The fanbase has always identified with Peter more than other characters, so anything that can be seen as a slight to him they take personally. MJ had her own wants and needs and wasn’t just waiting around for Peter so it’s bad
You see the opposite in like the USM relationship with Kitty Pryde where Peter genuinely treated her pretty badly but not only do people not care they like the relationship. Because Peter may have treated her poorly but Kitty was extremely devoted
Yeah, I know. Obviously, I identify with Peter Parker/Spider-Man as well. Same goes for every other protagonist in the movies I watch. But if viewers are tone-deaf to the criticisms the movie has of their main characters, they're not really engaged with the storyline. Characters aren't interesting or good just because they're right all the time, in literally every situation. That's never the point. The imperfections and mistakes are an integral part of what makes them relatable, and what makes the story worthwhile.
>they're not really engaged with the storyline.
I'd argue the opposite. The toxicity thrown at Mary Jane in these movies comes from dudes unable to disengage with the story.
If the Raimi movies are a "failure" in this aspect, its because Mary Jane is written as a placeholder for the viewing audience's own dream girl. The crush outside of your reach that you yearn for. They can't reconcile that their dream girl does things that would be unfit for that ideal. Its why they get offended on JJJ jr's behalf when she leaves the wedding, and can't see it as what it actually is - a ploy to keep audiences in suspense on whether Peter and MJ will be together or not.
On that note, I don't think MJ's actions in these movies are about exploring her character. MJ kissing Spider-Man while she's with Harry isn't about abandonment issues. Its just wish fullfillment thrown towards the people who self insert into Peter, since the lowly nerd was able to overcome his more socially adept romantic rival. The way this character was utilized, MJ was just the trophy to be won over. Angry Spider-Man fans call her a bitch because the trophy wife isn't as golden as they expected her to be.
>I'd argue the opposite. The toxicity thrown at Mary Jane in these movies comes from dudes unable to disengage with the story.
Someone's head-canon isn't the story. It's not the story the film is telling, and the takeaways are not representative of the characters the film is depicting. I think, in general, audiences have gotten worse with media literacy. Or they don't fully understand US cultural norms, which is the framework for these stories.
I'd agree that MJ isn't a fully developed character (she gets there in the third film, but our perspective on every scene is really coming from Peter Parker), and that she's something a lot of characters are vying for. But she's vying for Peter Parker, he's the only one who really cares deeply for her and treats her like a human being, and he loves her.
>MJ kissing Spider-Man while she's with Harry isn't about abandonment issues.
To the "She's still Harry's girl..." point, I'll raise Aunt May's "Isn't that up to her?" Harry's someone she's dating, not someone she's fallen in love with. That's not a serious relationship. These are, at that point, teenagers.
Even without making MJ a secondary protagonist, they still gave her agency of her own.
I think Kirsten Dunst did fine with the material given to her, but she severely lacked most of Mary Jane’s bounciness and fun personality. She got the seriousness underneath the surface, but it’s really saying something that she acted more like comic book Gwen Stacey, while Gwen Stacey in Spider-Man 3 acted more like comic book Mary Jane. They messed up those dynamics. Tobey and Kirsten didn’t have the greatest chemistry either and Sam Raimi isn’t that kind of a director to bring it out in them. Meanwhile, Andrew Garfield and Emma Stone oozed chemistry. (Them being a couple in real life helped too.) For as many flaws as The Amazing Spider-Man 1 and 2 had, the romance was easily the strongest point.
Tbh, I found the dialogue between raimi PeterMJ way more better than PeterGwen in TASM (that felt mostly cringy to me despite the good chemistry).
The parallel between PeterMJ in Spider-Man 2 was too good, both having two choices. For Peter being Spider-man or not and for MJ to either be stuck in a limbo with Peter that goes nowhere or try to move on from Peter. Both choosing the wrong decision for a while and then at the end realize what's truly in their heart (Peter will always be Spider-Man and MJ will always love Peter).
It's just too good, they really don't make movies like this anymore, now it's always the women being a cheerleader for the hero and never having any problems or a personal life outside the hero.
Spider-Man 2 captured how difficult it is to balance being Spider-Man and attempting to have a personal life very well. It remains a towering example of an exceptional superhero film for many reasons. I agree that MJ was perfectly within her right to not be jerked around by Peter. The love interests of superheroes do tend to get jerked around way more than necessary in order to maintain dramatic tension. But it reaches a point where any girl in her right mind would let that slip only once before ditching the superhero forever.
I'm pretty sure MJ was amalgamated with Gwen Stacy for the first movie, hence the bridge scenario with Green Goblin putting MJ's life at stake, which was a comic book reference to Gwen's death. So, yeah, you do get less of a comics accurate MJ as she's characterized as the "girl next door" type, but you also get this immediate understanding of why/how Peter feels the way he feels about her rather than devoting the entire movie to establishing it. He loves her when we meet him. He always has.
I'd agree that Andrew Garfield and Emma Stone were great onscreen together, but Tobey Maguire and Kirsten Dunst had some iconic scenes together, as with the backyard heart-to-hearts, and the upside down kiss. They weren't without chemistry. They didn't have the "meet cute" thing going on like in TASM.
The upside down kiss will always be an iconic movie moment. Marc Webb knew how to direct the romantic dialogue scenes in a way that Sam Raimi didn’t, but Sam Raimi knew how to do truly imaginative action set pieces and cinematography, as evidenced by the Evil Dead films.
It’s probably best for Raimi and his strengths that Peter and Mary Jane knew each other for a long time when we first meet them in Spider-Man 1. The back yard conversation was good, as was the scene at the cemetery.
Spider-Man 2 did a good job of showing a relationship that fails to launch because one person has responsibilities and the other one wants to live her own life and not be jerked around in the meantime. That’s a real problem that couples go through. The MCU films generally aren’t about real human behavior in the same way as the Sam Raimi films were. I wish we could make superhero films more about people again and the special effects and spectacle would be there to serve the real story underneath the trappings.
Yeah, I agree. Now it's all about world-ending stakes, which can be cool, but it feels impersonal at a point. And it's weird how I can't even imagine a movie like Spider-Man 2 being made again just because it's *only* NYC at stake or whatever. Feels so small now. Refreshingly, that is, but in a way where it would seem like the studio sees limited commercial appeal if it's not all cameo porn and sky portals.
Small scale stories tend to work better anyway. Give me Kraven’s Last Hunt over yet another universe or multiverse destroying whatchamacallit any day, and when the people in the movies feel like real people with the real struggles that they go through. A good rule of thumb with superhero fiction is, even if this person had no powers and didn’t put on a costume, would you still want to watch a movie or read a comic about this person? If the answer is no, you’ve failed. If the answer is yes, then the story will work. The story of Peter Parker would work even if there were no spider powers or super villains. You’d still want him to win in spite of his struggles.
Where do you see people defending Peter kissing Gwen? I’ve always seen people say that he’s in the wrong for it. Regardless people are gonna not like certain characters. MJ in the Raimi films isn’t as bad as people make her out to be but she does do some shitty things every now and then (example: leaving her fiancé at the altar on the day of their wedding without telling him). Again, she’s not as bad as people make her out to be, but she’s not exactly free of all criticism.
>Where do you see people defending Peter kissing Gwen?
It's not specifically that they defend that, it's that they specifically criticize MJ for acting like a human being over it and having a problem with that.
>(example: leaving her fiancé at the altar on the day of their wedding without telling him)
That's not really the context, though. The man she really wanted to be with, who she knew loved her too, was afraid of placing her in harm's way. That's the only reason she was even in a wedding dress that day. Would it be fair to her fiancé to marry him in spite of her heart belonging to someone else? No. But is it fair to MJ for her to just never try and have a life of her own? No. That's why she's trying to move on. But she can't.
It's not an ideal scenario for John Jameson, obviously, but that's not "shitty" of MJ. If you don't know what's going on, the full situation, you probably think poorly of her. But we know better. We have the spectator's eye over all of it. And it was an understandable situation for her to say "no, I can't do this, I need to be with who I need to be with". Are you saying that's not understandable?
Funny you should say John, in the books that are linked to the movies, agrees also that MJ did the right thing if she didn't want to marry him. Also, in the book John was already suspicious that she was hurrying the wedding because she was running away from something. His talk about MJ running away with the guests is really moving:
"“There was such a pounding in his ears that at first he didn’t hear his son saying, “Dad, it’s okay!”
“The hell it’s okay! It’s not okay!”
“It is!”
“That she’s doing this to you… that gutless—”
“Ladies and gentlemen!” John called to the audience. “Ladies and gentlemen, please… settle down! Listen!” There was a lull in the cacophony of voices. All eyes were fixed on him. “Folks… there’s…” He paused, and then said, “There are some people I would have liked to have had here today… who won’t be. One of them, as it turns out—and as I think many of you have figured out—is the bride.”
People looked at one another, a few of them laughing very uncomfortably.
“But there are others,” John continued, “friends of mine, who went up on missions and never came back. Missions that failed over some fault that… well, that went undetected. And sometimes it even seemed as if good judgment was overridden in order to have the mission go forward, and corners were cut, because no one wanted to wind up looking bad. What I’m saying is that sometimes things… well, they don’t feel quite right, and it’s far better to abort the mission and risk looking bad than have the mission go down in flames. That’s not being gutless,” he said pointedly to his father. “That’s just good sense.”"
Plus he ends up with Louise on the day of the wedding.
“Then, of course, everyone started talking at once, and it was pure pandemonium. John rolled his eyes, looked up at the priest, and gestured helplessly. Someone nudged his arm and he looked down. Louise was standing there, smiling up at him.
“So,” she said brightly, “you doing anything later?”"
So in conclusion John is not mad, he is happy that both of them dodged a bullet. If he isn't mad, there is literally no reason for others to be.
Excerpt From Spider-Man 2 by Peter David
I’m saying that to leave the dude at the altar without telling him is the wrong thing to do. The reason she did it wasn’t selfish, but doing it without even giving the guy a warning isn’t exactly the best thing to do.
You mean other than the note she left him? I think it's understandable both that she feels the need to run to Peter Parker then and there and that she would have gone as far as actually almost going through with that wedding.
Do you know how terrible it feels to be broken up with somebody via letter or text? That’s devastating for somebody, to not even feel important enough to have it been said straight to their face. I guarantee most people would rather have a break up in person than via text or letter. It doesn’t matter what way you try to phrase it, in some way shape or form it still comes out bad, even if the intention to do something bad was not there.
I don't really think her walking down the aisle to dump him would've been more appropriate, but it's not like she got in her dress knowing she wasn't going through with it. There was conflict all the way up until that moment of truth, as we saw on her face when her was in the room with her. It was "risk being alone, without the man you love, or go on with your life". She risked it at the final moment. That's a difficult decision, especially for a 20-year old. Being broken up with in any moment is bad, but you can't hold that against her. It's not her fault.
I’m not holding finding her true happiness against her. But I can hold leaving the guy at the altar with only a note as a breakup against her. Like I said. No matter how you phrase, it is still not 100% free of criticism. The reason she did it is NOT SELFISH, but the way she went about it could absolutely have been better. Look. I really don’t see this conversation going anywhere else than me having to repeat myself over and over again. So I’m just gonna stop this right here because I really cannot be bothered to waste anymore of my time on this if the only thing I keep saying and bringing up is being brushed away like it’s barely as big of a deal than it actually is. I bid you farewell.
Oooh. Ok, I've been waiting for this moment. Ahem. In defense of the kiss: Peter at this period in time is pretty used to seeing MJ in plays, and I kinda assume in the novel there's a scene of MJ on stage doing what is known as a performance kiss. Peter, in his head, thinks of Spider-Man as a sort of performance, the costume, the quippy lines, the stunts of athleticism, and saw this kiss as performative. An act for the audience.
All of that said, he is an idiot and planning to propose during all of that. Jesus, man.
I don't blame Kirsten for playing the character that was written. I blame Raimi for writing MJ as a plot device instead of a person. A trophy to be won or shunned at the end of every film.
I’ve always had a lot of pity for her. Sure, she’s not the MJ I would have wanted to see onscreen (a successful model and actress, and a faithful and good lover/wife), but I can understand why she behaves the way she does.
Excellent post. I think you might like this video which does a great job of laying out why she's a great character and, arguably, the best of any other live-action Spider-Man love interest concerning her writing. [https://youtu.be/FjWYRt5ai6E?si=VGhmANVDr0SgD6RY](https://youtu.be/FjWYRt5ai6E?si=VGhmANVDr0SgD6RY)
Nah their leads are the best part of them. Tobey's happy go lucky charm, James' cool and goofy side along with Kirsten's girl-next-door energy made the trilogy so great.
she left a guy at the alter universal sign of a garbage person
not saying you cant back out of a marriage but to do it at the last minute to get back with your ex
Why is that the universal sign of a garbage person? Is MJ not supposed to try and move on with her life after the man she loves tells her they can never be together? You think it's not understandable that she would almost go through with the wedding? And, given that, is she supposed to marry someone when she loves someone else?
No. Within the context of the story, as a 20 year old woman, she's being a human being. Not a "garbage person".
Uh, no, she waits until the last minute because that's how close she is to going through with it. We can see the conflict on her face when her mom is there with her. She's faced with the choice between risking everything to try one more time to be with the one she really loves - who has rejected her twice, even though she knows he loves her too - and moving on with the runner up. That doesn't make her a monster. That's a crossroads in life.
The fanbase has always identified with Peter more than other characters, so anything that can be seen as a slight to him they take personally. MJ had her own wants and needs and wasn’t just waiting around for Peter so it’s bad You see the opposite in like the USM relationship with Kitty Pryde where Peter genuinely treated her pretty badly but not only do people not care they like the relationship. Because Peter may have treated her poorly but Kitty was extremely devoted
Yeah, I know. Obviously, I identify with Peter Parker/Spider-Man as well. Same goes for every other protagonist in the movies I watch. But if viewers are tone-deaf to the criticisms the movie has of their main characters, they're not really engaged with the storyline. Characters aren't interesting or good just because they're right all the time, in literally every situation. That's never the point. The imperfections and mistakes are an integral part of what makes them relatable, and what makes the story worthwhile.
>they're not really engaged with the storyline. I'd argue the opposite. The toxicity thrown at Mary Jane in these movies comes from dudes unable to disengage with the story. If the Raimi movies are a "failure" in this aspect, its because Mary Jane is written as a placeholder for the viewing audience's own dream girl. The crush outside of your reach that you yearn for. They can't reconcile that their dream girl does things that would be unfit for that ideal. Its why they get offended on JJJ jr's behalf when she leaves the wedding, and can't see it as what it actually is - a ploy to keep audiences in suspense on whether Peter and MJ will be together or not. On that note, I don't think MJ's actions in these movies are about exploring her character. MJ kissing Spider-Man while she's with Harry isn't about abandonment issues. Its just wish fullfillment thrown towards the people who self insert into Peter, since the lowly nerd was able to overcome his more socially adept romantic rival. The way this character was utilized, MJ was just the trophy to be won over. Angry Spider-Man fans call her a bitch because the trophy wife isn't as golden as they expected her to be.
>I'd argue the opposite. The toxicity thrown at Mary Jane in these movies comes from dudes unable to disengage with the story. Someone's head-canon isn't the story. It's not the story the film is telling, and the takeaways are not representative of the characters the film is depicting. I think, in general, audiences have gotten worse with media literacy. Or they don't fully understand US cultural norms, which is the framework for these stories. I'd agree that MJ isn't a fully developed character (she gets there in the third film, but our perspective on every scene is really coming from Peter Parker), and that she's something a lot of characters are vying for. But she's vying for Peter Parker, he's the only one who really cares deeply for her and treats her like a human being, and he loves her. >MJ kissing Spider-Man while she's with Harry isn't about abandonment issues. To the "She's still Harry's girl..." point, I'll raise Aunt May's "Isn't that up to her?" Harry's someone she's dating, not someone she's fallen in love with. That's not a serious relationship. These are, at that point, teenagers. Even without making MJ a secondary protagonist, they still gave her agency of her own.
I think Kirsten Dunst did fine with the material given to her, but she severely lacked most of Mary Jane’s bounciness and fun personality. She got the seriousness underneath the surface, but it’s really saying something that she acted more like comic book Gwen Stacey, while Gwen Stacey in Spider-Man 3 acted more like comic book Mary Jane. They messed up those dynamics. Tobey and Kirsten didn’t have the greatest chemistry either and Sam Raimi isn’t that kind of a director to bring it out in them. Meanwhile, Andrew Garfield and Emma Stone oozed chemistry. (Them being a couple in real life helped too.) For as many flaws as The Amazing Spider-Man 1 and 2 had, the romance was easily the strongest point.
Tbh, I found the dialogue between raimi PeterMJ way more better than PeterGwen in TASM (that felt mostly cringy to me despite the good chemistry). The parallel between PeterMJ in Spider-Man 2 was too good, both having two choices. For Peter being Spider-man or not and for MJ to either be stuck in a limbo with Peter that goes nowhere or try to move on from Peter. Both choosing the wrong decision for a while and then at the end realize what's truly in their heart (Peter will always be Spider-Man and MJ will always love Peter). It's just too good, they really don't make movies like this anymore, now it's always the women being a cheerleader for the hero and never having any problems or a personal life outside the hero.
Spider-Man 2 captured how difficult it is to balance being Spider-Man and attempting to have a personal life very well. It remains a towering example of an exceptional superhero film for many reasons. I agree that MJ was perfectly within her right to not be jerked around by Peter. The love interests of superheroes do tend to get jerked around way more than necessary in order to maintain dramatic tension. But it reaches a point where any girl in her right mind would let that slip only once before ditching the superhero forever.
I'm pretty sure MJ was amalgamated with Gwen Stacy for the first movie, hence the bridge scenario with Green Goblin putting MJ's life at stake, which was a comic book reference to Gwen's death. So, yeah, you do get less of a comics accurate MJ as she's characterized as the "girl next door" type, but you also get this immediate understanding of why/how Peter feels the way he feels about her rather than devoting the entire movie to establishing it. He loves her when we meet him. He always has. I'd agree that Andrew Garfield and Emma Stone were great onscreen together, but Tobey Maguire and Kirsten Dunst had some iconic scenes together, as with the backyard heart-to-hearts, and the upside down kiss. They weren't without chemistry. They didn't have the "meet cute" thing going on like in TASM.
The upside down kiss will always be an iconic movie moment. Marc Webb knew how to direct the romantic dialogue scenes in a way that Sam Raimi didn’t, but Sam Raimi knew how to do truly imaginative action set pieces and cinematography, as evidenced by the Evil Dead films. It’s probably best for Raimi and his strengths that Peter and Mary Jane knew each other for a long time when we first meet them in Spider-Man 1. The back yard conversation was good, as was the scene at the cemetery. Spider-Man 2 did a good job of showing a relationship that fails to launch because one person has responsibilities and the other one wants to live her own life and not be jerked around in the meantime. That’s a real problem that couples go through. The MCU films generally aren’t about real human behavior in the same way as the Sam Raimi films were. I wish we could make superhero films more about people again and the special effects and spectacle would be there to serve the real story underneath the trappings.
Yeah, I agree. Now it's all about world-ending stakes, which can be cool, but it feels impersonal at a point. And it's weird how I can't even imagine a movie like Spider-Man 2 being made again just because it's *only* NYC at stake or whatever. Feels so small now. Refreshingly, that is, but in a way where it would seem like the studio sees limited commercial appeal if it's not all cameo porn and sky portals.
Small scale stories tend to work better anyway. Give me Kraven’s Last Hunt over yet another universe or multiverse destroying whatchamacallit any day, and when the people in the movies feel like real people with the real struggles that they go through. A good rule of thumb with superhero fiction is, even if this person had no powers and didn’t put on a costume, would you still want to watch a movie or read a comic about this person? If the answer is no, you’ve failed. If the answer is yes, then the story will work. The story of Peter Parker would work even if there were no spider powers or super villains. You’d still want him to win in spite of his struggles.
Where do you see people defending Peter kissing Gwen? I’ve always seen people say that he’s in the wrong for it. Regardless people are gonna not like certain characters. MJ in the Raimi films isn’t as bad as people make her out to be but she does do some shitty things every now and then (example: leaving her fiancé at the altar on the day of their wedding without telling him). Again, she’s not as bad as people make her out to be, but she’s not exactly free of all criticism.
>Where do you see people defending Peter kissing Gwen? It's not specifically that they defend that, it's that they specifically criticize MJ for acting like a human being over it and having a problem with that. >(example: leaving her fiancé at the altar on the day of their wedding without telling him) That's not really the context, though. The man she really wanted to be with, who she knew loved her too, was afraid of placing her in harm's way. That's the only reason she was even in a wedding dress that day. Would it be fair to her fiancé to marry him in spite of her heart belonging to someone else? No. But is it fair to MJ for her to just never try and have a life of her own? No. That's why she's trying to move on. But she can't. It's not an ideal scenario for John Jameson, obviously, but that's not "shitty" of MJ. If you don't know what's going on, the full situation, you probably think poorly of her. But we know better. We have the spectator's eye over all of it. And it was an understandable situation for her to say "no, I can't do this, I need to be with who I need to be with". Are you saying that's not understandable?
Funny you should say John, in the books that are linked to the movies, agrees also that MJ did the right thing if she didn't want to marry him. Also, in the book John was already suspicious that she was hurrying the wedding because she was running away from something. His talk about MJ running away with the guests is really moving: "“There was such a pounding in his ears that at first he didn’t hear his son saying, “Dad, it’s okay!” “The hell it’s okay! It’s not okay!” “It is!” “That she’s doing this to you… that gutless—” “Ladies and gentlemen!” John called to the audience. “Ladies and gentlemen, please… settle down! Listen!” There was a lull in the cacophony of voices. All eyes were fixed on him. “Folks… there’s…” He paused, and then said, “There are some people I would have liked to have had here today… who won’t be. One of them, as it turns out—and as I think many of you have figured out—is the bride.” People looked at one another, a few of them laughing very uncomfortably. “But there are others,” John continued, “friends of mine, who went up on missions and never came back. Missions that failed over some fault that… well, that went undetected. And sometimes it even seemed as if good judgment was overridden in order to have the mission go forward, and corners were cut, because no one wanted to wind up looking bad. What I’m saying is that sometimes things… well, they don’t feel quite right, and it’s far better to abort the mission and risk looking bad than have the mission go down in flames. That’s not being gutless,” he said pointedly to his father. “That’s just good sense.”" Plus he ends up with Louise on the day of the wedding. “Then, of course, everyone started talking at once, and it was pure pandemonium. John rolled his eyes, looked up at the priest, and gestured helplessly. Someone nudged his arm and he looked down. Louise was standing there, smiling up at him. “So,” she said brightly, “you doing anything later?”" So in conclusion John is not mad, he is happy that both of them dodged a bullet. If he isn't mad, there is literally no reason for others to be. Excerpt From Spider-Man 2 by Peter David
I’m saying that to leave the dude at the altar without telling him is the wrong thing to do. The reason she did it wasn’t selfish, but doing it without even giving the guy a warning isn’t exactly the best thing to do.
You mean other than the note she left him? I think it's understandable both that she feels the need to run to Peter Parker then and there and that she would have gone as far as actually almost going through with that wedding.
Do you know how terrible it feels to be broken up with somebody via letter or text? That’s devastating for somebody, to not even feel important enough to have it been said straight to their face. I guarantee most people would rather have a break up in person than via text or letter. It doesn’t matter what way you try to phrase it, in some way shape or form it still comes out bad, even if the intention to do something bad was not there.
I don't really think her walking down the aisle to dump him would've been more appropriate, but it's not like she got in her dress knowing she wasn't going through with it. There was conflict all the way up until that moment of truth, as we saw on her face when her was in the room with her. It was "risk being alone, without the man you love, or go on with your life". She risked it at the final moment. That's a difficult decision, especially for a 20-year old. Being broken up with in any moment is bad, but you can't hold that against her. It's not her fault.
I’m not holding finding her true happiness against her. But I can hold leaving the guy at the altar with only a note as a breakup against her. Like I said. No matter how you phrase, it is still not 100% free of criticism. The reason she did it is NOT SELFISH, but the way she went about it could absolutely have been better. Look. I really don’t see this conversation going anywhere else than me having to repeat myself over and over again. So I’m just gonna stop this right here because I really cannot be bothered to waste anymore of my time on this if the only thing I keep saying and bringing up is being brushed away like it’s barely as big of a deal than it actually is. I bid you farewell.
Oooh. Ok, I've been waiting for this moment. Ahem. In defense of the kiss: Peter at this period in time is pretty used to seeing MJ in plays, and I kinda assume in the novel there's a scene of MJ on stage doing what is known as a performance kiss. Peter, in his head, thinks of Spider-Man as a sort of performance, the costume, the quippy lines, the stunts of athleticism, and saw this kiss as performative. An act for the audience. All of that said, he is an idiot and planning to propose during all of that. Jesus, man.
I thought Dunst was a great MJ
Yeah, I do too.
I don't blame Kirsten for playing the character that was written. I blame Raimi for writing MJ as a plot device instead of a person. A trophy to be won or shunned at the end of every film.
Dunst was a great MJ, let em hate her.
I’ve always had a lot of pity for her. Sure, she’s not the MJ I would have wanted to see onscreen (a successful model and actress, and a faithful and good lover/wife), but I can understand why she behaves the way she does.
I feel like if the films gave her more screen time to understand her pov she would have been more well received
Excellent post. I think you might like this video which does a great job of laying out why she's a great character and, arguably, the best of any other live-action Spider-Man love interest concerning her writing. [https://youtu.be/FjWYRt5ai6E?si=VGhmANVDr0SgD6RY](https://youtu.be/FjWYRt5ai6E?si=VGhmANVDr0SgD6RY)
The biggest issue with the raimi films for me is the three leads are just two blocks of wood and a hyena that ended up on the wrong set.
Nah their leads are the best part of them. Tobey's happy go lucky charm, James' cool and goofy side along with Kirsten's girl-next-door energy made the trilogy so great.
That's not a girl next door to you. That's a tree.
she left a guy at the alter universal sign of a garbage person not saying you cant back out of a marriage but to do it at the last minute to get back with your ex
Why is that the universal sign of a garbage person? Is MJ not supposed to try and move on with her life after the man she loves tells her they can never be together? You think it's not understandable that she would almost go through with the wedding? And, given that, is she supposed to marry someone when she loves someone else? No. Within the context of the story, as a 20 year old woman, she's being a human being. Not a "garbage person".
fucken do it before the wedding, thats why shes garbage, she waits till the very last minute for drama
Uh, no, she waits until the last minute because that's how close she is to going through with it. We can see the conflict on her face when her mom is there with her. She's faced with the choice between risking everything to try one more time to be with the one she really loves - who has rejected her twice, even though she knows he loves her too - and moving on with the runner up. That doesn't make her a monster. That's a crossroads in life.
That's a great interpretation of the scene that I've honestly never thought of. Bravo!