Why Gay Men Have Always Had A Thing For Spider-Man
A new trailer for Spider-Man: Brand New Day just dropped, and right on cue, the gays are losing it. That reaction is not new. Gay men have loved Spider-Man for decades, and the reasons run deeper than a skin-tight suit and a rotating cast of pretty leading men.
Peter Parker’s double life, his underdog status, and a run of actors and writers who tried to make him queer have kept Spidey close to gay audiences for years.
Yes, the suit helps, and so do Tom Holland, Andrew Garfield and Tobey Maguire. The pull, though, is about more than thirst.
He’s a hot mess, just like the rest of us
Most superheroes are billionaires or gods. Peter Parker is a broke, anxious twenty-something who can’t make rent and still saves a city that resents him. He is a walking disaster, and that is the appeal.
Online he has become a fixture of “bisexual disaster” memes, less for who he dates and more for how relatable that mess feels. A hero who never quite fits in hits home.
A secret identity the closet generation understood
Strip away the web-shooters and Spider-Man is a story about a boy with a secret. He hides who he really is and only feels free behind a mask. Queer readers clocked that subtext a long time ago. The double life, the careful read of who knows what, the relief of finally being seen. For a lot of gay men, that is not a metaphor, it is a memory.
Andrew Garfield tried to make Peter bi
This is more than fan projection. In a 2013 Entertainment Weekly interview, Andrew Garfield floated a male love interest for Peter and asked, “Why can’t he be gay? Why can’t he be into boys?” He even put forward Michael B. Jordan for the part.
Sony did not run with it, and Garfield later said he was asked to walk the comments back.
The Spider-Verse made the subtext text
The animated films stopped hinting. Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse (2023) hung a “Protect Trans Kids” poster in Gwen Stacy’s bedroom and washed her scenes in the pink, white and blue of the trans flag, and plenty of fans read Gwen as a trans allegory.
The comics went further. In Edge of Spider-Verse #5, published in October 2022, Marvel introduced Web-Weaver, its first gay male Spider-hero, a fashion designer that writer Steve Foxe called “fearlessly femme.”
Spider-Man swings back on July 30
Which brings us to the new one. In Spider-Man: Brand New Day, the world has forgotten Peter Parker, but he hasn’t forgotten them. He is fighting crime full-time while his old friends move on without him, and the strain sparks a change he may not be able to control, just as an unseen new villain closes in on the people he loves.
The trailer, out now, even throws Mark Ruffalo’s Hulk into the ring. Tickets are on sale.
The details
Spider-Man: Brand New Day, in cinemas July 30. Directed by Destin Daniel Cretton. Starring Tom Holland, Zendaya, Sadie Sink, Jacob Batalon, Jon Bernthal, Tramell Tillman, Michael Mando and Mark Ruffalo. Based on the Marvel comic by Stan Lee and Steve Ditko.
