Andrew Garfield is doubling down on an idea he first floated more than a decade ago: that Spider-Man, one of pop culture's most universally loved heroes, could be gay.
Same Question, Same Answer
Back in 2013, while promoting his run as Spider-Man in Sony's Amazing Spider-Man films, Garfield asked a simple question that stuck: "Why can't he be into boys?" Speaking to Entertainment Weekly again this year, he revisited that comment and said it wasn't a passing thought. "I just still believe that anyone can be in that suit," he said, adding that the character's power comes from being a blank slate anyone can project themselves onto.
Garfield described his original remark as "an exercise in rebellion that I felt passionate about," and made clear he hasn't walked it back. To him, Spider-Man's appeal rests on the fact that "you don't see skin colour, you don't see gender, you don't see sexuality."
Anyone can project themselves into that suit.
Andrew Garfield
The Fallout From 2013
Garfield's comments didn't land quietly the first time. He told The Independent in 2021 that he faced pressure to retract and apologize, and pushed back hard against the idea that inclusive language would somehow cost the studio ticket sales. "So I said, 'Okay, so you want me to make sure that we get the bigots and the homophobes to buy their tickets?'" he recalled. It's a telling detail: even raising the possibility of a queer Spider-Man was treated as a controversy worth managing.
More Context
Despite the years of talk, Peter Parker has never been depicted as anything other than straight and white on screen. Marvel has made smaller moves elsewhere in the Spider-Man universe, casting Zach Barack as one of the first openly trans actors in a big-budget superhero film and giving trans actor Maikol Roque a role in the most recent installment. Tom Holland, the current big-screen Spider-Man, was once asked directly whether a gay Spider-Man could reach theaters and simply said, "Of course." Reports have also circulated that Sony was interested in exploring a bisexual version of Garfield's Spider-Man for a potential multiverse team-up, though it's unclear whether that idea is still alive.
MQ's Take
It's worth noticing what hasn't changed since 2013: the character, the casting, the studio's caution. Garfield keeps making the same generous argument, that a hero built to represent everyone shouldn't be locked into one identity, while Sony keeps declining to actually do it. Words from a beloved former star are nice. A queer Peter Parker on screen would mean something more.
Cover photo: Colleen Sturtevant, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons
