How Stereotypes Inform Character: Spider-Gwen
I, like many others, greatly enjoyed Spider-Man Across the Spider-Verse. I, like many others, came out of the theatre with a new favourite character: an awkward, badass, angsty girlfailure (affectionate) who just can’t catch a break. Naturally, post-film, I delved into her comics.
Spider-Gwen is an excellent example of incredible character writing that evolved from its stereotyped source material. Here’s why.
The original Gwen Stacy (the character that Spider-Gwen is based off) is one of Peter Parker’s love interests, mostly known for the way she died. She met her end in The Amazing Spider-Man issue #112: ‘The Green Goblin’s Last Stand’ (1973) where she was infamously thrown from the George Washington Bridge. Fueled by rage, Peter kills the Green Goblin and finds no solace in the action. He is left only with the conviction that he is responsible for the murder of another person he loves, just by being in their life.
This is a textbook example of ‘fridging’, a term first put to name by Gail Simone in April 1999 where she had compiled a list of female superheroes in comics that had been killed off to further the development of their male counterparts. The term has then been applied to characters in general, female ‘damsels in distress’ particularly egregious in falling into the trope.
Additionally, prior to her death, the female character often has no motivations and interests of her own, unrelated to her male counterpart. Considering the disproportionate amount of male leads (and interesting supporting characters) in comparison to female ones, this is made all the more glaring.
This is seen as in the issues before her death in the comics, Gwen spends her time worried about Peter, praising Peter, talking about Peter; all without being much of a character outside of that.
The adaptations have tried to soften the blow by letting Gwen play a more active role in the story, such as with Emma Stone’s Gwen Stacy in The Amazing Spider-Man 2. In the film, her agency was preserved — to an extent — by her choice to help Peter save the day. She actively defies his wishes to keep her safe because she knew that she was essential in stopping the villain.
With Spider-Gwen, they take it a step further.
Spider-Gwen was a character that first emerged from a “hey, wouldn’t it be cool if…”. In fact, she was met by some resistance as ‘The Death of Gwen Stacy’ was seen as a turning point in the Spider-Man comics in 1973 — a statement that the writers were willing to write mature stories. However, the interesting hypothetical developed into an opportunity for character when the very real world phenomenon of ‘fridging’ became an integral part of Spider-Gwen’s character struggles in-universe.
Spider-Gwen is from Earth 65 and her universe is the only one where Gwen is Spider-Woman. In every other universe, she dies in a Spider-Man related incident. The weight of this information creates an additional sense of responsibility as she has to grapple with the fact that she is the only Gwen that has agency, a meta-textual commentary on how female characters are treated in media. Especially so in the male-dominated comic space.
Consequently, in the ‘Ghost Spider’ comics, Gwen takes on the moniker of ‘Ghost Spider’ as a representation of the way she feels about herself, and to pay homage to the people she lost along the way — including every Gwen in every other universe.
Importantly, while she battles and embraces her demons, this struggle — the state of her place in the universe — does not define her. To quote the concluding monologue of an issue, “If we have to be haunted, we should befriend our ghosts. We should welcome them in, and let them make a home with us. Just because we’re ghost stories doesn’t mean we’re over”.
This is a consistent theme throughout her comics:
The text subverts the idea of ‘fate’ such that the stereotype Gwen was based on becomes something that isn’t important to her anymore. The line “what if she got super-powers instead” also carries further meta-textual weight in considering the phenomenon of (often female) superheroes that spawned in the same manner — often in a way that was lazy and stereotyped.
Consider the amount of female heroes in old comics who were simply genderbent versions of a male one, and with no distinct personality outside of that. Thus, the evolution of Gwen Stacy mirrors an evolution in the type of story the writers wanted to tell.
In some way, it also gives the old Gwen Stacy who Died new life. Post-mortem, despite her comparatively shallow writing, the reader gets to see her through the lens of someone who doesn’t know her and yet is her. Spider-Gwen asks how the other Gwen was like; her personality, what she enjoyed. She doesn’t ask about her Mayor Father, or about Peter. She grieves the life she never got to live, the person she could never become — whether you would like to read it as due to her death, or due to the people that wrote her.
Returning to Across the Spider-Verse with the context of her history, a new layer is opened up. As a film that explores the rejection of Fate and Destiny, placing Gwen on the precipice between succumbing to it and fighting against it adds nuance as the inevitable narrative doom specific to her character looms over her.
Thus, the over-arching theme of the film finds an emotional core in Gwen’s personal struggle.
There’s a line in the film where Gwen tells Miles: “In every other universe, Gwen Stacy falls for Spider-Man. And in every other universe, it doesn’t end well.”
The double entendre of ‘falls’ is deliciously ironic — both referring to the love-life of her other-universe counterparts, and their fatal fall from the bridge. My favourite part is that it’s intentionally so; Gwen chooses her words with care such that she (and the audience) are aware of both meanings whilst Miles only reads it romantically. The weight, as it does in the comics, thus settles more heavily on Gwen’s shoulders and she takes it the same ways she takes everything else. With a darkly humorous self-deprecation surrounding something that she refuses to tell anyone else about.
The line also carries the implication that Spider-Gwen should be the only one that doesn’t fall for Spider-Man, given that she is the only Gwen who got bit by her universe’s spider. Consequently, meeting and falling for Miles would feel like her Fate traverses multiversal limits, cementing her resignation.
Gwen doing so anyway — going to see Miles anyway, is a pretty cool Fuck You to the limits destiny paints for her. Miles’ line, hopeful and confident, “Well, there’s a first time for everything, right?” prefigures the film’s (and Gwen’s) ultimate endorsement: screw Fate.
The evolution of the character interests me so much because of how much each aspect of her is embraced, despite not being ‘good writing’. It just goes to show how much potential any character has — in the right hands, of course. It’s not a gimmick either — it’s not as if she doesn’t have other struggles outside of being a different version of the girl who died.
She’s awful at time management, she plays the drums and wants to be in a band but keeps flaking, she has a… complicated relationship with her father.
This is important because if your character is solely based on the subversion of a stereotype and nothing else, well, they’re still defined by that stereotype. Consequently, the film only ever subtly referencing Gwen’s comic-book history and leaving it as subtext makes its emotional weight that much more effective and subtle.
And that’s how you adapt and improve a flat character; how you can adapt and improve a good one into something more.
