DaveyJoe

There's not much left to the imagination there.

Solid Snake

... Google would state otherwise....

B5Erik

Mary Jane being a redhead is as iconic to her look at Spidey's red and blue suit is to him. Changing it is just a fit of ego on the part of the producer (or comic book artist/writer if they decide to make that kind of change after decades of tradition).

She has ONLY been a redhead, and for over 50 years, no less! You don't just change that for, "Diversity." It's no longer the same character anymore at that point. Liz Allen could be changed far easier since she was only a significant part of the supporting cast for a few years before disappearing (and her reappearances were years apart). So why not make Liz Allen the one to change? Or Betty Brant, for that matter? Betty's a brunette, making her more ethnic wouldn't be much of a stretch.

But Mary Jane? If she's not a redhead that's just stupid.

Face it, NONE of Peter's girlfriends ever had an entrance 1/10 as memorable as this...



(Thank you John Romita Sr. and Stan Lee!)

Super X

While MJ's red hair is striking, it would be pretty sad if that were the primary defining quality of the character without which it was no longer the same character. As such, I have absolutely no problem with the casting as long as the actress embodies the actual personality attributes of the character. It doesn't seem like some people are considering that perhaps that was what resulted in the casting and not, as at least one person seems to be suggesting, checking off a box of diversity requirements.

majorjoe23

So wait, brunettes are closer to ethnic than redheads?

AaronHernandez

Were you saying this when non redhead Kristen Dunst who has been a blonde her entire career aside from the Spiderman roles was cast for the same role?


This Zendeya has starred in her own show and has a fanbase of youngun's so clearly Production thinks highly of her to be the girlfriend role in a comic book movie. If some other non redhead who happened to be Caucasian from Disney or Nickelodeon happened to get cast I wonder if their would be even 1/20th the outrage.

B5Erik

All I'm saying is that she has to have red hair and it has to not look totally phony. That's all.

MJ is and always will be a redhead. You don't just erase 50+ years of character history, "Just because."

majorjoe23

I'm sorry, but there's no way comics MJ is a natural redhead. It's a dye job, for sure.

B5Erik

You don't find many natural redheads other than in Northern Europe (or with people of that descent).

People all over the world have dark hair. So it is a shared trait, regardless of ethnicity or skin color. Whoop-dee-fucking doo.

Can we cut back on the hypersensitivity where every single word someone posts is parsed for potential offensive meanings?

majorjoe23

It's funny, because if I had to point to someone with enhanced hypersensitivity on these issues, I know where my Spidey sense would lead me.

B5Erik

Really? Funny how the PC police attack each and every phrase that could possibly be (mis)construed to be the tiniest bit offensive.

Sometimes a comment is just an observation and not a value judgment. A lot of times, actually.


Bottom line? MJ is a redhead, always has been a redhead, and always should be a redhead. If she's not a redhead she's not Mary Jane Watson. That look is ICONIC. Period.

It would be like changing Superman's suit to a black armored thing without an S on it. It would be stupid, and totally arrogant (and disrespectful to the character's history) on the part of the producer or director making the decision.

Super X

The comics changed Superman's costume at times. He's worn a black costume with a silver S, he's worn the infamous "electric" Superman suit, he's had a mullet, all things which were deviations from the "classic" look. Are you suggesting it's more disrespectful to make changes in one medium than it is in another? If the movies need to slavishly follow the comics, then what's the point of making the movies to begin with?

B5Erik

The comics almost always come back to the iconic looks when they are changed. Those changes never last long.

Over the last 50+ years Mary Jane has ALWAYS been a redhead, and her debut remains one of the most iconic images in comic book history.

It is the height of arrogance and disrespect to change that. Disrespect to long time fans, and disrespect to the characters' creators.

And as to your question, what's the point of making the movies to begin with? TO PUT THE COMIC BOOK ON THE BIG SCREEN. Not to reimagine it. To faithfully adapt one visual medium to another. Come up with a good story and show how the comic book would look with real people doing those things! And make sure that the characters are recognizable as the same characters on the pages of those comic books!

ultimaton

It is memorable because it came after years of buildup, during which Pete (and therefore the audience) actively avoided her because he assumed she was a major uggo and was shocked to see she was beautiful. Her being a redhead isn't what makes that scene. Come on now.

Also, without redhair, she'll be a phony? Ha ha, sure thing Holden.

majorjoe23

I'm sorry that change bothers the sensitive snowflakes of the world. We she treat them all with tender, PC gloves.

movieguru

Those were all done as gimmicks with the intent of going back to the iconic look after the shock value wore off. Changing MJ's ethnicity is done for shock value as well to get people to talk about the movie, etc.

Josh-da-man

She is a natural redhead according to this Frank Cho drawing.



If anyone wants to see the carpet match the drapes, I'll leave it to them to a do a google image search...

B5Erik

She just won't be the real Mary Jane.

No one wants to see Superman wearing a flannel super-suit, and no long time Spider-Man fans want to see Mary Jane without red hair.

As pointed out before, comics are a visual medium and these characters already have strongly indentifiable images. Changing that makes the characters unidentifiable as who they are.

Michael Corvin

I think it has little to do with shock value and more to do with Disney pimping one of their actresses.

fujishig

Did Cho give her Lizard skin or does he just really really like cross hatching these days?

Don't we already have stills from the set where she doesn't have red hair? And it's still not even 100% who she plays, right?

Btw, I thought the picks for Mary Jane for the last couple of franchises stunk anyway, neither of them were what I thought Mary Jane should be. Ironically Bryce Dallas Howard I thought made a good Gwen Stacy (though the movie was a mess) and isn't she a redhead?

Michael Corvin

Yes. They got a blonde to play a redhead and a redhead to play a blonde. Go figure.

ultimaton

You don't speak for me.

B5Erik

OK, fair enough. But you have to admit that there are a lot of people who are tired of seeing producers and director's reimagining characters that mean a lot to them. Reimagining them to the point where they aren't recognizable anymore.

To me, that's just not cool. If you don't want to remain faithful to the source then do something original instead.

Seriously, what's the point of adapting something visual like a comic book to the big screen if it's going to end up unrecognizable anyway? You really might as well come up with something new and original.

The fact that Marvel is signing off on this is no big surprise - the comic end of that company has shit on their long time fans since the mid 90's as far as continuity goes. They had a real strong sense of continuity for about 30 years and then a bunch of egotistical writers and artists thought they knew better than Stan Lee, Jack Kirby, Steve Ditko, John Romita, John Buscema and that group, and they threw that continuity out the window whenever they it suited them.

I had hoped the movie side wouldn't do that. I love the original source material, and in some cases it has never been properly adapted to the big screen (but easily could be).

At this point they could still give her red hair, which she may be able to pull off and make it look good. If that's the case then it's much ado about nothing...

(My reaction was based on comments that I'm reading that indicate that she might not be a redhead, but if she is and it looks good then this is less than a tempest in a teapot.)

fujishig

Something new and original would probably crash and burn, the point is to make money... This is true in movies as well as comic books, where there hasn't been a memorable new non derivative super hero in the big 2 for over 20 years.

I don't think creators threw out continuity, it just became too unwieldy to act like every single story written by every hack writer over the history of these characters mattered... Much easier when you had a handful of books with mild interaction between them, but when you have decades of changing editorial and work for hire writers... Now changing stuff wholesale like Spidey's marriage or the new 52 is crap, but I can at least understand a writer wanting a different status quo, often more similar to the one they grew up a fan of.

Aunt May's defining characteristics are that she's super old and easily fooled, almost senile, but I don't mind them going younger with Tomei (they did this with the cartoon as well). I don't mind so much Mary Jane, I mean if we're going by the comics we wouldn't even see her face until after they graduated, and we'd have Gwen instead, and like I said earlier the choices for her in earlier incarnations have been underwhelming at best. They really just need to get Spidey right first anyhow. But if Jameson doesn't have his 'stache...

Super X

Of course they were gimmicks. Superman is a character who had been around for 50 years at that point. They were trying to find new ways to tell stories with the character. Gimmick or not, if those changes had proved incredibly popular, they'd have lasted longer.

Changing MJ's ethnicity is done for "shock value"? It couldn't have anything to do with the filmmakers finding an actress who fit their interpretation of the character, regardless of ethnicity, could it? It's just a matter of opinion. Clearly, you feel that the character's ethnicity and hair color are defining aspects for that character. I don't.