spider fail

One actor wanted this beloved Spider-Man character to be queer. Marvel nixed the idea.

Marissa Tomei in Spider-Man: No Way Home

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.”

Related: Tom Holland says Spider-Man should be gay because “the world isn’t as simple as a straight white guy”

“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.

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.

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