As soon as Sony Pictures announced its landmark deal with Marvel Studios to recast Spider-man in Walt Disney’s superhero cinematic universe, the Internet lit up with rumors and speculation about just who could play Marvel Comics’ beloved wall-crawler.
That Spider-man need be a masculine young adult has never been in question these past fifty years (there’s Spider-Woman for the ladies), but what race Spider-man’s belonged to over suddenly became a much realer question than ever. Could Spider-man be black? Could Spider-man be Hispanic?
Among the most popular suggestions has been to make him both – namely as Miles Morales, the Afro-Hispanic Spider-man of writer Brian Michael Bendis’ 2011 story-arc. As Ora C. McWilliams of the University of Kansas points out, race itself could be more than skin deep for the character. “Morales speaks to a different audience and can say different things than Parker can,” she writes.“Spider-Man has universal appeal, but the race of his secret identity changes the dynamic of the character, leading to new modes of representation and fan consumption.” Morales is, in short, part of the new norm.
For decades, Spider-man’s embodied a singular image – that of a troubled teenage high-school student named Peter Parker struggling with the responsibilities that came with his secret identity. When Parker was created, he may have been just another caucasian male, but he was a younger, realer one than his square-jawed peers to so many younger eyes. The Spider-man of 1964 was simply a character of this time – one in which 85 percent of the babies born in the US were caucasian. Now, when caucasian Americans make up just 43 percent of US citizens, that time has changed and so has his fans.
Superheroes, of course, have been nothing if not forces for change. It was only last year that audiences were introduced to Anthony Mackie’s Falcon in Captain America: The Winter Soldier – a movie that also saw Marvel’s classically caucasian World War II veteran, Nick Fury, played by African-American actor Samuel L. Jackson. That is not to discount the growing prospect of seeing DC Comics’ African-American Green Lantern, John Stewart, and Marvel’s self-explanatory Black Panther on the big screen next year.
That superheroes are adapting to the changing sea of the mainstream has always been their appeal, but tradition is a hard tide to tame. Miles Morales should be a compromise everyone can get behind. Older fans can have their Peter Parker while Sony and Marvel’s new film can meanwhile spotlight someone new – something Hollywood’s sequel machine is not well adept at. If history has told us anything, there is only one Peter Parker, but any man can put on Spider-man’s mask, now can’t they?
Motion Picture Prejudice 
This is a really good topic. I have read about the superhero genre trying to diversify their characters but hadn’t seen anything on it in a while. Thanks for the refresher!
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Great Article
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This is so awesome! People always put too much emphasis on this and there are almost no POC superheroes.
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Make your own super heroes. But you know, you won’t get people in the seats. You want to change a characters race simply because of the disgusting PC world we live in. These characters have existed long before and have a history.. Just like Black Annie, you thing white people will except anything because of some white guilt. Go make your own compelling characters instead of stealing the race of white characters, which funny seem to be the ONLY characters having their race and sexuality changed. Freaks!
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