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Hey sorry to pester you, but I’m quoting you to reference your Twilight vid for a video essay I’m recording and want to make sure I pronounce it right. Is it “AH-lee nah-DEE?”

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Benjamin (he/him/his) @benzed.bsky.social · 7h

Not exactly a fun process, but important, and gratifying when it results in being a more effective supporter of whatever projects your local indigenous folks are working in.

Benjamin (he/him/his) @benzed.bsky.social · 7h

😅 Mainly there’s just a lot of unlearning of certain biases that you find yourself having to do in the process of figuring out how to be a better companion to non-White folks, which I think is that you’re getting at.

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Reposted by Benjamin (he/him/his)

Benjamin (he/him/his) @benzed.bsky.social · Aug 28

All three of the MCU Spider-Man movies suffer from really, really bad cases of idiot plot.

Starting with Homecoming 🧵

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Benjamin (he/him/his) @benzed.bsky.social · 9h

I'll write more about this later, but that's enough for now, I think.

Benjamin (he/him/his) @benzed.bsky.social · 9h

I mean, heck, the mention that May disapproves of Tony Stank was one of the most interesting things established in Homecoming!

Does May have any concerns about Peter swinging around in suits designed by Stank?

Allegedly the closest thing Peter had to a father after Ben?

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Benjamin (he/him/his) @benzed.bsky.social · 9h

I suppose this is just a tangent in this thread about Spider-Man, but the complete dearth of long-term consequences for such a massive, but temporary, holocaust is an intellectual rot that permeates everything I watched of post-Endgame Marvel, and a big reason why I noped out after No Way Home.

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Benjamin (he/him/his) @benzed.bsky.social · 9h

Though why would you expect Jon Watts, or anyone else at Marvel Studios, to even be capable of writing a compelling arc for her when they can't even agree on whether or not she also died for five years!?

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Benjamin (he/him/his) @benzed.bsky.social · 9h

Peter ALREADY MET THE SAME FATE THAT UNCLE BEN DID and May has literally nothing to say about it!

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Benjamin (he/him/his) @benzed.bsky.social · 9h

The scenes of Peter and May high-fiving, May uncritically encouraging Peter to continue being Spider-Man despite his reluctance, and sneaking his suit into his suitcase, are AFTER PETER HIMSELF ALREADY HAD BEEN DEAD FOR FIVE YEARS.

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Benjamin (he/him/his) @benzed.bsky.social · 9h

No such believability can be found in the Aunt May of MCU's Spider-Man films. She is not only 100% unconditionally on board with Peter's role as Spider-Man, but such uncomplicated support is specifically in spite of the fact that the scale of danger that Peter is in is so much higher on the regular

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Benjamin (he/him/his) @benzed.bsky.social · 9h

Coming-of-age stories are about young teenagers or adults, but the character arc of Aunt May, a woman of advancing age, is so incredibly important to the value system that Spider-Man 2 is presenting to us.

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Benjamin (he/him/his) @benzed.bsky.social · 9h

In fact, this goes into why Spider-Man's 2's story goes beyond just being a coming-of-age story, as I've often heard it described.

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Benjamin (he/him/his) @benzed.bsky.social · 9h

This is what people mean when they say that Spider-Man 2 isn't just a great superhero movie, but that it's simply a great movie.

You could swap out the presence of Spider-Man with any other responsibility that a real person can have, and still completely empathize with May's and Peter's arcs

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Benjamin (he/him/his) @benzed.bsky.social · 9h

Because her oration is so pointed as the words Peter needs to hear to re-commit to his own responsibility, and it comes from such a realistic, believable place of compassion that anyone is capable of extending to someone else.

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Benjamin (he/him/his) @benzed.bsky.social · 9h

This is exactly why viewers can understand with perfect clarity that May knows Peter is Spider-Man by this scene in the story.

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Benjamin (he/him/his) @benzed.bsky.social · 9h

We can admire Aunt May to the same degree that we admire Peter because of how she was able to remain a compassionate mother figure for him even after such devastating news, and give him the support he needs to figure out the side of his life that he keeps to himself.

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Benjamin (he/him/his) @benzed.bsky.social · 9h

She lost her husband, and the primary breadwinner of her family. She's about to lose the house they lived in, and it's in that very house where Peter finally comes clean with her.

But then she channels such dismay back into compassion for her son.

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Benjamin (he/him/his) @benzed.bsky.social · 9h

The grief they feel over the loss of a person they loved so dearly is central to their maturation as characters. The shock that May is struck with upon realizing the responsibility Peter has in this ripples out into realigning everything she understands about her current position in life

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Benjamin (he/him/his) @benzed.bsky.social · 9h

We get scenes where May processes her husband's and Peter's father figure's death in different emotional states. She reminds Peter of the faith Ben had in him to be a good human being. She blames herself for not stopping him from putting himself in the circumstances that led to his being killed.

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Benjamin (he/him/his) @benzed.bsky.social · 9h

By the way, I might be using the words like "nephew/son" or "aunt/mother" and "uncle/father" interchangeably when discussing relationship dynamics in this thread.

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Benjamin (he/him/his) @benzed.bsky.social · 9h

Does she want to support his altruistic compulsion to help people, even at the risk of his own life? In Raimi's films, May was under the understanding that Ben had simply wanted to do his son a favor by driving him to the library, as well as have a much needed heart-to-heart with their nephew.

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Benjamin (he/him/his) @benzed.bsky.social · 9h

Here's what that looks like in practice. Aunt May finds out Peter is Spider-Man at the end of Homecoming.

What would realizing this do to her as a person? As a mother figure?

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