Spider-Man: Gwen Stacy's Brush With White Supremacy

[Hugo Strange]

Someone backing a political candidate shouldn't be responsible for what comes out about a candidate later, so this isn't that big a deal. Jonah also backed Bullit and he wasn't a traumatized teenager.

Actually he should. It's the voter's obligation know his candidate. If people vote anyone with NO RESPOSIBILITY... well, we have good exemples of what king of people can assume the power.

[Mister Mets]

Actually he should. It's the voter's obligation know his candidate. If people vote anyone with NO RESPOSIBILITY... well, we have good exemples of what king of people can assume the power.

It's a voter's obligation to learn about candidates, but there are limits. It would be stupid to blame voters in Virginia for being unaware of rape and sexual assault allegations against the Lieutenant Governor of Virginia that came out after he got elected.

[Celgress]

The only way that will happen is if jack fears that Kitty is now a romantic rival for MJ.....

Spot on, thanks for giving me a smile and a laugh.

[Celgress]

Lol, you're the only one who keeps parading around this story and it's not to talk about her character. Please.

A valid point.

[Scott Taylor]

It's a voter's obligation to learn about candidates, but there are limits. It would be stupid to blame voters in Virginia for being unaware of rape and sexual assault allegations against the Lieutenant Governor of Virginia that came out after he got elected.

Yep. And Bullitt was specifically hiding his racist past in order to get himself elected. That is a part of the actual story.

[Revolutionary_Jack]

Yep. And Bullitt was specifically hiding his racist past in order to get himself elected. That is a part of the actual story.

What's part of the actual story is Gwen Stacy swerving drastically to the right. For a woman whose father was a liberal, who goes to college and is friends with Randy Robertson and others, to support Bullitt is a pretty drastic move. It's the equivalent of the one person in your group of friends who are generally Dem or blue-staters going on to suggest that Justice Scalia or Attorney Jeff Sessions or Joe Arpaio are awesome people who should be voted in or kept in power.

The fact is Bullitt is pretty right wing and is obviously conducting a dog whistle campaign. That's the case even outside of him being tied to white nationalist groups. Gwen Stacy sat in his office and listened intently as he railed against bleed heart types and leftists. That is sufficient enough to raise eyebrows of concern.

[cranger]

What's part of the actual story is Gwen Stacy swerving drastically to the right. For a woman whose father was a liberal, who goes to college and is friends with Randy Robertson and others, to support Bullitt is a pretty drastic move. It's the equivalent of the one person in your group of friends who are generally Dem or blue-staters going on to suggest that Justice Scalia or Attorney Jeff Sessions or Joe Arpaio are awesome people who should be voted in or kept in power.

The fact is Bullitt is pretty right wing and is obviously conducting a dog whistle campaign. That's the case even outside of him being tied to white nationalist groups. Gwen Stacy sat in his office and listened intently as he railed against bleed heart types and leftists. That is sufficient enough to raise eyebrows of concern.

I mean if you want to look at it as if the story was written today with the current view and usage of language and completely forget things looked different in the 70s and left wing terrorism was a thing. But even then, you are still reading more into the plot than was there beyond a minor use of the "you killed my father" type trope.

[Revolutionary_Jack]

I mean if you want to look at it as if the story was written today with the current view and usage of language...

As a story in continuity in a sliding time scale, the story should be looked at from a contemporary person. Since Spider-Man is now a millennial, that means his college years was the era of Obama's first term or second term.

[Scott Taylor]

What's part of the actual story is Gwen Stacy swerving drastically to the right. For a woman whose father was a liberal, who goes to college and is friends with Randy Robertson and others, to support Bullitt is a pretty drastic move. It's the equivalent of the one person in your group of friends who are generally Dem or blue-staters going on to suggest that Justice Scalia or Attorney Jeff Sessions or Joe Arpaio are awesome people who should be voted in or kept in power.

The fact is Bullitt is pretty right wing and is obviously conducting a dog whistle campaign. That's the case even outside of him being tied to white nationalist groups. Gwen Stacy sat in his office and listened intently as he railed against bleed heart types and leftists. That is sufficient enough to raise eyebrows of concern.

Yes, that is an accurate assessment of the story. And I think the explanation for her heel turn is that she was heartbroken and lost over her father's untimely and pretty horrible death. Gwen was a weak-willed person, this story bears that out as much as any Gwen story. Recall she also lashed out verbally at an old lady once.

Honestly it was a fairly weak story and I wish I had more background as to why it was even written in the first place. Almost seems like its one of those "you had to be there" stories and was intended to undermine Nixon perhaps.

[Huntsman Spider]

Yes, that is an accurate assessment of the story. And I think the explanation for her heel turn is that she was heartbroken and lost over her father's untimely and pretty horrible death. Gwen was a weak-willed person, this story bears that out as much as any Gwen story. Recall she also lashed out verbally at an old lady once.

Honestly it was a fairly weak story and I wish I had more background as to why it was even written in the first place. Almost seems like its one of those "you had to be there" stories and was intended to undermine Nixon perhaps.

Considering how things turned out with Nixon . . . if you wanted to look for a Marvel story undermining him, try the original Secret Empire story arc in Captain America. While the writer couldn't say it in the comic itself, it was generally implied if not stated elsewhere that the true leader of the Secret Empire was meant to be Nixon, as a riff on Watergate where instead of just plain old political corruption, he was a downright supervillain plotting world conquest.

[Revolutionary_Jack]

Yes, that is an accurate assessment of the story. And I think the explanation for her heel turn is that she was heartbroken and lost over her father's untimely and pretty horrible death. Gwen was a weak-willed person, this story bears that out as much as any Gwen story. Recall she also lashed out verbally at an old lady once.

Honestly it was a fairly weak story and I wish I had more background as to why it was even written in the first place. Almost seems like its one of those "you had to be there" stories and was intended to undermine Nixon perhaps.

I actually think it's a great story overall. It's got great Spider-Man, Jameson, and Robertson stuff. Also pretty gutsy. Spider-Man, even then, was Marvel's most popular character and Stan Lee firmly planted Spider-Man and Peter forever left-of-centre of the political spectrum. No other publisher at the time was willing to do that.

The stuff with Gwen in it, is for me, a way of highlighting a rather forgotten and underrated story from the Lee-Romita era. And to me it's an example of a story that proved that Gwen did have elements of interest to her, which can be and should have been explored.

Gwen is Spider-Man's only love interest from a upper class and so on, and it's kind of interesting if you look at her as a snobbish rich kid who never entirely escaped her class biases and prejudices. That's certainly how Ditko wrote her, and elements of that original character and intent, despite Lee's attempt to overwrite it, end up showing up from time to time.

[WebLurker]

Not in Spider-Man fandom it isn't. And in any case, when was the last time Gwen was discussed aside from being dropped off the bridge? I should be getting credit here for treating Gwen as a character again.


She was making a very conscious political decision. Her father was a liberal and he and Bullitt disagreed about stuff, and Bullitt openly uses what was seen even then, by college-goers a lot of dog whistle euphemisms such as "law and order" and bleeding heart liberals and stuff, that's very much a marker of someone with extreme right wing views.

Let's just say that I feel the references to this story on the forum are of the "see what an awful character Gwen is" type, not for character examination.

In terms of Bullitt being obvious about his extremism, I'd need to reread the story.

[jetengine]

The white supremacist thing was a surprise twist at the end of the story, as a skeleton in Bullitt's closet. He was trying to hide it, that was the whole point of what ultimately brought him down. So it makes zero sense that Gwen would have been aware of his racist leanings and sided with him because of them.

You know, there was also this magical time in the past when just because someone was a conservative you couldn't automatically assume a suite of other things about them, such as that they were a racist. You had to actually get to know them to see who they were.

Glad thats changed, though! Its so simple that now everyone is just a label.

When a good chunk of American Conservatives are either pro or quietly ok with white supremacy its kind of hard not to call them out.

As for Gwen. I dont think she's a white supremacist. Bullit kept his ties to hate groups low so all she knew she was signing up for was a hard right conservative who told her he could deal with (what she assumed) was her Fathers killer. She could have done more research and should have but she was in an emotional state.

Also wasnt there an issue where Gwen is an out and out racist until someone calls her out ?

[Celgress]

Let's just say that I feel the references to this story on the forum are of the "see what an awful character Gwen is" type, not for character examination.

In terms of Bullitt being obvious about his extremism, I'd need to reread the story.

Funny, I feel the same way.

[Kevinroc]

Funny, I feel the same way.

I imagine this is because some users are still very unhappy about the way Marvel and/or Sony would promote their Spider-Man products by trashing MJ. Having Emma Stone hosting SNL and calling MJ a "slut" and all that.

Ship wars run deep.