Donald Glover (Community) wants to audition for the role of Spider-Man in the upcoming reboot. He’s got some obstacles:
- There is already a short list of actors being considered.
- Spidey has always been a white guy. Glover is black.
However, the prospect of Glover as Spidey has gained some online steam. The Twitter hashtag #donald4spiderman was the third highest trending topic in the US one day last week. The obligatory Facebook campaign page is up to over 11,000 fans. And now, Stan Lee has weighed in on the topic (while simultaneously insisting that he’s not weighing in on the topic). His perspective is that Glover is a fine actor and should be able to audition, but a black Spidey may be confusing to people.
Characters have been cast outside of their original ethnicity before. Lee points to Kingpin and Nick Fury as examples of this. And, of course, Jessica Alba was cast as Sue Storm. However, Kingpin and Nick Fury haven’t been title characters in their respective films and Alba was made to look as Caucasian as possible.
Peter Parker is white in the comics and has always been played by white dudes. Should he be cast as white just because the character has always been white? Is Peter Parker’s whiteness an integral part of the character? Does making him black introduce a cultural algebra that doesn’t exist in the story when he’s white?
I read a comment on another site saying that Marvel has 50 years of brand recognition with a white Spider-Man. However, I wonder which actually has the recognition: the blue/red costume or the white face underneath?
What do you think?
Lisa Fary is a graduate of the creative writing program at Florida State University and holds an advanced degree in Special Education. Her earliest influences are Princess Leia, Rainbow Bright, Astronaut Barbie, and her 6th grade teacher, Ms. Palmer. She’s angry that it’s 2010 and she still doesn’t have a hovercraft, but will accept a jetpack as consolation. That jetpack had better be pink with a rhinestone monogram.
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Lisa Fary's earliest influences are Princess Leia, Rainbow Bright, Astronaut Barbie, and her 6th grade teacher, Ms. Palmer. She's angry that it's 2011 and she still doesn't have a hovercraft, but will accept a jetpack as consolation. That jetpack had better be pink with a rhinestone monogram. 
I think the bigger problem is that there are so few black superhero options for Donald to play! We don't need him playing Spider-Man. What we NEED is to create more superheroes that are more representative of the diversity of NYC! Donald Glover shouldn't have to play Spider-Man to be a superhero. There should be more black superheroes for him to choose from.
Donald should start bulking up so that, in a couple of years, he can play Luke Cage, who's way more badass than Spider-Man ANYWAY. Or let's not forget the Black Panther. Well, the old Black Panther. New Black Panther is a chick. Kerry Washington??
Lastly, comics are a visual medium, and the movies work best when they adopt the look of the comics as well as the story. The characters in comics-based movies, more than in other adaptations, need to LOOK like the source material. It's just sad that there's no one in the source material who looks like Donald Glover. THAT'S the real problem. And I think the #donald4spiderman thing takes the focus off that….
I don't think any aspect of his typical whiteness is an integral part of Peter Parker's character. I'm all for Glover playing Spidey!
I would love him as Spider-Man. He's one of the funniest cast members on Community, and he has this geek chic vibe that would really dovetail nicely with Peter Parker's character. Also, he's ONE MILLION times better looking than Tobey McGuire (there, I said it).
Also, re: Sue Storm: I hated, HATED! that they made Alba wear those blue contact lenses. Hated! It was so ridiculous.
I agree!
I'm not a redneck hayseed. Therefore, I wouldn't be confused. I hope Donald Glover gets the part—but he won't. This is still a racist world. "Marvel has 50 years of brand recognition with a white Spider-Man." And there's a lot of fans from back 50 years. Racist fans.
I hope in the future a lot of white guys audition for "black" parts and vice-versa. The only way plow jockeys snap out of their hysterical rage is to give'em a swift kick in the tender vittles.
While ultimately I agree with Teresa, I personally have no issue with Peter Parker being black. In fact, I'd be rather interested to see if and how that changes the dynamic of the film. My worry would be the producer/director/casting team feeling obliged to hire an "ethnic" (whatever that means) Mary Jane to "round out the film."
So true. Ugh! It's a racist world, I tells ya!
Actually that would make me happier about the change. Example, I read an interview w/America Ferrara about life after Ugly Betty and what her career as a Latina actress has been like, and she told a story of a movie she was up for, where they wanted to offer her the part, but they had to see who they were going to cast as a lead dude, because if he was going to be a Latino actor, they wouldn't cast her – because God Forbid you have TWO minority actors heading up a film. Also, the tendency in film and on TV is to have interracial couples to show how oh-so-diverse and open-minded the project is. But, I mean, sometimes *looks over shoulders* PEOPLE OF THE SAME RACE DATE EACH OTHER!
Also, I just realized that you brought up Nick Fury – and that's different. Nick Fury IS black in the Ultimate Marvel Universe, so that's not changing anything from original source material.
I brought up Nick Fury only because Stan Lee brought him up in his quote.