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Spiderverse and real-ness
Jun. 12th, 2019 02:37 pmI wrote a loooong post back in February about all the things I love about Spiderverse ... and then left the computer before I had a chance to post it, so ... it might be still around somewhere?
But over the last week or so, I've been watching Spiderverse with Toddler Rutabaga (age 3), where we watch about 20 minutes with me explaining the main plot points and emotional beats to her as we watch, and last night, I saw her grapple with moral ambiguity for the first time. (We watched the segment that starts with all the spiderpeople challenging Milesa and showing that he's not ready, and then to the house fight, and then to Miles breaking out of his bonds in his room and suiting up.) Afterward, at bedtime, she was like:
Her: Miles’ uncle wears a purple monster-man costume, but he is a good uncle.
Me: Yes, he tries to be a good uncle.
Her: I have an uncle, too, and he is also a good uncle, but he *doesn’t* have a purple monster-man costume, he just plays with me.
Me: Sometimes Miles’ uncle doesn’t want to wear a purple monster-man costume, but he still has to. And even though he is very scary as the purple monster-man, he is still a good uncle.
Her: ::ponders the idea that someone can be a good person but be in a purple monster-man costume and do bad things::
And this really gets at one of my most favorite things about Spiderverse: its real-ness. It's funny to say this of a cartoon, but it feels more real than the other spidersmen that I've watched (Toby McGuire and the Tom Holland ones -- I skipped Andrew Garfield). The locations feel more real -- the other ones just feel like LA suburbia with a "New York" caption pasted over it, whereas in Spiderverse, you feel like you can probably name the exact block where something happens. The school feels real, too. Not a generic, interchangeable school with lockers and people in the hallways and a computer lab, but rather a high-achieving magnet school where they're apparently teaching Hofstadter and quantum theory to teens. And the people feel more real. In the case of Uncle Aaron, we know so much more about him than we do Uncle Ben, not because he has more screen time, but because he's allowed to be complex. Uncle Ben: generically well-intentioned guy who just lost his job and is worried about Peter acting weird. Uncle Aaron: we see his pad, we hear him talk about his relationship with Miles' dad, we see him as a mentor and confidant, we see him on and off the job, and we see him make moral choices. Uncle Ben's death is merely a motivating factor for Peter, but Uncle Aaron's death has meaning in its own right. And that's just Uncle Aaron -- everyone else in the movie has that degree of specificity.
Because that's what conveys that sense of real-ness: the specificity of the location and the people. And I think that's what blows my mind about Spiderverse. Usually, I feel like people tend to position specificity and universality as a dichotomy. Want something to be more appealing to more people? Let's make it less specific and more generic. (And for some reason, more "generic" tends to end up as more white and more rising-middle class. ::eyeroll::) Spiderverse basically says "fuck that." Specificity can create universal appeal. Uncle Aaron doesn't have to be bland and generic in order for people to relate. In fact, we can relate to him better because he is a highly specific person, because we have encountered shades of that person in our lives, too. Rutabaga's uncle is nothing like Uncle Aaron, but Rutabaga is able to draw connections and ponder thoughts of moral ambiguity.
Growing up Chinese-ish in America has meant that I'm very used to not seeing myself in media, and instead have to identify with whatever brand of bland white guy or white woman the main character happens to be as they sip coffee in a generic cafe and decide their act of minor rebellion. Or sometimes it's a highly specific person and life, but always presented in a "this is *their* life of suffering and confusion, not yours." But here comes Spiderverse, saying "this is Miles Morales and his family and his neighborhood and his friends and there are some good parts and bad parts and some funny parts, just like your life."
More like that, please.
But over the last week or so, I've been watching Spiderverse with Toddler Rutabaga (age 3), where we watch about 20 minutes with me explaining the main plot points and emotional beats to her as we watch, and last night, I saw her grapple with moral ambiguity for the first time. (We watched the segment that starts with all the spiderpeople challenging Milesa and showing that he's not ready, and then to the house fight, and then to Miles breaking out of his bonds in his room and suiting up.) Afterward, at bedtime, she was like:
Her: Miles’ uncle wears a purple monster-man costume, but he is a good uncle.
Me: Yes, he tries to be a good uncle.
Her: I have an uncle, too, and he is also a good uncle, but he *doesn’t* have a purple monster-man costume, he just plays with me.
Me: Sometimes Miles’ uncle doesn’t want to wear a purple monster-man costume, but he still has to. And even though he is very scary as the purple monster-man, he is still a good uncle.
Her: ::ponders the idea that someone can be a good person but be in a purple monster-man costume and do bad things::
And this really gets at one of my most favorite things about Spiderverse: its real-ness. It's funny to say this of a cartoon, but it feels more real than the other spidersmen that I've watched (Toby McGuire and the Tom Holland ones -- I skipped Andrew Garfield). The locations feel more real -- the other ones just feel like LA suburbia with a "New York" caption pasted over it, whereas in Spiderverse, you feel like you can probably name the exact block where something happens. The school feels real, too. Not a generic, interchangeable school with lockers and people in the hallways and a computer lab, but rather a high-achieving magnet school where they're apparently teaching Hofstadter and quantum theory to teens. And the people feel more real. In the case of Uncle Aaron, we know so much more about him than we do Uncle Ben, not because he has more screen time, but because he's allowed to be complex. Uncle Ben: generically well-intentioned guy who just lost his job and is worried about Peter acting weird. Uncle Aaron: we see his pad, we hear him talk about his relationship with Miles' dad, we see him as a mentor and confidant, we see him on and off the job, and we see him make moral choices. Uncle Ben's death is merely a motivating factor for Peter, but Uncle Aaron's death has meaning in its own right. And that's just Uncle Aaron -- everyone else in the movie has that degree of specificity.
Because that's what conveys that sense of real-ness: the specificity of the location and the people. And I think that's what blows my mind about Spiderverse. Usually, I feel like people tend to position specificity and universality as a dichotomy. Want something to be more appealing to more people? Let's make it less specific and more generic. (And for some reason, more "generic" tends to end up as more white and more rising-middle class. ::eyeroll::) Spiderverse basically says "fuck that." Specificity can create universal appeal. Uncle Aaron doesn't have to be bland and generic in order for people to relate. In fact, we can relate to him better because he is a highly specific person, because we have encountered shades of that person in our lives, too. Rutabaga's uncle is nothing like Uncle Aaron, but Rutabaga is able to draw connections and ponder thoughts of moral ambiguity.
Growing up Chinese-ish in America has meant that I'm very used to not seeing myself in media, and instead have to identify with whatever brand of bland white guy or white woman the main character happens to be as they sip coffee in a generic cafe and decide their act of minor rebellion. Or sometimes it's a highly specific person and life, but always presented in a "this is *their* life of suffering and confusion, not yours." But here comes Spiderverse, saying "this is Miles Morales and his family and his neighborhood and his friends and there are some good parts and bad parts and some funny parts, just like your life."
More like that, please.
