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Spider-Man 2 There is a lot of confusing shit going on in this movie. By the NYSDCJS and NYPD's own figures(1), grand larceny, grand larceny auto, and murder, will be about 20% of reported crimes in New York City in 2004, and the majority of these reports will not be due to the actions of the illegal bourgeois Mafia, who metaphorically figure prominently in the adventures of such comic action heroes as Spider-Man and Batman. MIM has said that "Spider-Man: The Motion Picture" (2002) has some redeeming value on the basis of its depiction of asexuality, but it cannot ignore the fact that "Spider-Man's" Amerikan flag-waving fans are cheering for something that in the real world would be called "capitalist police repression." This is an important point. Communists do not support pig repression, much less the pig-wanna- be, labor-aristocrat vigilantes who think themselves heroes when they are gunning down the Third World proletariat at the Mexico-united $tates border, or the self-styled "community" pigs who "police" Asian, Black and Latino youth street organizations. If the bourgeoisie want to sic their thugs on each other, MIM would not get in the middle of this fight, but it does not support pig repression in the abstract when Spider-Man (Tobey Maguire) has his knee-jerk reaction every time he hears a police siren. If Spider-Man had any (spider-) "sense" at all, he would fight the police repression under which gold miners work in Azania and China to produce the gold coins stored in the vault of the bank that is robbed in the movie. In fact, exactly why is Dr. Octavius / Doc Ock (Alfred Molina) a villain? And Spider-Man the hero here? This is not made clear in the movie. Neither Dr. Octavius nor his intelligent robotic arms seem to want to destroy the city on purpose. In the first "Spider-Man" movie, already-dislikable monopoly-capitalist Norman Osborn (Willem Dafoe) has a hissy fit after he loses a u.$. military contract. "Spider-Man 2" is different. Before his accident, Dr. Octavius wants to develop cheap fusion power in order to help feed starving people. At most, he can be accused of either dishonesty, naivete (for working for Osborn), or utopianism, and maybe wanting to hoard all this energy, especially in the latter part of the movie. A pessimistic Peter Parker criticizes Dr. Octavius on technical grounds of his fusion theory. It turns out that Peter Parker's mere guess is right, but he is a little bit too quick to go after Doc Ock as an enemy when the scientist loses control of his invention and himself. If in fact Dr. Octavius still wants to flood the world with cheap fusion power (and put a kink in an imperialist economy or two in the process), and could start doing it tomorrow, he can rob as many capitalist banks as he wants in order to fund his research and development. Spider-Man should get out of the way. Realistically, a nuclear power plant cannot explode (or implode) like a bomb. As is, the ridiculous fantasy scenario depicted in "Spider-Man 2" will not be a consideration when the dictatorship of the proletariat has to take a sober look at nuclear energy's possible net contribution to people's lifespans and standard of living, when nuclear scientists are accountable to the proletariat, and not to capitalists or to a revisionist new bourgeoisie. To the (rather limited) extent that Spider-Man is actually a stand-in for a revolutionary when he opposes Doc Ock, "Spider-Man 2" must be praised for going further than "Spider-Man" (2002) in the on-screen depiction of possibly revolutionary asexuality. In everyday terms, Spider-Man repeatedly puts aside dating and romantic involvement so that he can better-fight the good fight, and his security is improved because he has no intimate partner for anyone to kidnap. It isn't just that Mary Jane would be a security risk; intimate relationships get in the way of Peter Parker's work. Peter Parker's landlord's anorexic, Russian and possibly gender-oppressed daughter, Ursula (Mageina Tovah), shows interest in Parker, but no romance happens, and nobody is disappointed. Long-time friend and romantic interest Mary Jane (Kirsten Dunst) initially accepts and then struggles over Peter Parker's explanation for why they can have no intimate relationship. At one point, Peter Parker despairs and gives up being a superhero. Inability to please Mary Jane is one cause of this. Importantly, Peter Parker makes substantial persynal and career progress when he is not a hero. By fading to black, the movie hints at an ending where the hero is gone forever and Peter Park lives contentedly ever after, living his own life. The visceral reaction that this draws from the audience is not too useful, but to the tune of some sappy music, the movie makes it clear that Peter Parker's "own life" is an illusion. People are dying around him, and he is a criminal not to do anything about it when he can. Peter Parker struggles with and eventually overcomes the tendency to do only what feels good--or is good, objectively, from the viewpoint of his petty-bourgeois class origin. Peter Parker puts aside his persynal ambitions so he can be Spider-Man again. Since the principal contradiction within the Euro- Amerikan nation is between children, socially, and gender oppressors, it is interesting to see more than a couple of children, including oppressed nationalities, encourage Peter Parker in his heroism. One even supports Peter Parker materially when he is on the verge of total defeat. This reviewer would like to say that the millions of children going to see this movie will leave the theater with a greater interest in changing the world, but realistically, "Spider-Man 2" whips up support for the "heroic" police in New York City. This is dangerous especially when there is already a lot of ego-stroking going on about decreased crime rates in New York City(2), and when people are making an association between NYC police and firefighters, and the War Against Terrorism. There is a thousand-li difference between Spider-Man and, say, Norman Bethune. We can't even say that Peter Parker overcomes white racial identity politics to become Spider-Man, because absolutely nothing Spider-Man does is against the system, at any level. We can partial out the reactionary content of the movie for sake of being able to talk about the depiction of revolutionary asexuality, but it would be wrong to uphold Spider-Man as a hero of any kind. At best, he is a product of a utopianism that imagines that the world can be saved by individual Euro-Amerikan males completely detached from the masses.(3) Saving people from burning houses can be heroic in a short-sighted sense, but fighting crime in a way that is respectable to the police and the media is mostly reactionary. In one scene, when Peter Parker is temporarily retired from being Spider- Man, he walks past an alley in which a persyn is being beat up or mugged. We're supposed to think that Spider-Man could have saved him by kicking the attackers' ass--but putting more oppressed nationalities in prison will not end violence. Only the defeat of dog-eat-dog bourgeois competitive ideas and the dog-eat-dog material conditions of the exploited can end such violence. In a version of "The Amazing Spider-Man" made in a socialist people's republic, Spider-Man discovers that the pigs covered for Harry Osborn so he could get tritium illegally. Then, Spider-Man exposes Harry Osborn's intention to use Dr. Octavius' invention to win military contracts to produce imperialist-country weapons. Newspaper editor John Jameson runs a series of articles smearing Spider- Man further. Jameson's assistant Joseph "Robbie" Robertson criticizes Jameson and is fired. A re- educated Doc Ock and Spider-Man team up to get rid of Octavius' invention. Military personnel attack them. Robbie publishes an underground newspaper exposing Jameson's lies. Doc Ock and Spider-Man succeed in destroying Octavius' invention. Spider- Man is killed by the military with Harry Osborn's help. Doc Ock kills Jameson. Harry Osborn gets the death penalty. The movie ends with Mary Jane working to expose the military's role. Real revolutionary asexuality Not every instance of asexuality is revolutionary asexuality. The suggestion that people can learn from this movie, as far as what advanced sexual practices may look like, must be qualified. First of all, Spider-Man isn't even revolutionary (a revolutionary or among the revolutionary forces), whereas Riddick in "Chronicles of Riddick" could be. Also, the main point of asexuality as the most advanced sexual practice is not abstinence. It is not even trying to minimize security risks. These are both policy points within a larger theoretical point. The point is to not participate in a system of gender oppression, under which everyone is either a gender oppressor or gender- oppressed persyn. Peter Parker and Mary Jane are both gender oppressors at the world scale, so this may raise the question: what is the point of asexuality here? In fact, this gets at a little bit of what MIM is saying when it talks about the eroticization of power. Even if Peter Parker and Mary Jane are both gender oppressors, a quantitative power differential may still exist. Also, they would be having an intimate relationship in a society in which children are still gender-oppressed and sexually oppressed. MIM does not campaign for people to stop having sex; patriarchy would continue to exist. But if a comrade is busy with work, like Spider-Man, and already has little time to pursue intimate relationships, then the issue is: why not asexuality? Advanced sexual practices, including the relatively advanced sexual practice of monogamy, among the most advanced sections of the revolutionary forces before the seizure of power, is a basis for the revolutionizing of sexual practices after the seizure of power and the ending of gender oppression. This is the case even if asexuality will not be the most advanced sexual practice forever. Some of MIM's critics would oppose the interpretation of Peter Parker's asexuality as an advanced sexual practice for different reasons. They think that it is somehow possible to escape from being a gender oppressor or gender-oppressed persyn in sex while patriarchy still exists, but have no problem with the correct idea that a persyn who gets a paycheck in downtown united $nakes of Amerika is probably either exploited or exploiter, and that socialist production relations don't exist significantly in the united $tates yet. Supposedly, we're at the point that where something other than asexuality is the most advanced sexual practice, or in the subjectivist fantasy world where oppressive intimate and sexual practices are not subject to criticism.
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