumes.