An Analysis Of Spider-Man 3, Part 3: Mary-Jane Watson, Her Characterization, Character Arc and Thematic Purpose...
There’s a common thing against Mary-Jane in these that she’s awful and a bad character. That’s not really true. I’ve seen Spider-Man 3 used as an example for that. There are those that interpret them not liking a character as them being bad. Many female characters get this. I’ve come to the conclusion that women can’t have not nice emotions all the time and can’t have flaws unless they’re cute to some. Her flaws aren’t cute and don’t make her an automatic great girlfriend for Peter and his life as Spider-Man. She’s not fully accepting of the fact that her relationship with him isn’t exactly working because of the responsibilities he has. She doesn’t blame him for this, but she doesn’t like it either. It causes problems in their relationship. Which is kind of the point.
Her poor review: She’s accused of being mean and a swear word in this scene. But Peter is doing what she gets angry at him for doing. Being self absorbed, only concerning himself with his own situation, not taking any time to give any real thought to hers. He makes her situation about his situation and how he triumphs over it. That’s apart of Peter’s character arc in the movie: Him being arrogant and self-centered. She’s in a temperamental place at this point, because her issues with her father are being brought to the surface, so she doesn’t react to this with much patience. They don’t get a chance to have a real conversation about it because he has to go and she doesn’t berate him for it. She just doesn’t say anything, because she wants to have a conversation with her boyfriend, but her boyfriend has a job and he can’t put her ahead of his job to do that.
Her insecurities: This puts Mary-Jane in a bit of an insecure place. No girlfriend wants a boyfriend that’s consumed by his job and doesn’t have time for her, but she can’t tell him that because he has responsibilities that are more important than her problems. She can’t express herself to him because he’s in such a good place and has bigger responsibilities than her and she feels bad because she isn’t and she does want someone to be able to talk to. This is where the counterpoint of her and Peter’s character arcs are: Her insecurity and his arrogance. This leads her to be able to talk to Harry, who is a clean slate for her at the moment. Mary-Jane does get jealous at seeing Peter being adored by the public while she is being rejected from her dream job. It’s a thing that happens with couples when one is more successful than another. It can make you feel like lesser than your mate. People don’t wanna feel like they aren’t good enough like that, especially someone who has already had that feeling for most of their life.
Mary-Jane’s anger: Regardless of this Mary-Jane is supportive of Peter’s accomplishments. She doesn’t want to bring him down. Then Peter cheats on her, which makes her feel even worse about herself. I’ve heard some say that Peter was acting and that he doesn’t get onto her about kissing other guys when she’s acting, so why should she? But Peter isn’t an actor and Gwen isn’t an actress and Gwen wasn’t acting. She was kissing a superhero, along with doing so Peter did this while in the same position as he and MJ were with their kiss. I’ve seen again an argument against her saying that if it was their kiss then why she’d kiss John in a similar way in Spider-Man 2? But she didn’t know it was their kiss at the time because she wasn’t really knowledgeable about Peter being Spider-Man, so she couldn’t view it as anything special between her and Peter. But she doesn’t say anything against him about it and gives him the crap he deserves about it only when she discovers that not only does he have a personal relationship with the girl he cheated on her with that he never told her about, but that she also clearly has a crush on him and one that he obviously knew of himself. He had it coming. So they go on a break, but she goes to him regardless when she’s learns of his Uncle’s killer, and she does the one thing he couldn’t for her: She understands how he feels. And she has got him down to a tee. She knows exactly what he’s out to do: Go out and get himself some reckless stupid selfish vengeance. He blows her off, and she leaves because she can't coddle someone who doesn’t want nor will accept help.
The Harry/Mary-Jane kiss: I’d go against Harry with the kiss before I’d go against MJ. Her and Peter are half-dead in the water and she’s in a messy place emotionally, while he’s not and is in best bud mode with Pete. But I don’t think it’s worth the time. Same with Pete gettin’ hot and heavy in the rain with his supposedly best bud’s girl in Spider-Man 1. All parties involved are to blame. I can’t hate one without hating all. Same goes for Peter trying to break up an engagement after he’s missed his shot in Spider-Man 2. MJ tells him she’s in a relationship, one that’s becoming more than companionship, she gives him a clear opening, and he doesn’t go for it, so she gives him a message that’s even clearer: She’s not waiting anymore, she’s gonna move on. Peter didn’t need to send her signals either after that, but he did. He point blank asked her out, an engaged woman, and she shut him down. The whole situation was unfortunate for everyone involved to be honest. But it’s something that happens all the time, and something that’s not really my place to judge her or Peter on. No matter what though, none of the things that have been listed against her come even close to Peter and Harry’s worst offenses: Actively making choices that they know will hurt or get someone killed in one way or another. Choices that THEY make, no one else. But Mary-Jane gets trashed for her lesser actions, but the male characters don’t really.
Mary-Jane’s character arc: She really does have an interesting arc in this movie that kind of parallels Peter’s from Spider-Man 2. There Peter had to deal with the decision he made at the end of the last movie of being Spider-Man and dismissing anything else in his life. Mary-Jane here has to deal with her decision at the end of Spider-Man 2 of being Spider-Man’s girlfriend and how that effects her as a person. The movie doesn’t really sugarcoat it either. It’s not fun. We see her face her desire to have him when she can’t, his contact with other women, her insecurity at this and how successful he is and even with his life being threatened. She goes through a lot. She would’ve had a more interesting conclusion to her character arc, if there hadn’t been any change at the end of the movie. Originally, Eddie was going to kidnap Gwen and Peter would have gone to Harry for help and Harry would have rejected him. But Mary-Jane would have come and convinced him to help with that speech about forgiveness that was in the trailers, making her the mouthpiece for one of the main themes of the movie. But that got changed. Not to say that getting kidnapped is a bad thing for the character. It doesn’t hurt her as a person and isn’t her fault. She’s not superpowered. She's a regular person. That’s what makes a developed character. But the kidnapping in this case had a bit of a stunting effect on the character in the movie.
