{"id":131319,"date":"2016-08-19T22:45:03","date_gmt":"2016-08-20T04:45:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2016\/08\/19\/what-makes-a-mary-jane-watson.html"},"modified":"2016-08-19T22:45:03","modified_gmt":"2016-08-20T04:45:03","slug":"what-makes-a-mary-jane-watson","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2016\/08\/19\/what-makes-a-mary-jane-watson.html","title":{"rendered":"What makes a Mary Jane Watson?"},"content":{"rendered":"

MJ is sassy. She's sexy. She's self-confident. She's the jackpot that Peter Parker just hit.<\/p>\n

Nothing in that description, to me, dictates MJ as being any particular race. Being red-headed is pretty iconic, visually, but — well, heck, if Scarlett Johansson can pull off the red-headed Black Widow, I'm pretty sure Zendaya can make that work, too. She's the actress that's been cast as MJ in the new Spider-Man: Homecoming<\/i> film.<\/p>\n

As to her not being as lily-white as John Romita, Sr. first drew her, based on the actress Ann-Margret — I really don't see the problem. I don't think of Mary Jane as Peter's white<\/i> girlfriend. She's his red-headed<\/i> girlfriend, or his model<\/i> girlfriend, or his girlfriend after Gwen Stacy gets killed,<\/i> or even Peter Parker's girlfriend who becomes his wife<\/i> (deals with the devil notwithstanding). <\/p>\n

Maybe it's because I've been seeing so many stage productions — esp. of Shakespeare — where race \/ ethnicity (and, where not germane, gender) has been something ignored in favor of talent and being able to perform as the character<\/i> in question. So, too, I see no barrier to a mixed-race woman being able to capture the sexy, independent, challenging nature of Mary Jane Watson; indeed, a woman who's not what one would expect would fit the role all the better.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

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\n‘SPIDER-MAN: HOMECOMING’S DIVERSE CASTING IS A WIN – “LET’S FACE IT TIGER, YOU JUST HIT THE JACKPOT!”<\/a><\/span>
\nMarvel blew the roof off of Hall H this past San Diego Comic Con. It was a month ago, but it feels like yesterday that we were screaming our heads off at Marvel’s killer slate of films, exclusive content, and star studded casts. Not the…\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

View on Google+<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

MJ is sassy. She's sexy. She's self-confident. She's the jackpot that Peter Parker just hit. Nothing in that description, to me, dictates MJ as being any particular race. Being red-headed is pretty iconic, visually, but — well, heck, if Scarlett Johansson can pull off the red-headed Black Widow, I'm pretty sure Zendaya can make that … Continue reading “What makes a Mary Jane Watson?”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_seopress_robots_follow":"","_seopress_robots_imageindex":"","_seopress_robots_snippet":"","_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_robots_breadcrumbs":"","_seopress_robots_freeze_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_custom_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_canonical":"","_seopress_social_fb_title":"","_seopress_social_fb_desc":"","_seopress_social_fb_img":"","_seopress_social_fb_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_height":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_title":"","_seopress_social_twitter_desc":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_height":0,"_seopress_redirections_value":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled_regex":"","_seopress_redirections_logged_status":"","_seopress_redirections_param":"","_seopress_redirections_type":0,"_seopress_analysis_target_kw":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[106],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-131319","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-plusposts"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":2685,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2002\/05\/17\/getting_it_righ.html","url_meta":{"origin":131319,"position":0},"title":"Getting it right","author":"***Dave","date":"Fri 17-May-02 7:29am","format":false,"excerpt":"Kudos to Sam Raimi, et al., for Spider-Man. 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