The Pros and Cons of the New Spider-Man Casting

By Elana Goodwin on July 3, 2015

Last week, Marvel and Sony Pictures announced they had cast 19-year-old Tom Holland as the new Spider-Man.

The character of Spider-Man had previously been owned solely by Sony Pictures as Marvel sold the company the feature rights to the comic book figure back in 1999. Now, the two studios will work together as Spider-Man goes through a reboot at Marvel.

Photo Credit: Sony

Besides rebooting Spider-Man so he can star in his own film in July 2017, Marvel also plans to utilize the web-slinger in their other upcoming superhero films, and it’s assumed he will most immediately appear in Marvel’s “Captain America: Civil War” which will be released in May 2016.

Holland, the teenage Brit cast as the new Spidey, is a relative unknown. His biggest role so far was as Naomi Watts’ son in the 2012 film ”The Impossible.” He’s also set to star alongside “Thor” actor Chris Hemsworth in “In the Heart of the Sea” which is set to be released this December. And while he’s a perfectly fine choice to play Peter Parker, especially as Marvel plans to have Parker be school-aged, he’s a predictable and not very inspired choice.

Fans of Spider-Man and Marvel had been hopeful prior to the casting announcement that perhaps the new Spider-Man actor would be black, or that maybe Marvel would change the comic book hero’s sexuality so he was gay. A call for more diversity in casting and characterization was made by many, and many were disappointed at the news that Spider-Man would again be white, and Marvel had no plans to make him gay.

Stan Lee, the character’s creator, agreed with this decision, as he said that, “I wouldn’t mind, if Peter Parker had originally been black, a Latino, an Indian or anything else, that he stay that way. But we originally made him white. I don’t see any reason to change that.”

The same idea was behind Lee agreeing Peter Parker should remain heterosexual, as that was the way the character was orginally written.

“I think the world has a place for gay superheroes, certainly,” Lee said. “But again, I don’t see any reason to change the sexual proclivities of a character once they’ve already been established. I have no problem with creating new, homosexual superheroes.”

Marvel has in the past been criticized for their lack of female characters getting their own individual movies and misogyny, as well as racism and homophobia.

Instead of Holland, numerous fans were eager to see black actor-rapper Donald Glover, who starred on the TV comedy “Community” and has released several hit rap albums under the stage name “Childish Gambino,” take over as Peter Parker or play Spider-Man as Miles Morales, the popular biracial version of Spider-Man depicted in the comic books.

Glover would’ve been the perfect actor to play the superhero; he’s got the comedic chops and timing as proven on “Community,” which would come in handy for those Marvel movie one-liners. Additionally, he would’ve added some much needed diversity to the superheroes cast.

Tom Holland
Photo Credit: celebuzz.com

However, a memo from Sony about the Spider-Man licensing agreement was published by Gawker and revealed that the character has to “conform to … Mandatory Character Traits,” which happen to include being a straight white male. Additionally, the hero doesn’t torture, curse, smoke, use or sell drugs, imbibe alcohol, have sex before he’s 16, and also only kills in self-defense.

Given those rules, it was impossible for us to get a black or gay Spider-Man, and whether Marvel can really be blamed for this is debatable, but it doesn’t negate their past casting decisions and characterizations.

Ultimately, while there are quite a few cons to Holland being named the new Spider-Man, there are also a few pros to the casting decision. Firstly, that Marvel plans for Spider-Man to be high school-aged, and Holland is indeed a teenager. Rarely do we see this kind of authentic casting; instead, we see 20- and 30-year olds playing teens (and failing pretty miserably). I don’t think a single cast member of the “High School Musical” movies or the TV show “Friday Night Lights” were teens and that makes it hard for audience members to buy in to their stories as they don’t really look like teens either.

Secondly, as a virtual unknown, Holland has the opportunity to establish himself with this role, and since many audience members haven’t ever seen him in a film before, they won’t be thinking, “hey, that guy was in that movie and now he’s Spidey?!” For example, I was thinking Mark Ruffalo was that guy from “13 going on 30″ who danced to “Thriller” with Jennifer Garner when I first saw him as The Hulk in “Avengers.” Same for “Avengers’” Hawkeye, played by Jeremy Renner, who I knew from “The Hurt Locker.”

As Holland’s first starring role, and as such a huge and well-known character, he’ll have his work cut out for him if he wants to be remembered as he’s already the third white Spider-Man in the last 10 or so years, coming after Tobey Maguire and Andrew Garfield.

So while Tom Holland may be a somewhat boring and safe choice for Marvel to cast as Spider-Man, let’s hope he brings something new and different to the role and wins fans over as the new Spidey; he’s definitely going to need to put his own spin (like spiders spin a web, get it?) on the infamous hero.

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