With Spider-Man: No Way Home continuing to rake in the box office haul all over the world, one of the film’s leading actors has spoken out about her wish to make her beloved character queer.
Oscar-winning actress Marissa Tomei now says she lobbied Marvel and Sony to let her character, Aunt May, to have a girlfriend. Tomei also says she had the idea after actor Tom Holland unsuccessfully lobbied to make Peter Parker/Spider-Man gay.
“At one point, this was before the idea of Happy [Aunt May’s on-screen boyfriend, played by Jon Faverau] showed up, there was a moment where I felt that maybe she should just be with a woman because like, Ben is gone and who should she be with?” Tomei told Geeks of Color. “And we were kind of talking about it. I actually really wanted [producer] Amy Pascal from Sony to be my girlfriend.”
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“I was like, ‘No one even has to know, Amy’, and I’ll just be in a scene and you’ll be over there and I’ll just be like, ‘Hey!’ It’ll just be like a subtle thing,” the actress added.
Before the idea of Happy and Aunt May came to be, Marisa Tomei said she wanted Aunt May to have a girlfriend. #SpiderManNoWayHome
Full interview: https://t.co/4WWDIp0zqG pic.twitter.com/BJSVcbMTxR
— Geeks of Color #BlackLivesMatter (@GeeksOfColor) December 19, 2021
In the comic book source material, Aunt May has been portrayed as heterosexual, as the widow of Ben Parker, Peter Parker’s uncle.
Tomei’s comments follow years of outcry from fans over a lack of LGBTQ representation in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Earlier this year, the juggernaut franchise finally introduced the gay superhero Phastos (Brian Tyree Henry) in Eternals.
sfhairy
Can we just stop trying to make every character gay FFS?
Jaquelope
They’re not trying to make EVERY character queer, but there need to be some, especially since the comics have queer characters coming out of the closet.
Bosch
List of characters made gay :
1) She-Ra
Wow that was a long list. I can see why you’re upset.
BigJohnSF
Not gay, but “queer” – you know, perverted, deviant, weird. It’s sad to me how much attention gay men pay to comic book movies. They are generally crap.
sfhairy
Has Spider-man or Aunt May ever been gay in the comics? No. I do not watch or read comics for gay representation. There are already some great gay superhero’s. Focus on Iceman, Northstar, or Hulkling. Not a character that was never written as gay.
IJelly
Your right. I mean there are literally hundreds of characters in the Marvel Universe so why shouldn’t every single one of them be heterosexual, That seems fair. Who doesn’t wNt to live in a world where queer people don’t exist.
Creamsicle
I think it was the right call jot to give Auntay a girlfriend. Mostly because they whole point of her relationship with Peter is that they’re the only family the other has. Aunt May’s continued dedication to her late husband and to Peter is why Peter was willing to make a deal with Mephisto in the One more Day event.
Spider-Man’s character needs things like this to root him in his place of being a street-level hero while also being powerful enough to be involved in big crossover events.
Peter Parker COULD use his connections with Stark Industries and S.H.I.E.L.D. to help his friends and family achieve a more successful life, but it would change the nature of the character too much, and lose all its appeal. Fans have been questioning Peter Parker’s poverty for decades just based on his web shooters alone. Real spider silk shooters like his would revolutionize construction and material science.
Osterfool
“Tomei also says she had the idea after actor Tom Holland unsuccessfully lobbied to make Peter Parker/Spider-Man gay.”
If by “unsuccessfully lobbied” you mean reply in a Sunday Times interview that he would be down with a gay Spider-Man and adding “But I do know a lot about the future of Marvel, and they are going to be representing lots of different people in the next few years. The world isn’t as simple as a straight white guy. It doesn’t end there, and these films need to represent more than one type of person.”