Is it true that Tom Holland supported the idea of ​​making his Spider-Man gay?

A couple of years ago, news spread across the Internet that Spider-Man actor Tom Holland supported the idea of ​​making his character gay. We checked to see if the British actor was indeed in favor of such a change.

Headlines like “Tom Holland thinks Spider-Man might identify as gay” appeared in July 2019. Then the media wrote that the star of the Marvel Cinematic Universe was ready to demonstrate by his own example the importance of diversity and tolerance. Allegedly, Holland was not against changing the sexual orientation of his Peter Parker, despite the fact that this hero previously liked girls.

At the same time, the articles indicated that Holland himself does not know what the future awaits his character, because it is in the hands of the producers and screenwriters. Similar stories can be found on "Lente.ru", "Gazeta.ru" and website "Rossiyskaya Gazeta". Of course, there is news on social networks called heated discussion and gave birth to memes.

All three above-mentioned publications referred to the portal The Huffington Post, although the original source is the British newspaper The Sunday Times, which published the original article with the interview on June 30, 2019. Access to it is by subscription, but you can use the site for free read a shortened version entitled "Spider-Man May Get a Boyfriend." Below is the translation:

“Tom Holland has called for his character Spider-Man to be presented as gay in a future film.

If Disney, which owns the Marvel franchise, agrees, Spider-Man will become the first openly LGBT superhero in movie history.

"The world is not that simple, it's not just straight white guys. It doesn't end there and these films need to reflect more than one type of person," Holland told The Sunday Times's Culture Magazine.

Asked if there might be a gay Spider-Man in them, Holland replied: "Yes, of course. I can't talk about the future of the character... But I know a lot about the future of Marvel, and in a few years there will be a lot of different people represented."

It turns out that Holland really was not against changing the orientation of his Spidey, and the media were not mistaken? Not really. This short news item was written by journalist Grant Tucker, but the original author was another person - Jonathan Dean. First, Tucker added a phrase about Holland's "calling", although there were no calls in the original source. Secondly, the full interview was most likely not about Holland's character, but about another hero. We have access to main interview, and below is the translation of the desired passage:

“LGBT minorities are still underrepresented. I asked Holland, who has at least one movie left in his contract as a superhero, if there's a chance we'll ever see a gay Spider-Man. “Yes, of course,” he quickly replied, frowning and shrugging, suggesting that this could not help but happen. How soon? "I can't talk about the future of the character because I honestly don't know and it's out of my hands. But I do know a lot about the future of Marvel, and in a few years there will be a lot of different people represented there."

"The world is not that simple, it's not just straight white guys. It doesn't end there, and these movies have to reflect more than one type of person. I met a woman in Texas, and there was a little boy at her school who liked to wear women's clothes. He was bullied. And then I dressed up as Rihanna [for an amazing appearance on the TV show Lip Sync Battle], and this woman told me that the boy felt more confident because he saw Spider-Man do the same thing. It's it was very touching. I just danced, and it helped someone."

Even from the original source, it is not clear exactly how the interviewer formulated the question about a gay man when he asked it to Holland. There is no direct quotation in the text, but in his retelling the author used the indefinite article a (a gay Spider-Man), rather than the, which would indicate specifically the Spider performed by Holland. That is, we could be talking about a hypothetical new Spider-Man, played by a new actor.

A couple of months later, in September 2019, Holland himself dotted all the i’s. Then a video was released on the GQ YouTube channel in which the actor “undercover” answered questions from users of Reddit, YouTube and Twitter. One of the questions was: "Didn't Tom Holland say he wanted Spider-Man to be gay?"

According to Holland, the original question addressed to him was: “Do you think there should be a gay Spider-Man?” He added that he thinks creating such a new character is very progressive. “I think one day it should appear. And I hope to be on the same screen with this person,” the actor concluded.

So what Holland was really advocating was a new version of the spider-hero, not a change in the sexual orientation of the character he had already played.

Image: : i_eat_pizza_ /reddit

Mostly not true

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