“Spider-Man: Brand New Day” continues to dominate the box office after the largest opening weekend in movie history, without adjusting for inflation. It’s outpacing “The Odyssey” and “Toy Story 5.”
You’d think we would have had enough of this guy by now — and yet Peter Parker is still soaring high above the streets of New York and into movie megablockbuster history.
It’s the 11th Spider-Man movie since 2002, all ultimately grounded in our city. But what is it about the story of a financially struggling young man from Queens that still resonates with audiences today?
Pop culture historian Roy Schwartz recently discussed why Spider-Man’s story feels especially relevant right now with “All Things Considered” host Sean Carlson.
Carlson: The handful of folks who don't know the story, Spider-Man is a kid from Queens who was raised by his single aunt. Most of the stories involve him balancing his superhero responsibilities with his life as a poor, unlucky-in love young adult. Why do you think that continues to resonate with audiences even after all this time?
Schwartz: I mean, the answer is in your question. How can we not resonate when he's basically a poor schmuck, which we all are at one point or another?. He is not the hero who gets the girl. He's not the hero who gets that glorious moment of victory at the end. He's the hero who struggles and endures. Every time he does the right thing, he pays a heavy price for it. You know, every day is the worst day of his life. We all feel that way sometimes, and I think Spider-Man appeals to that part of us.
The other thing is, he's a really normal guy. He's a blue-collar, struggling young guy who makes mistakes and tries to find his place in the world and tries to do some good along the way, and that's a very far cry from the demi-gods that some other superheroes are.
I think we are at a moment in time where we all see ourselves as caught in this endless struggle, in this kind of hopeless, apathetic attitude towards things, and Spidey refuses to give up. Again, he doesn't win the day gloriously. He just refuses to give up. He gets hit, and he gets back up again and again, and that inspires us.
But you look at Spider-Man's arch-enemy – the Green Goblin, Norman Osborn, he's a sociopathic tech billionaire with government connections. That, to me, seems so relevant. And everything in his world is designed to really reflect what's in our real world, one step removed. He struggles to balance his relationships. He struggles to do right by the people he cares about. He struggles to find connection, and at the core of it, that's what Spider-Man's story is about. It's about finding connection, about finding love, whether it's romantic or family or friends, and that's something we all yearn for and we all struggle with.
"Spider-Man: Brand New Day" takes place throughout New York City. Peter Parker is a regular at a bodega. He shares a laundry room with his neighbors. A climactic scene takes place on Roosevelt Island. Do you think all that has anything to do with our collective attachment to the character?
Yes, I do think so, and part of it is that kind of realism. Spider-Man, if you think about it, he swings and he climbs from things. Outside of Midtown Manhattan, he's powerless. You put him in Idaho, what is he gonna swing from? What is he gonna climb, right? He's this kinda quintessential New York hero, and you can read into that metaphor all kinds of things. But he's also you and me.
Bruce Wayne is a billionaire who dresses up as a bat and beats up criminals in alleys. I can't identify with that, even if he's human. He really is somebody that any one of us, you know, one spider bite removed, can be. And his powers don't solve his issues. They, if anything, create even more issues that got his uncle killed, that got him on his journey to become Spider-Man.
But for all of that, and as popular as he is as Spider-Man, he's really, really lonely, and I think that's part of the appeal of this particular movie, too. His two most meaningful relationships are people he follows on social media. They don't even know who he is and he craves relationships, he craves belonging, but all he has is a kind of digital emptiness of social media and following them.
Those early Stan Lee stories about Spider-Man were written in the 1960s. With all due respect to the man, Stan Lee, the tone and cast can seem pretty dated to modern eyes. Can you talk more about how the character and his stories have evolved to our current times?
Spider-Man debuted in August '62, which was quite a while from now, created by Stan Lee and Steve Ditko, and he was very much a product of the youth revolution of the early '60s. Originally, Spider-Man was 15 years old. He was a high schooler. In this movie series, he also starts out as a 15-year-old. Now he's out of college. And all of his nemeses, all of his enemies, his rogues gallery, are all much older, they're all at least a generation, sometimes two generations older than him.
So aside from the class struggle, there's always also been that age question of this young guy with his heart in the right place fighting the corrupt, the cynical, the sellouts, the bad guys who are bad because society lets them be bad. And I think we're back at a point where we see things that way in society, and I think that's part of the resonance.
