Those who know me well can attest to one thing: I am a hopeless romantic.<\/p>\n
For that, I blame the movie\u00a0\u201cSpider-Man 2.\u201d<\/p>\n
Also \u201cTuck Everlasting\u201d \u2014 I mean, who doesn\u2019t shed tears when Jesse Tuck announces his eternal love in the pouring rain for the mortal idiot who didn\u2019t just drink the water \u2026<\/p>\n
But I digress. Let\u2019s talk about \u201cSpider-Man 2.\u201d<\/p>\n
It is arguably the greatest superhero movie of all time, boasting a sky-high 93 percent on Rotten Tomatoes, a perfect 4\/4 from Roger Ebert and the ability to make my fairly resilient father laugh and cry \u2014 a feat that only \u201cBen-Hur\u201d and \u201cBambi\u201d have ever accomplished.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s a superhero movie for people who don\u2019t go to superhero movies,\u201d Ebert said in his original\u00a02004 review. \u201cAnd for those who do, it\u2019s the one they\u2019ve been yearning for.\u201d<\/p>\n
I couldn\u2019t agree more. While Tobey Maguire is a weak actor who never should have been chosen for the role, and though I believe Andrew Garfield worked harder for less praise\u00a0(a column for another day), my dad and Roger Ebert\u00a0are not wrong.\u00a0Succeeding where other superhero films fail time and time again, \u201cSpider-Man 2\u201d is true to the qualities that made Spidey a phenomenon from the get-go: it attacks the heart, instead of just Maguire\u2019s fake abs.<\/p>\n
In 1963, Stan Lee introduced \u201cthe new superhero.\u201d While Spider-Man is untouchable \u2014 a giddy jokester with the humor level of a third grader \u2014 Peter Parker is anything but strong. In fact, he boasts the emotional maturity of, well, a third grader. Hopelessly inarticulate and amusingly backward, Maguire rises above his dismal performance in the first movie by discovering what has\u00a0made the world devour every Spidey story to hit the bookstores and the big screen\u00a0since the 60s.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s pretty simple: it\u2019s just\u00a0love.<\/p>\n
Not billionaire playboy love. Not even sensible, mature love. Young, poor, reckless love. Love so amateur and simple that it seems impossible.<\/p>\n
Expounding on Ebert\u2019s analysis, I would argue that Spider-Man is a superhero for those who don\u2019t even like superheroes. And for those who do, he\u2019s the hero they\u2019ve been yearning for. Peter Parker is a real boy, capable of real feelings beneath his mask of power.\u00a0He loves his Uncle Ben. He loves his Aunt May.<\/p>\n
More than anything, Peter Parker loves his\u00a0Mary Jane. He loves her so much that he is willing to risk sacrificing his own happiness, his own integrity and his own life to keep her out of harm\u2019s way.<\/p>\n
Peter Parker made my 2004 self understand what it meant to be in love. Young, poor, reckless love. Love superior to anything I had ever seen from Marvel, D.C., or \u201cBambi\u201d (sorry, Dad).<\/p>\n
I am a hopeless romantic. Unashamedly so, and I look forward to the day I encounter a superhero movie that moves me like Sam Raimi\u2019s Spider-Man sequel.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo, here I am, standing in your doorway.\u201d Mary Jane\u2019s words will forever be the ruler with which I measure my own feelings. \u201cI\u2019ve always been standing in your doorway.\u201d<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Those who know me well can attest to one thing: I am a hopeless romantic. For that, I blame the movie\u00a0\u201cSpider-Man 2.\u201d Also \u201cTuck Everlasting\u201d \u2014 I mean, who doesn\u2019t…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":15066,"featured_media":8577,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[25],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8759","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-opinions"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelink.harding.edu\/the-bison\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8759","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelink.harding.edu\/the-bison\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelink.harding.edu\/the-bison\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelink.harding.edu\/the-bison\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/15066"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelink.harding.edu\/the-bison\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8759"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/thelink.harding.edu\/the-bison\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8759\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8760,"href":"https:\/\/thelink.harding.edu\/the-bison\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8759\/revisions\/8760"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelink.harding.edu\/the-bison\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8577"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelink.harding.edu\/the-bison\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8759"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelink.harding.edu\/the-bison\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8759"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelink.harding.edu\/the-bison\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8759"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}