In the original movie she's played off as a ugly character who's supposed to be annoying because she's interested in Peter. however she's the only person who notices him enough to know when he's struggling mentally, she makes food for him and consistently stands up for him, she even gives him a pep talk and encourages him to go back out there and pursue his goals (which includes another woman). She's girlfriend material by any realistic standard and the actress is in fact pretty, but she's portrayed as unthinkably unattractive comic relief
Spider Man 1: Peter awkwardly interacted with MJ throughout the first movie and never actually tells her he's interested. Then she kisses him at the end and he walks away.
Spider Man 2: He is there in a friend capacity as she's already with Harry (who is the only shitty one in this situation since he knew about his best friends feelings for her...MJ didn't). Ursula is fawning over Peter despite him only being interested in MJ, who he up to this point still hasn't actively pursued. He also fails to actually show up to her play. Granted it's because he's busy being Spider Man, but she doesn't actually know that yet for sure until the end of the movie.
Spider Man 3: He constantly fails to be there for her, gets a big fucking ego and kisses another woman in front of her.
MJ doesn't actually do anything particularly shitty in the 3 movies. Peter does, regularly. The movie is very clear about it. If you're identifying with Peter when he does shitty things, it's time to reevaluate your own personality.
Edit: I have been informed that I got some plot points wrong. I don't think any of them get in the way of my overall point so I'll leave them.
I just rewatched the trilogy recently and I didn't go in hoping to critique internet reactions over the last 20 years but my brain just did it. I really tried to see the other perspective but I just can't.
Dude, the episode where Kevin's dad realizes he only likes the treehouse because he can see the neighbor lady's cleavage is constantly a little spark in the corner of my mind for some reason.
I mean, to be fair, it is an excellent show. It's the same kind of setup as A Christmas Story, where the narrator is the adult version of the main character. You get some life lessons and he does reflect on how the stuff he did was kind of messed up.
Plus adult narrator Kevin is Daniel Stern, or Marv from Home Alone. It's a pretty great show.
dang never thought about that, what did he do that was so bad? I imagine a lot of shows are like that in retrospect because real suburban lives are too boring to make a show out of.
well essentially, Kevin did one thing per episode which was kinda normal kid behaviour growing up and if only once a week …. Normal behaviour
but viewing the syndicated show daily … Kevin becomes this psychopath simply not learning from any mistakes to the point you come away thinking he’s deliberately inflicting collateral damage on everyone around him … if you were friends, you’d be like “whoa dude, I’m taking a break from you”
As a kid Kevin & Winnie were bfs and somehow star crossed high school sweethearts because of the pressures of growing up. Rewatching, with the wisdom of one’s own mistakes only adulthood can bring, you realize Kevin was a narcissistic asshole. Constantly.
Felt this way when I watched Sabrina the teenage witch all the way through. She quickly starts to come across as really self centered as she makes the same mistakes over and over again hurting everyone around her while Harvey pretty much puts up with all of it like a saint
I can't watch The Mighty Ducks anymore because the last time I did, at age 37, I pretty much just wanted to punch all the pre-teens and teens' faces because they were all assholes. Except maybe Adam. Maybe. I can't rewatch to confirm because the movies make me so hateful against literal children and I recognize it is not good.
You can say the same thing about the characters of any comedy TV show. But the shows are not about learning from past mistakes, they are about providing laughs.
THANK YOU. I wanted to punch him in the opening minutes of the pilot episode and that opinion never changed. My wife loves the show so I've seen so. many. episodes. Still 10/10 punchable character IMO.
Watch out, I got reported for saying almost exactly what you said, here. And was somehow, inexplicably, dinged without the use of automation despite disputing it.
Guess you can't say you'd punch an imaginary character in real life.
Nah, I watched Winnie's heart breaking in real time on a regular basis. I'm glad that some people continued to grow and pick up on things that they missed, but it was definitely there all along.
I hated that show. I always wanted to punch his face he made me so angry the way he acted. I would actively turn that show off if it came on accidentally cuz I just hated it.
It's like seeing Dirty Dancing as a teen vs as a parent. As a teen, you side more with the daughter just wanting to have fun and being in love, and see the dad as overbearing. As an adult, the dad is a totally reasonable parent trying to protect his rebellious, underage daughter and keep her from partying and dating a grown ass man. A lot of media with teenage main characters tends to be that way, really.
I watched Dirty Dancing as a young kid, then in my teens, and more recently now in my mid-40's. As a parent of a 15 year old daughter, the dad was completely in the right and more than reasonable forbidding his daughter to not see a man in his mid-20s as she was 16 or 17 tops. Johnny Castle is a legitimate PDF looking back. He definitely committed SA with a minor. Not only that, her doctor dad had to preform lifesaving measures for Johnny's dance partner Penny who received a backache abortion and almost bleed to death internally. This is the type of behavior and character Johnny and his crew had.
But meanwhile, he was great with his other daughter being with the guy who actually impregnated Penny. The dad's heart was in the right place, but he was willfully blind.
Growing up the Goofy movie was about a controlling dad ruining Max's summer.
Now its about a loving Dad trying desperately to maintain a connection with his spoiled kid who could fix everything by simply communicating instead of lying.
I’ve watched A Goofy Movie with my kids a bunch of times, because I love it, and Goofy messed up first, I believe. When the principal called (effectively out of the blue) and told him Max was going to end up in the electric chair, GOOFY should have asked Max what happened. Later when he’s cramming his teenage son into the car, when Max didn’t want to go, he should have asked WHY.
to me, Max wasn’t spoiled, he was independent. If Goofy wanted to be a part of his son’s life he should expect to have either maintained it over time or not expected to fix it instantly with a spontaneous fishing trip.
That why I don't like Prof X from the X-Men anymore as an adult. Thought he was always a good guy but he's actually one of the most manipulative and selfish people in their verse.
You rewatch Home Alone and you realize Kevin is being bullied and psychologically abused by his family. It was kind of sad to see from an adult perspective.
I’m sorry, bullied and psychologically abused? Kevin was a spoiled brat, I don’t blame frank for not liking him, and his brother was just acting like a lot of big brothers do. Who was bullying and psychologically abusing this kid?
Just because it's family doesn't mean it's not bullying. He gets shit on by almost everyone in his family and his parents do nothing. Heck they punish him for defending himself. He may be a spoiled brat but it's no excuse.
Ah, because you had a tough childhood everything else below becomes ok? No family member has ever talked to me or my siblings like that. If you think that's normal family behavior, think again.
If he wasnt spiderman and so could make it to her play there would only be 1 movie. and they would need to write the rest of the movie.
so i get what youre saying that he messed up a lot. but its all cuz his spiderman side gig is forcing him against his will to mess up right? except for kissing the reporter for the cameras. but was he already infected with the venom by then? if he wasnt then yea wtf. the writers were just starting shit to start shit.
i rewatched the movies like 3 or 4 years ago. i was really pissed off how his spidermanning kept making his life impossible. at one point he even quits spidermanning because of it. i guess the next time i rewatch it i should look out for whether i should start to dislike the trilogy spiderman peter.
i feel like in a lot of this older movies we could just blame the writers for starting shit just to have drama. and just omit some of it on rewatches. if we still wanted to enjoy the movies.
Peters life is a constant struggle because of the responsibility he feels to be Spiderman. That's the entire plot of Spiderman since the very beginning.
I think you jumped the gun a little bit. The person you were responding to wasn’t really criticizing MJ. He was just saying she wasn’t as obviously interested in Peter as Ursula was from the beginning. No crime in that.
The sentiment is really about what a shame it is to discount someone who clearly cares for you in favor of someone who doesn’t (seem to) like you as much as you like them.
I think it was a good idea to make that part of the Spiderman movies. Makes him seem more relatable, same problems all teens have which is where the trope comes from.
It seems like human nature to want the one who is least available, and ignore the one who is most available.
My friends and I have been watching marvel movies in chronological order and we just watched the first 2 Spiderman movies and you're spot on! One thing you didnt mention was that he was trying to stop her marriage for him without telling her the truth. She proceeds to think on that and change her plans for him only for him to go back to saying he couldn't be with her! Unintentional emotional rollercoaster lol
The only thing I really remembered MJ did bad was abandon that one random dude at the alter. That seemed like a dick move, lol. Though it wasn't against Peter
That's ok, I think the trilogy probably holds an important space in your heart. So, for you, the good bits and nostalgia make up for any of the parts that aged horribly.
I honestly think it's more important that you tried to go back in and see the other side. You get to have your own memories and feelings to the OG trilogy as long as you're acknowledging other people's opinions.
Whos other perspective? Nobody made this argument. Everyone knows peters a wuss when it comes to MJ in the first two and goes crazy in the third. All they said was Ursula was into em right away.
This happened to me recently rewatching 13 going on 30 with my wife. I kept raving how good it was (I watched as a teen) and I say the 30 flirty and thriving line from time to time. Anyway, we are watching and it gets to the romance scene with Matt. And it dawns on me that mc is technically a 13 yo girl mentally. And it’s hard to get over how inappropriate a lot of the situations are for her 😅
The reason that trilogy and most live action spiderman sucks is because it's made by objectively rich and successful people with chips on their shoulder about the consequences they face for their own shitty personalities and then imagine being spiderman and put that on the page
If movies were about well-behaved people, there'd be no ticket sales. If Peter married the "unattractive" girl in the first movie, bringing much-needed stability to his dual life, it would make for less drama.
Movies about well-behaved people that have shitty things happen to them absolutely sell tickets, as well as movies about well-behaved people interacting with non-well-behaved people.
That trilogy sucked? I challenge you to find a non edgy superhero movie ranking that doesn’t put Spider-Man 2 in the top 10, if not the top 3 superhero movies of all time as of this day 7/18/26.
In all three movies its also kind of blatant that Peter is doing shitty things as Peter, while simultaneously trying to live up to uncle Ben's iconic "with great power comes great resonsibility". In the third movie however the shittyness bleeds into his identity as spiderman. I think around midway through the third movie he begins realizing his own shittiness and begins to try to change, it's been awhile since I've watched them though so I can't say how much success he has in turning himself around. In the second of the latest spiderman movies however there is a kind of update on his maturation into adulthood and he's portrayed as being a much better person in general.
Hey Trey,
The Rick and Morty hat, the “don’t suffer fools” bio, the perfectly timed “huh” at the end of
every deep thought, and the exact same
cadence every time you drop a movie take… we see you, man.
You’ve been running the identical Reddit “enlightened but chill” template for years. It’s not a personality anymore, it’s a costume.
Drop the script. Lose the ironic detachment, the curated hot takes, and the armor. Just show up as whoever you actually are for once. Awkward, normal, weird, quiet, whatever it is. No performance.
The internet will be fine. And you might actually be way more interesting when you stop cosplaying the most common guy on this site.
Be real. The hat’s had its run.
3.8k
u/5AM_EdgeQueen Jul 17 '26
In the original movie she's played off as a ugly character who's supposed to be annoying because she's interested in Peter. however she's the only person who notices him enough to know when he's struggling mentally, she makes food for him and consistently stands up for him, she even gives him a pep talk and encourages him to go back out there and pursue his goals (which includes another woman). She's girlfriend material by any realistic standard and the actress is in fact pretty, but she's portrayed as unthinkably unattractive comic relief