Spider-Jerk

(The following rant contains spoiler info...)

So I just finished watching a rather disappointing Spiderman 3. Maybe my expectations were too high, but I honestly tried not to get too hyped about it.

I’m not going to go into a full review, but one thing particularly bothered me...

So Peter Parker gets full of himself goes to show off in front of his girlfriend while she’s at work, humiliates her, beats up some guys trying to come to her aid, and then actually hits her! Later on, he waltzes right back into the same bar, she hugs him and all is forgiven. (Cue end credits.)

That’s great for the movie, I guess, since we’re all on Spiderman’s side.

But try to think about if this scene happened in real life. If I was a coworker or friend and found out Mary Jane took the creep back, I’d be thinking, “The stupid bitch just took back that future wife-beater?! Has she no self-respect?”

I’m sure everyone knows some girl who dates “an asshole” who she constantly defends as a nice guy. Don’t we all end up dismissing her claims, thinking that she’s blinded by some mysterious need to cling on to the guy and that she’s better off ditching him ASAP?

Even if the guy acts like a cool person around other people, even if he never acts out of line again, even if he’s swinging around and pulling people out of flaming buildings, wouldn’t we all still have a hard time erasing the perception of him as “that dickhead who hits chicks”?

Maybe I’m too unforgiving of a person. But I know plenty of people who have had the same reaction to friends’ boyfriends. I’m thinking, once a wife-beater, always a wife-beater. So if in Spiderman 4, Peter Parker goes back to his abusing ways, Mary Jane better not come crying to me.