Spider Echoes

I found myself watching Sam Raimi's first Spider-Man movie late Friday night. Few movies have such a uniquely time capsule quality. It's impossible not to think of 9/11 when watching it, even though it was mostly filmed before 9/11. That was kind of crucial to what became its function for a few months after the attacks; Americans needed to see something that affirmed their identity outside of how the attacks were poised to newly define the country. So something like Spider-Man was well suited to the task because it was made innocent of the influence of that event. Of course, shots were removed and shots were added, I don't know which ones. I always assumed the crowd on the bridge, shouting about how if you mess with one New Yorker you mess with all of them. And the shot of Spider-Man by the American flag at the end. It's hard to imagine such a sense of unity in the U.S. to-day.

The film is also a product of its time in that it's one of the last unabashed heterosexual male fantasy superhero movies (even if it is quite campy). Mary Jane is there to be rescued in her wet t-shirt, and quite happy to reward Peter with a kiss for saving her life. You don't even generally see low cut tops on women in superhero movies anymore. I thought Zendaya was basically asexual based on her appearance in the new Spider-Man movies, then I saw her wearing some kind of dominatrix robot costume at a fashion show recently. Actresses still routinely wear skimpy dresses on the red carpet that look like they were designed by Frank Frazetta while they're promoting movies where they dress like Mr. Rogers. Considering how popular the first two Raimi movies were with women, it seems it's not only heterosexual men who are pleased by the heterosexual male fantasy. All this used to be obvious but the rumoured, upcoming retooling of the MCU, to steer it away from unprofitable woke messaging, seems like they're trying to get a rusty brontosaurus sculpture to walk.

So, yes, that first Spider-Man movie holds up really well. It's a shame about the masks. The one big improvement in the Tom Holland movies is that they made Spider-Man's mask animated so that he has expressions. Green Goblin certainly could've used something like that. Having Willem Defoe flying around bare-faced in No Way Home was an improvement but an expressive mask would've been better, not to mention closer to the comics.

Spider-Man is available on Disney+.