One of the film’s themes, spread over two hours of dazzling artwork, is how identity is a constant negotiation of race, class, nationality and gender. The main character is African‑Latino Spider-Man, Miles Morales Gwen Stacy’s Spidey endorses trans rights there’s an Indian Spider‑Man with an anti‑colonial outlook living in a Mumbai‑Manhattan hybrid and a pregnant biker Spider‑Woman. The animated movie, a sequel to 2018’s Oscar‑winning Into the Spider‑Verse, bounces around different universes meeting socially aware, racially diverse superheroes. Such sentiment has been vanquished by the success of Spider-Man: Across the Spider‑Verse, which is currently the biggest film in the US, grossing more than half a billion dollars worldwide in a month.
“Go woke, go broke!” encapsulates the schadenfreude that rightwing culture warriors express when art forms that embrace progressive ideals fail commercially.
