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mrsspidermanmaryjanewatsonparker · 6 years

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Part of the reason people regard the Spider Marriage as bad and the stories set during it as bad, and those stories being bad because Spider-Man was married during them is because...of the Titanic.

No not the actual ship, I mean the movie from the 1990s. Er...you may have heard of it.

I hate MovieBob, but in one of his videos about it he brought up some excellent points regarding the movie pertinent to what I’m trying to say. Start at 12:23. I don’t know if I agree 100% with everything but the broad points I do.

youtube

tl:dr version: People hated the movie Titanic because it was a movie with a lot of romance (and other stuff) in it and romance is typically perceived as being enjoyed by women, therefore it’s bad.

And therein I think lies the issue with the Spider Marriage’s negative perception.

It opened up more focus to a female character, it naturally invited in her perspective from time to time and the innate nature of the protagonist being married was a status quo which meant more romantic moments and subplots cropped up, as well as the dreaded ‘relationship drama’ bogeyman.

All of which meant there was basically more ‘girly crap’ in Spider-Man now.

Now sure. Titanic was a story two young people falling in love. The Spider-Marriage wasn’t that. And people didn’t seem to have as much of a problem before or after it whenever Spider-Man was falling in love, or other heroes like Daredevil.

It’s a false equivalency.

But hear me out on this.

YEAH that’s all true buuuuuuut...I don’t think Spider-Man or other male heroes entering one relationship after another was framed the same way as the relationship central to Titanic.*

See I think, whether intentional or not or whether deserving or not, the way those types of relationships got perceived by a lot of people was as the male heroes being bad ass Bond-esque character who had plenty of romantic notches on their belt.

I’m not saying that’s how the creators intended things to be taken. I think every creator wanted their girlfriend to stick frankly.

But if you were an older fan of the time you might’ve looked at the big picture as ‘Yeah bro. Spidey’s getting laid with all these smoking babes!”

And when he just has to settle on one, the fact that he’s not getting a succession of multiple ‘smoking babes’ rubbed people the wrong way.

But not nearly as much as the state of permanence earned by the marriage meaning that instead of seeing the male hero gradually work towards a new conquest, maybe enjoy it for awhile, then the series setting it’s sights on a new conquest, it actually had to explore the intricacies of their relationship, and most poignantly had to treat Mary Jane as (comparatively) more of an equal character to Peter, a pseudo co-star.

And both those things fall under the same banner of that ‘girly crap’ with Titanic, in spite of all the sex and lingerie scenes (admittedly, fewer than history will have you believe).

And that’s why the goal posts get moves when people judge Marriage era stories. Even though the romance/relationship writing might be on a craftsmanship level superior to whatever bullshit happened in BND/Slott’s run, because it’s ‘girly crap’ instead of ‘yeah Spidey’s gettin’ laid bruh’, it’s treated as crap. A story in that era needs to be as great as Kraven’s Last Hunt to get a look in, but the most mediocre or below average shlock coughed out during Brand New Day or Slott’s run (like Grim Hunt or Unscheduled Stop) will either not receive similar scrutiny or else will be hailed as a neo-classic.

*You know...aside from the obvious differences between a serialised comic book format between the 1960s-1980s and a singular live action Hollywood movie in 1997(?)

#Spider-Man #mjwatsonedit #mary jane watson #Mary Jane Watson Parker #MJ Watson #peter parker #Kraven's Last Hunt #Brand New Day #Dan Slott #Titanic #Titanic 1997

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