Given that Zaius brought it up just because of the presumtuous accusation that it is about race, when she would be cool with Zendaya just dying her hair and dealing with this sort of bullshit all the time, shouldn't she get some slack?
After revisiting the post, yes. I am both embarassed and sorry for reblogging that post and especially for what I wrote in the tags. I’ve deleted it to stop spreading that particular misinterpretation further. I should’ve read it more thoroughly. Apologies, doc-Zaius.
On a related note, I agree with Zaius in parts. (Note that The Spectacular Spider-Man cartoon is my primary if not only influence when commenting on this.) The suggested treatment from that interview does make for some red flags. I mean yeah, sure, there’s the possibility that somehow this new take will be so enjoyable in its own right that it’s not really a problem, even if the final product does stray hugely from the source material as she (and I) suspect, but it will still be a problem because the first impression for many fans will be a version of the character that is so perverted from its original form that it can hardly be called a good interpretation of an already established character. There have been fusions in cinema of two established characters that kinda-sorta worked (Fangorn in LotR comes to mind, I refer to the Tom Bombadil quote), but what at a distance sounds like a fusion of MJ and Gwen Stacy sounds very misguided. Especially considering that, at a glance, Mary Jane doesn’t strike me as a character that is that hard to get, at least not for professional movie makers/writers/producers. She is a party girl who knows her boundaries; that means that she quickly detects and respects others boundries and that she speaks her mind when something or someone makes her uncomfortable. She can be emotional without being weak; she can show a variety of emotions including vulnerability without it being a demeaning portrayal of women. She pursues her own interests; she works as a model without it necessarily being a bad thing. And, true enough, the model business is filled to the brim with ugliness, but surely that can be tweaked into another career opportunity that has some of the same spirit without it being a bad role model for girls. And, frankly, as a guy who currently works at a warehouse and is comfortable doing just that, I sometimes get the feeling when watching American movies that you cannot be deemed successful unless you ‘win’ something in a pretty competitive sense. I’m just living my life, man, I can’t hold myself up to fucking Reed Richards wannabies to look for role models. Do I have to be in a traditional, well-payed, so-called successful job to actually be worth something? Do I really need to be that glamorous? (This is related to the thing about pursuing your own interests, just to make it clear.)
You say “some slack” and that’s what I am willing to grant her in this particular matter and her content, because calling the very notion of tweaking Mary Jane into anything else than a wild party girl “slut shaming” and “sexist” because Mary Jane needs to be sleeping around is beyond harsh and beyond reasonable. Making several posts about how Mary Jane not being a red head is missing the point of the entire character is somewhat justifiable but mostly absurd and damn hypocritical. A lot of times over the past I’ve seen her commenting on this and that and being extremely rigid when it comes to changes to characters she likes (like MJ or James Bond). Meanwhile she applauds equally enormous changes done to other characters . And for someone who mocks The Discourse and tumblr’s unfortunate ‘j’accuse’ attitude, she’s damn fond of perpetuating both herself. Which seems to only be right when she’s doing it, somehow; I can’t remember a single post she’s made where she has apologized or retracted her own statements, even after people have reasoned with her. It’s hard to tell just how seriously she takes those opinions of hers, too. And it is just frustrating, because she is obviously a very smart person with very accute reviewing skills, but to get to those parts about her I have to suffer a lot of things that cross the line like this. She’s made or reblogged post after post after post after post that are as larualot89 put it “gross and inflammatory” and in addition wrong. And on those counts, no, I will not let her go easy, because dude, this IS a problem. I don’t know if it’s her Asbergers that makes it genuinely hard for her to see and admit wrong things. (I think she mentioned that she has it at some point.) I don’t know if it’s tied to her ADD. I don’t know if it is part of a condition she struggles to get through, or if it in the end is just her own problems. Whatever it is, I don’t have the patience for it nor do I want to describe it as anything else.
And to make this clear, the last paragraph is not a retraction of the aforementioned apology. I went too far and I shouldn’t have done what I did. I’m not defending my mistake, I’m just trying to answer your question.
