A film studies graduate student ruins Spider-Man

My spidey sense is tingling

In the summer of 2002 Sony Pictures released the highly anticipated adaptation of the popular comic book series Spider-Man.  The film, staring Tobey Maguire and directed by Evil Dead alum Sam Raimi, would go on to smash box office records and usher in a new era of superhero driven cinema.   While many passed off the movie as “popcorn fare”  others saw it as something more.

While the film does brush up against such intriguing topics as the military-industrial complex post 9/11 and the effects a non-traditional family has on adolescence, the most gripping storyline involves young Peter Parker.

At the onset of the film Parker is a social outcast.  Yes, he is a “nerd,” but he is also awkward around girls and ridiculed by his fellow classmates.  While Parker is a brilliant burgeoning scientist, this is overshadowed by his inability to woo classmate and neighbor Mary Jane Watson.  During a field trip to a science museum, Parker is bitten by a genetically altered spider, and things begin to change.

On the surface, the rest of the story follows Parker as he gains new powers and new notoriety as the aforementioned Spider-Man.  However, the subtext of the film revolves around Parker’s budding adolescence and how he deals with his onsetting masculinity.

Parker, after all, is a teenager, and the movie deals with the awkward changes of puberty on a grandiose scale.  For example, one day Parker discovers that his body produces a sticky grey substance.  He then proceeds to spend hours in his room forcing his aunt and uncle to wonder aloud what he does up there all the time.  In one particularly entertaining sequence, Parker’s Uncle Ben goes up to Peter’s room because he has been hearing a lot of noise.  When he knocks on the door to ask what Peter is up to, the director cuts to Parker sitting in his room with a sheepish grin on his face and “web” hanging everywhere.   All masturbation allusions aside, the filmmakers use Parker’s “web-slinging” ability to illustrate that a change has taken place.

Another way the filmmakers use Parker’s changes to assert his masculinity is in his interactions with his fellow classmates.  During lunch one day, Parker’s new abilities seem to be going haywire, and he accidentally incurs the wrath of the school cool guy/bully.  In what has traditionally been considered a rite of passage since the dawn of man, a fight breaks out.  Yes, Parker wins quite handily, but he also scares himself and the people around him.

This forces him to make a costume, or, in effect, forces him to hide his masculinity.  He does this for several reasons.  As mentioned earlier, Parker is confused and afraid of his new “self.”  By creating a costume Parker can seamlessly transition from one identity to another.  In other words, he can grow into a man while still reverting back to the more familiar teenaged state.  Another reason Parker creates another identity for himself is so that he can reintroduce himself to the world.  Everyone around him already knows “Peter Parker,” and they all have preconceived notions of who he is.  By taking on the Spider-Man identity, Parker can overcome those precoceived notions.

Nowhere is this more clear than in his relationship with Mary Jane.  After pining after Mary Jane his entire life, it isn’t until he becomes Spider-Man that she even notices him.  In fact, she falls in love with Spider-Man an entire movie before she falls in love with Peter Parker.  Again, Parker uses the Spider-Man moniker to overcome people’s, in the case Mary Jane, preconcieved notions about Peter Parker.

At least he didn't buy a motorcycle.

While Parker becomes more familiar with his new identity, both as Spider-Man and an adult male, his friend’s father Norman Osborne is going through a similar change.  Osborne is a successful industrialist who, among other things, develops weapons for the military.  His most recent contract calls for the development for a super soilder.  After several failed attempts to create this soilder, the government and OsCorp (Norman’s own company), decide to fire Osborne.

Osborne has spent his life developing this company and being removed from it emasculates him.  Where he was once a successful captain of industry, he is a now a failure who can’t even control his own company.  In what can only be described as a mid-life crisis on steroids, Osborne infuses himself with the super soilder formula and becomes the Green Goblin.

Much like Parker becomes Spider-Man do deal with his newly gained masculinty, Osborne becomes the Green Goblin to show everyone that he is still a man.  What ensues for the rest of the movie is a battle bewtween the two over who can rightfully inhabit their new male form.

In essence, the battle between Parker and Osborne is generational as well as timeless.  Osborne and his Goblin represent the old guard trying to maintain their status in a changing word, while Peter and Spider-Man represent the new guard trying to make a name for itself.  This is a classic power struggle between generations represented in everything from King Lear to George Lucas’ Star Wars.

In the end, Peter and Spider-Man win.  By defeating the Green Goblin, Parker establishes his “right to masculinity.”  He has suffered through a trial, and he has emerged victorious.  Much like the Sioux Indians made the young boys in the tribe kill a buffalo before they could be considered men, Peter had to defeat the the Green Goblin to prove to himself and the world that he belonged in this new, masculine world.  Peter Parker began the movie Spider-Man as a boy, but in the end–he is a man.