Okay, circling back to this now that the world's most thoughtful nuanced little hater (me) has had time to think about this beyond "I've said this for nine years and he just admitted it."
I'm not going to spend too much time rehashing the things I said in my Big Homecoming Criticism post, or link to it, because it's old and I would articulate certain things differently now. (You can find it if you want. It's online.) But this is the kind of stuff I've talked about before, where the lack of the origin story at the foundation has created these gigantic cracks and where MCU Spider-Man relies so heavily on the audience bringing their own interpretation to the screen that they refuse to do the actual work themselves, like establishing Uncle Ben's method of death and what that means to Peter, to the point where they had to essentially kill May off to provide Peter with that structure three entire solo movies in. (And even then, I think it's super interesting that May is killed by a villain from a different Spider-Man franchise entirely. Like, the levels of distance here are really fascinating.)
I think what we're dealing with here is kind of three problems wrapped up into one, where we've ended up with Joe Russo just flat out saying "we wanted to do this character but without the foundation that makes the character himself and informs all of his decisions and his worldview, because that would have been a different character."
The MCU doesn't know who Peter Parker is, and it doesn't know who he is because it has never established a clear, written in stone origin for the character. I hate saying this because it makes people who enjoy the MCU defensive, but the point of that statement is not a criticism Tom Holland's portrayal, or anyone's enjoyment of MCU Spider-Man's characterization. The point is that when Spider-Man stories neglect the origin story, they don't know who Peter Parker is, because there is no solid foundation for the character. With Spider-Man in particular, you need to know the details of Uncle Ben's death to understand the ways in which Peter thinks, acts, and navigates his world.
It's ironic that Russo is the one saying this, because Captain America: Civil War did actually hint, vaguely, at Peter feeling responsible for the loss of Uncle Ben, although in such a way that, in hindsight, it does sound like he could really be talking about anything. Still, it was an acknowledgment that its Peter, at the time of the film, felt some sort of responsibility over his previous actions, although stated very simplistically. I've said before that I don't think CACW is a bad introduction to an inexperienced version of Spider-Man brought into an established universe, and that line was part of the reason why. (To the anon in my inbox who brought up the What If issue, that the series has implied the opposite of Russo's statement several times -- I can't speak to that, because I haven't seen the animated What If, but I'm reluctant to hold it to a different standard than I would comic book What Ifs, which is that they are in relationship to the canon they're based on but not beholden to it, and vice versa. But that is interesting in that it implies at least some differences in thought in the creative room.)
But that thread was abandoned as soon as Spider-Man: Homecoming came out. The logic that was presented at the time was that, because everyone already knows Uncle Ben dies, it didn't have to be seen or spoken about, which was -- always a really shaky premise in my opinion, but sure, let's say that because everyone knows Uncle Ben died, we didn't have to dedicate a huge amount of time to the subject. Certainly not the nearly forty minutes it takes The Amazing Spider-Man (2012) to kill him off. (I'm a fan of the forty minutes to kill the old man approach, but it is a large chunk of the film. I can see why other people might dislike its slow approach.) So let's say you don't have to show Uncle Ben's death. Okay, I agree with that theoretically. The thing you can't do is gloss over it entirely because then you're left with a story wherein, essentially, Uncle Ben doesn't exist at all. Not in any way that matters.
The common comparison is Batman. You don't do a version of Batman whose parents are alive and well down at the country club. You don't do a version of Batman where there is any doubt his parents are dead, and that this is the defining moment of his origin. This does not mean you need to show the Waynes being murdered, but it does mean you have to keep that murder in mind in your design of the character of Bruce Wayne. You cannot let the audience be unsure that this murder happened, and you cannot depend solely on the general knowledge that Batman's parents were murdered to carry that element of your storytelling for you. Spider-Man works the same way.
You don't have to show Uncle Ben's death, but you do have to show the weight of it, and you have to acknowledge that the circumstances in which Ben died matter to who Peter is as a person and a vigilante. You have to know how it happened as a storyteller. Look at Spider-Man: Noir, which is a successful Spider-Man series that absolves Peter of the responsibility of his uncle's murder. It happens significantly before Peter gains his powers and there's nothing Peter could do about it. There are significant characterization consequences for Noir Peter because of this. Noir Peter has no compunctions about killing. Noir Peter uses a gun because Uncle Ben wasn't shot. There is a very clear cause and effect that happens because the origin was shifted. Because we don't know how Uncle Ben died in the MCU, we can't see the impact it had on Peter. With or without that responsibility, we can't see it because the filmmakers are undecided on what they want to do with it an entire four solo movies in. We can't see that impact because the MCU doesn't know what it is. It's missing that foundation and the building is shaking because of it.
2. The Uncomfortable Emotions Problem: Guilt and Responsibility
This one I think is less of a problem with the MCU and even Spider-Man in general and more of a storytelling problem right now -- but because Spider-Man is a story that is always being retold, obviously it's going to fall victim to it. The issue is the lack of a desire or willingness to let the audience sit with more uncomfortable emotions.
Joe Russo says, "[But] what Tom Holland is as an actor, if he blamed himself for his Uncle Ben's death, I think he becomes a very different character. So in our minds, no, he wasn't responsible for Uncle Ben's death. That would have been a different interpretation. A more intense interpretation of the character." And what he's essentially saying is that that "intense" interpretation of the character was undesirable, because of that emotion -- the weight of Peter feeling responsible for Uncle Ben's death.
When I talk about uncomfortable emotions here, I'm not talking about negative or "bad" emotions in general. There's a lot of fun in watching a fictional character suffer, or cry, or be hurt. We love to watch a little fictional person be sad. There's entire genres dedicated to that. It's a worldwide hobby to watch your little meow meow get whumped. And MCU Peter is allowed to be whumped, and cry, and generally experience things that let the audience feel bad for him. What he's not allowed to experience are the foundational emotions of Spider-Man, which is the responsibility and the weight of his own potential. It's not just that Peter has to be responsible in general. It's that Peter has to be more responsible than the average person because he has more power and the ability to both do more harm and do more good than the average person. And traditionally, 616 Spider-Man takes an extraordinarily personal approach to showcasing that -- both through Uncle Ben's death and through Peter's devotion to Aunt May.
This has always been a problem with MCU Spider-Man, right down to the way Spider-Man: Homecoming recontextualizes the scene where Peter is trapped under the rubble from Amazing Spider-Man #33.
"I must prove equal to the task -- I must be worthy of that strength -- or else, I don't deserve it!"
This scene is crucial to Spider-Man. It's not the origin of Spider-Man, but it is is like, the Bar Mitzvah of Spider-Man. This is him becoming a man, owning that responsibility. Where he failed to save one parent, he has to summon all his strength to save the other. It's very much a scene about his relationship to May and Ben, and about his relationship to his powers, and Ditko does it all without taking Peter's mask off, because we don't need to see his face to feel what he's feeling in this scene.
In Homecoming's version, Peter's mask is off. We see his face. The audience is allowed to wallow in his distress and panic. It's the definition of whump, which I think is why it worked for a lot of people. But there's no outside impetus here, there's no emotion besides Feeling Bad For Poor Peter Parker. Crucially, this scene isn't about Aunt May in the MCU, May who would later be killed off in the MCU's third Spider-Man installment. We don't need him to get up because he has something incredibly personal to do, because he needs to save May -- something MCU Peter will ultimately fail at in part because they never established him failing Ben and needed to replicate that with the only parental figure available. We don't need him to get up because he feels he needs to redeem himself for something he didn't do before. We only need him to get up because he's in pain, and small, and we feel bad for him. He needs to get up because he's the main character, not because he has to save Aunt May. It's a simple scene, with simple emotions. And I'm not arguing whether or not it's an effective piece of filmmaking -- clearly that scene hit a lot of people hard. I'm saying that it's an inherently shallower version of the original scene that removes the more complicated emotions. We feel bad for Peter, and feeling bad for fictional characters is very simple entertainment. We all love to do it. But we don't require him to own anything in the process.
Removing the notion that Peter feels responsibility for Uncle Ben's death works in similar ways. Guilt and responsibility are not fun emotions. I think it's really interesting that Russo says that he loves this character, and that he identifies that feeling of responsibility, the idea that you do this one thing in a thoughtless moment and your life is changed forever and it's your fault and you can't take it back and all you can do is let it shape you going forward, and he empathizes with it. But that it's too "intense." He pulls away from it. It's easier this way. And in pulling back from that responsibility, he doesn't let the audience experience it, either. I think that's really interesting, but it's also symptomatic of a bigger problem: when he says he loves Peter Parker, does he just love the image of Spider-Man, or does he love the character of Peter Parker with all of his flaws.
3. The "Do You Even Like Spider-Man" Problem
Peter Parker is a complicated character. I would say that he's sometimes a difficult character. He can be petty, mean, a jerk, angry, obnoxious, controlling -- and that's what balances how good he is, and what makes him such a great character. He's never been the gee whillickers type. He's always been kind of a bitch. He's a character deeply rooted in a region and a culture and he is not easily interchangeable. When he's called an everyman, it's because he has problems that are supposed to be easy for the average person to understand -- he's not a fabulously rich billionaire by day living a dangerous secret life under the cover of his socialite schedule. Those characters are good, too, and they serve a purpose. But Peter worrying about money and his elderly relative and how he was going to explain to his girlfriend why he missed their date serve a purpose, too.
Peter isn't meant to be relatable in that he's just like you -- but he is supposed to have problems that the general audience can relate to, whether it's money problems, or the responsibility of older relatives. You know, it matters that he worries about Aunt May's bills and whether she can afford her medication and what happens if she gets sick. When you strip both the big and the little responsibilities away from Peter, you end up with a different character. Which is, apparently, what Russo intended, or at least that's what he's saying. A less intense version of Peter isn't Peter. It might be a good, enjoyable character, but it isn't the same one, and that's a problem.
I think, and I've said this before, that not every character needs to be for every person. There are plenty of popular characters out there that I just don't enjoy. It's not because they're bad characters, necessarily, but they just don't do it for me personally. But because Peter Parker gets identified as the Relatable Superhero, there's this idea of this sort of ownership of him. He has to relate to you, instead of the other way around. So if there are difficult things about his personality -- his sharp edges, or the devastating weight of the responsibility he feels -- then those have to be sanded down for a wider appeal. But when you sand down the character, you end up with just a mannequin. When you remove the responsibility, you remove the key facet of Peter Parker.
"So much responsibility. It's not fair." (Spectacular Spider-Man v2 #14) Longtime Traincat followers knew this reference was coming, but it's so key to understanding the character. It's not fair. It's never going to be fair. But when you overidentify with the character, you start wanting things to be easier for him -- to be gentler. But that's not who he is, and it's never going to be who he is, and trying to make it who he is renders him a different character entirely. People want to like Peter Parker, but without all the difficult aspects that make him Peter Parker.
"That would have been a different interpretation. A more intense interpretation of the character." The issue is always that people want the idea of who they want Peter Parker to be, and not the established character. The difficult, responsible, intense version. I think it's really fascinating, and it also makes me want to take to the sea.
