According to a legal licensing agreement between Marvel Entertainment and Sony Pictures Entertainment, Peter Parker must always be Caucasian. Further, both Parker and his alter ego, Spider-Man, must be heterosexual in nature.
The information was part of a document dump on WikiLeaks which took place last week. In last week’s leak, a total of 276,394 files — including emails, files, and financial data — were leaked.
The contract, which went into effect in September of 2011, lists mandatory character traits for both Parker and the web-slinger. The agreement clearly states that Spider-Man is “not a homosexual (unless Marvel has portrayed that alter ego as a homosexual),” Reuters reported.
Spider-Man creator Stan Lee confirmed the specifications, but noted that it’s not meant to be racist or anti-homosexual. Lee also indicated that there is “no reason to change that which has already been established.”
I just see no reason to change that which has already been established when it’s so easy to add new characters. I say create new characters the way you want to. I wouldn’t mind, if Peter Parker had originally been black, a Latino, an Indian or anything else, that he stay that way. But we originally made him white. I don’t see any reason to change that. I don’t see any reason to change the sexual proclivities of a character once they’ve already been established. I have no problem with creating new, homosexual superheroes.
The Huffington Post noted in a report that the superhero and his alter-ego Miles Morales in the upcoming relaunch of the comic books is “interestingly” enough “a half-black, half Latino teenager.”
What are your thoughts on Sony’s Spider-Man requirements?
