By Cameron Kerkau, Managing Editor.
Rumors have recently amassed claiming that Zendaya Coleman will be playing Mary-Jane Watson in the upcoming film “Spider-Man: Homecoming.” This hasn’t been confirmed, but that hasn’t stopped a horde of fans from complaining extensively about the possibility. Their reasoning being that Mary-Jane is portrayed in the comics as red-headed and white, while Zendaya is an African-American girl. They say that MJ’s appearance is “iconic” and that casting a girl that doesn’t look like her is disrespecting the source material.
I’ve never understood fans that think this way. They are so focused on the visual aspect of a comic book adaption that they seem to forget that these characters are more than the way they look. MJ isn’t just a white girl with red hair. She’s a career woman, flirtatious and confident to a fault, loyal to the people that she loves and a survivor of an abusive father. She worries about Peter every night that he goes out as Spider-Man, but she respects him enough to understand that he’s going to make his own decisions, and she demands the same respect from him. These traits are what make MJ who she is, not her white skin or her red hair.
Sure, her appearance might have been visually striking on a comic book page in 1966, but that won’t matter to a film audience in 2017. What will be important is that the actress brings the character to life on screen and forms an interesting and touching chemistry with Tom Holland’s Peter Parker. It remains to be seen if that is the case, but after eight years of sound casting decisions, I’m going to put my faith into Marvel Studios until further notice.
