I reject the idea that humans are inherently good. Perhaps that’s a little deep for an opinion piece on a Spider-Man fan movie, but it’s true. It’s why we have affairs, start wars, and vote for the Tories. There might be some innate goodness to the human spirit, a thing inside us that makes us protect one another in the worst of times, but at our baseline, humans are selfish. Humans are cruel. Humans only care about themselves.
Here’s where the Spider-Man fan movie comes into it. Titled Spider-Man: Lotus, the movie was one of the most anticipated amateur movie projects. I say ‘was’, but in a lot of cases, it still is. The reason the movie has become so controversial is because the actor playing Spider-Man, Warden Wayne, has just been outed as having a history of using racial slurs. In particular, casual use of the N-word with an ‘a’, and occasional use with a hard R. He’s white.
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This was almost immediately followed by leaks that the movie’s director, Gavin J. Konop also had a history of racial and ableist remarks. This is not just the best boy and assistant grip (with apologies to all the hard working crews out there). This is the star and the director. You could not find two people who better represent the film. Knowing that the two most central people in the project are racists has obviously put a lot of people off from watching and supporting Spider-Man: Lotus. But predictably, a lot of people don’t care.
That old selfish chestnut is being rolled back out - ‘lots of people work hard on this movie and I want to support them’. I call bull effluence, pal. You just want to watch the movie, and a little racism
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