Zendaya is perfect


She looks and acts naturally and is a cool modern girl. I also like that she drives the racist crowd wild

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Zendaya is UGLY

And before you call me racist, Vulture's daughter was way prettier

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See what I mean? :-)

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Negative

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She's certainly a perfect fit for the Mary Jane role, and a very natural actress. She brings a subtle humor without hamming it up.

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You mean Michelle Jones. She in no way will ever fit the Mary Jane role. That is unless they decide to change history altogether.

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Do you read the comics? She's exactly what Mary Jane is-- a beautiful, outgoing popular girl who hides her emotional depth and intellect behind jaded exterior.

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No, she's the opposite of MJ. This godawful version of MJ bullies Peter and acts like an annoying brat. And she's not popular. Nothing like MJ of the comics.

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Mary Jane has red hair so therefore Zendeya isn't Mary Jane to me. I would've rather they made her Glory Grant instead of saying she's someone she doesn't look or act like.

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Red hair? That's what matters to you? Did I miss your post where you whined about Betty Brant being played by a blonde when she's clearly got reddish-brown hair in the comic?

Meanwhile, Zendaya's MJ looks and acts nothing like the Glory Grant character, but, presumably because Zendaya's father is African-American, that's where you see her? That's a pretty moronic and meaningless way to look at it, no?

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And you seem to ignore the part about her not acting like MJ. MJ doesn't act anything like Zendeya did in the movie. Also MJ is known for having red hair so saying someone who looks nothing like the character is MJ is pretty stupid. Also you also miss my point. I'm saying Glory Grant is an African American character that at one point in the comics was a love interest to Peter and they should use her instead of race changing another character. I also wish they'd introduce Randy Robertson. But judging from your screenname you are more into the movies than into comics. Also the comics are always gonna be better than the movies anyway. I do enjoy the movies but I don't like every change they make for them. Frankly I didn't care much for Raimi's Mary Jane and it looks like the character I know and love will never be in a movie because it isn't politically correct or some crap like that.

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I chose FilmBuff because I'm a big fan of film and this is a site dedicated to films, but I'm also a huge comic book fan, and a lifelong reader of Spider-Man. I've been reading the various titles since the '70s, and at one point had a near complete run of ASM from issue 11 onward.

I'm not pretending that makes me an expert, or that my opinion is somehow better than another's, but I'd argue that Zendaya's MJ is a very accurate representation of the comic book character. They've modernized her, for obvious reasons-- she was originally a product of the '60s, and while not quite a hippie, she was a free-spirited go-go dancer type. What I think is far more important when it comes to getting her character right is that she's always been portrayed as being pretty and cool. The definition of cool changes over time, and just like a modern teen would be vastly out of place if sent back to 1966, so too would the sort of '60s girl on whom Mary Jane was initially based be ridiculous today.

Hair color, skin color, racial ancestry-- those are meaningless traits unless the character is one who specifically embodies them. Black Panther's defining trait is his African ancestry, so it would be crazy to cast a non-black actor in the role. However, a blonde actress as Betty Brant or a Flash Thompson played by an actor whose parents are Guatemalan doesn't really make a difference at all. Nor does the fact that Zendaya's father is African-American and her hair isn't red. She's beautiful and playing a character who epitomizes what a cool, desirable girl is in 2019. That's who Mary Jane has always been.

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"but I'd argue that Zendaya's MJ is a very accurate representation of the comic book character."

Comic book Mary Jane would never bully Peter or make fun of him. She literally showed him a finger in one of the scenes from Homecoming.

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She can be an accurate representation of the comic character without being an identical copy. Mary Jane has been depicted in the comics as a sassy, independent, beautiful girl who is outgoing on the surface, but a loner at her core. Everyone knows of her, but hardly anyone really knows her. Those are the core elements of the character, and they were beautifully brought to life in Zendaya's character.

Did she ever bully or make fun of Peter? I didn't take that away at all. I saw playful teasing balanced with self-deprecating humor, two qualities that are faithful to the source material.

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She can't be an accurate representation of the comic character if she acts like the exact opposite of her comic counterpart. If she was meant to be Gwen Stacy, then yeah, no real big change here outside of race-swapping. The UU Gwen was a bad girl and a bully when she first appeared. So that would fit. But MJ has never been that. MJ has always been a kind soul that respects Peter. Zendaya's MJ mocks Peter and even gives him a finger at one point. She should be hooking up with Flash instead of Peter, since she bullies Peter just like him. That's not MJ. I love how almost everyone shits on Dunst's MJ, calling her a horrible person and a horrible representation of MJ, but then they praise this crap. Dunst's MJ actually stood up for Peter when he was being bullied. That alone makes her more likable and MJ-like than Zendaya.

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Time to leave that cellar and meet the world, dude.

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People are focusing on looks too much and not realizing MJ and Peter weren't a thing in high school. Of course there are different versions that put MJ in the same high school but I think almost all of them have Peter with Gwen. MJ is more during Peter's college days. MJ was introduced later and the reason she eventually became Peter's girlfriend was because Stan Lee thought she grew into a more interesting character than Gwen.

I think Zendaya's Michelle is there just to get Peter attracted to a girl named MJ which will come into play later when he meets Mary Jane. I really don't see Michelle replacing Mary Jane. She might replace Gwen though. I guess we'll find out in Far From Home.

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She flips him off in a playful, friendly way that felt 100% like something comic MJ would have done were that allowed in the comics. She never bullies Peter in the film. She's a sarcastic, dorky girl, and is the modern equivalent of what Mary Jane was. Keep in mind that comic MJ is a product of the '60s, and while she's been updated a bit, she's still in many ways anchored in that era. It would be ridiculous to depict a modern teen that way, so it makes sense that the filmmakers kept her spirit, and all the things that embody her character, but dropped the archaic and irrelevant bits.

As for Dunst, her Mary Jane was like everything else in Raimi's film-- it was fine, but nothing about it was specifically Spider-Man. Had they put Maguire in a different suit and called him Hero-Man, no one would have said "hey this film is kind of like Spider-Man." The Raimi films were excellent Hollywood superhero films, but they were just that: Hollywood superhero films. The MCU Spider-Man, and MCU MJ, are like a perfect mix of the Lee/Ditko and Bendis/Bagley comics, and embody all that is Spider-Man.

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I thought they decided she's a different character. I even heard Mary Jane might be reintroduced to the storyline.

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She's awful. Easily the worst part of the first movie. Really good movie otherwise. The SJW crowd sure does love her though.

The word racist is so overused these days when it isn't warranted that it has completely lost its power and means absolutely nothing at this point. Usually it's the racists always calling people racist anyway.

Have a good day.

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Lovely! I rest my case.

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I'll take things that make absolutely no sense for 400 Alex.

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Let me bump this perfect Zendaya by helping you make sense of it all

"it's the racists always calling people racist anyway" -sut6432, a racist

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Hahaha, you don't know a damn thing about me. You just seem to sit around and call random people racist all day on a movie site. Beat the dead horse. Look in the mirror too.

Shouldn't you at least go out every once in a while and protest by blocking traffic and ruining peoples' days that way? You can yell "-ist" words at them all day long.

Zendaya's character was awful in this movie, and her obnoxiousness was pretty much the only downside to the movie. You can call people racist for feeling that way all day, but it doesn't change that her character blows. She reminds me of a late 2010's version of Daria from MTV...only more annoying. I get why you like her character though, because she spends the whole movie calling everyone racist much like you do.

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Maybe read your own stuff before you post dude...

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Perfect feminist, I agree

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So no girl likes your fedora?

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