Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man trilogy is widely regarded as a masterpiece. Three movies released from 2002 to 2007, they grossed over $2.5 billion in the box office and, with the exception of Spider-Man 3 are regarded by most as some of the best superhero movies ever made. But if there was a critique to be levelled at this monument to the superhero genre and everything it can be, it’s this: Peter and MJ are not a good couple.
Before we jump in, a bit of housekeeping. First off, this is not coming from a place of hating (unlike my Harry Potter piece). These movies were my first introduction to Spidey, and I love them very dearly. Second, this is not a jab at Tobey or Kirsten. I think they’re both fantastic actors who performed their roles beautifully. With that out of the way, let’s begin.
In order to assess my assertion, we have to dissect the relationship as it appears in all three movies and compare it to the relationship as it exists in the comics (pre-OMD). So, follow me, kids, as we take a trip down the red-and-blue road.
We begin our inquest at the start. Spider-Man (2002). Pete and MJ are in high school. He’s a nerd with glasses and a camera, she’s the girl next door who he has a massive crush on. In terms of their relationship, amazingly, nothing major happens in the first movie. She spends most of the runtime either in a relationship with Flash Thompson, in a relationship with Harry Osborn, or fantasizing about Spider-Man (he has that effect on people). Peter himself is more or less relegated to a small supporting role in the soap opera that is “The Many Loves of Mary Jane.” This movie does give us an iconic moment (the kiss), but that’s not between Pete and MJ. That’s Spider-Man and MJ. “But Archer”, you ask, not understanding that I cannot answer your questions in real-time, “isn’t Peter Parker Spider-Man?” Yes, but she doesn’t know that. As far as MJ is concerned, she’s kissing Spider-Man. Pete just isn’t a factor. And at the end, when she tells him that during her life-threatening ordeal it was his face she was picturing, there’s just no basis for that in her behavior towards him to that point. She’d only ever seen (and treated him) as a friend.
Spider-Man 2 (2004) rolls around and one of the main tethers to the central “man vs spider” conflict central to the movie is his relationship with MJ. More specifically how his commitment to “great responsibility” seems to be harming his relationship with her, exemplified in the movie by his inability to attend her plays. Once again, she spends most of this movie romantically involved with someone else. John Jameson, astronaut and son of everyone’s favorite arachnophobe. This time it’s Peter’s turn to appeal to some nonexistent basis for a romantic relationship, speaking to a time when she believed they could have been more than friends. But again, up to this moment in their shared story, friends is all they have ever been to each other. If they individually held differing feelings, it was never shown in words or behavior between them. During the climax of the 3rd act, Pete (inadvertently) reveals his identity (and his deeply held feelings) to MJ and after rescuing her, explains why they could never be together. The weight of the mask hangs heavy, after all.
In spite of this, the movie ends with her literally running away from her wedding, in full dress, to the derelict apartment of one Peter Benjamin Parker. She’s made her choice.
Two movies in, and they’re finally together. Yay! But not so fast, because then comes Spider-Man 3 (2007). Yes, this movie is plagued by many things, but, in an interesting ironic twist, the romance doesn’t suffer because the romance was already crippled. They were almost never on the same wavelength, what with her keeping the fact that she was let go from the play from him, leaving him to think that everything was fine enough for him to plan to propose (shoutout Bruce Campbell), but confiding in Harry. Peter is not completely innocent in this either, what with his kissing Gwen Stacy (as Spider-Man), in front of MJ.
She leaves him (yes, it was orchestrated by Harry to make Pete feel pain but let’s be real, it would have happened eventually), he gets the symbiote and has a major crash out (jazz club, anyone?). But, after some Venomized intervention (and a Goblin sacrifice), they make up with the very last shot of the movie.
Why do I not consider them a good couple? Well, on the one hand, they barely work in the story they are set in. They are not together for most of the three movies and when they are, it’s shadow games and puppet theater. Both either unable, or unwilling, to be open and vulnerable in a relationship where they allege to love each other. On the other hand, they are such a violent departure from their comic book counterparts that they might as well be called by different names. Comic book Peter and MJ were the epitome of “head-over-heels, I-will-move-mountains-for-you” love. But more than the big stuff was the little intimacies. Things that we didn’t get to see in the Raimi movies. A cuteness, for lack of a better word. Playfulness, shared jokes. The things that give life to fictional relationships. I mean, it took a literal deal with the devil to break them up in the first place.
Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man movies were borderline revolutionary. Equal parts comic book and grounded drama, they set the bar almost impossibly high. But when it comes to the relationship between the two main love interests, there’s a lot of web left in the cartridge.
