Actor Andrew Garfield addressed recent backlash over his musing that Spider-Man could be gay, and said Friday that Stan Lee’s comic character “stands for everybody.”
“What I do believe is that Spider-Man stands for equality,” said Garfield.
“Spider-Man will protect whoever needs protecting: gay, straight, black, lesbian, bisexual, transgender. He’s not gonna go help the middle-class white dude before he helps the homosexual black dude! He is an Everyman.”
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While chatting with Entertainment Weekly recently, Garfield said that in a discussion with producer Matt Tolmach, he hypothesized, “Why can’t we discover that Peter (Parker) is exploring his sexuality? It’s hardly even groundbreaking!… So why can’t he be gay? Why can’t he be into boys?”
Garfield now says that making Spider-man’s alter ego, character “Peter Parker,” suddenly gay or bisexual wouldn’t make “logical or dramatic sense.”
“Obviously making this version of Peter Parker suddenly bisexual or gay wouldn’t really make logical or dramatic sense. It was a hypothetical kind of question about the nature of these comic book characters and the nature of this particular character, and whether sexuality, race, any of those things makes any difference to the character of Peter Parker.
“What Stan Lee created is an Everyman for every man. Especially the underdog. And especially for those marginalized, for those ostracized. And who is more ostracized as young teenagers than gay young teenagers? So it was more a philosophical question about that. And I long for the day where a comment like that wouldn’t make anyone batter an eyelid.
“The Amazing Spider-Man 2” is set for release next year.
