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Wednesday, 19 June, 2002, 10:01 GMT 11:01 UK
Spider-Man
Spider-Man
A superhero spins a world-wide web in Hollywood's latest comic book adaption. (Edited highlights of the panel's review)
MARK LAWSON:
GERMAINE GREER: And then this strange bug-eyed boy is bitten on the hand by a spider and doesn't tell anybody. Nobody would think that, you'd see the fangs and think, "Help, help, I'm dying", instead he goes home and says "I'm sleepy". When he got bitten, he didn't get venom, he got genes, so he did spidery things. I kept waiting for him to wrap his food up and things like that, but instead, he could do a number of things, like throw gossamer of immense tensile strength with some gesture of his hand, when actually it should come out of spinarettes from his abdomen which wouldn't have been as nice. He wasn't spiderish enough for me. I kept thinking that he had the genes in him, when are the others going to click in? When you're in mating mode, would you run up to MJ and put a parcel of semen under her arm, which is what spiders do.
MARK LAWSON:
CHARLIE HIGSON: He gains this marvellous Charles Atlas style body. But it's not like Jeff Goldblum in the Fly.
MARK LAWSON:
CHARLIE HIGSON:
GERMAINE GREER:
MARK LAWSON:
GERMAINE GREER:
CHARLIE HIGSON:
GERMAINE GREER:
MARK LAWSON: I thought the key line that his Uncle said to him, "With great power comes great responsibility," and I thought that was interesting in an American film at the moment.
MICHAEL GOVE: It's for teenagers, because it has a genuinely, I believe, sophisticated morale structure than most films aimed at that age group, and without it being explicitly Christian, I do think it has that theme running through it. When the Green Goblin takes Spider-Man up and shows him New York City and says, "My boy, this could be yours if you join me in this wicked project" is reminiscent of the Bible. And the final scene is the renunciation scene. It's an affirmation of celibacy and vocation.
MARK LAWSON:
GERMAINE GREER: So he becomes a fighter for good against evil. One of the things that children need to learn is that that distinction is a difficult one. It's true, he is taken up like Christ by Satan and given the city, but the city is not in his gift. The line-up in American imagination that goodness goes with two things, stupidity and physical strength. Wrong.
MICHAEL GOVE: He only recognises that he should use his power for moral reasons when he allows a criminal to get away with an act and has to face the consequences.
MARK LAWSON: It's saying that America has this vast, vast power, but it must use it responsibly which is a classic liberal line isn't it?
MICHAEL GOVE: Everyone's saying, "Why is this guy throwing his weight around he's a villain." One of the things we can learn is that someone of good is often hated because of his strength.
MARK LAWSON:
CHARLIE HIGSON: There's a number of scenes where Spiderman is kissing and lots of lovey-stuff and they wouldn't enjoy that. But there are some great scenes where people are having spikes shoved through them and all that sort of stuff and they'd love that. |
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