Actor Andrew Garfield, who after two films was dumped from his role as Spider-Man, lamented on Monday how broadly the films were promoted, sneering that he had to appeal to American "bigots." He complained of Sony's marketing for the comic book movies: "The pressure to get it right, to please everyone… it's not going to happen."
Talking to the website Indiewire, Garfield paraphrased the marketing: "We want 50-year-old white men to love it, gay teenagers to love it, bigot homophobes in Middle America to love it." He brooded, "I can't live that way; it sounds like a prison."
Garfield was relieved from this burden after Sony allegedly fired him and opted to reboot the series.
In 2014, Salon decried the Spider-Man franchise with a headline titled, "America deserves better superheroes: Why a straight, white Spider-Man is no longer a real underdog." Salon writer Gavia Baker-Whitelaw attacked:
Marvel movies are often praised for being more progressive than your average summer blockbuster...but they're still decades behind the comics....none of those movies have starred anyone other than a straight, white man in the lead role.
