Aunt May and Link and the Dying World
Thursday, July 9, 2015 at 8:33AM 
Marisa Tomei earlier this year in LA. She is 50 years oldOnce the Rumor Spreads
I will not be linking to anything Marisa Tomei as "Aunt May" in Spider-Man related until it is "official" -- and with the internet nowadays that line is always blurred since people report "in talks" as official when in talks only means a role is being discussed and contracts might be signed. Until this is not official, though, I'll be over here weeping in the corner as this possible tragedy befalls one of my favorite actresses who should NOT be rushing her "last fuckable day" to play a famous part that has for 50 years in pop culture, or as long as Marisa Tomei has been alive, signalled grandmotherly love and worry. Marisa Tomei is as sexy as ever. When people say that anyone is aging well they might as well be saying "they look pretty good for their age. Not as good as Maria Tomei does at 50 but then who looks that good?!?"
Links
429 terrific juicy interview with Jonathan Groff on Looking, celebrity, coming out, dating other actors, and more
Grantland Mark Harris on Jake Gyllenhaal's incredible artistic growth of late, really upping of his game as an actor
The Dissolve not sure why I didn't see this piece earlier but this a very heartfelt defense of Me and Earl and the Dying Girl, a film I did NOT respond well to, that is helping me see it a different light... though it sounds like the changes they made from the novel were unwisely reductive in terms of the film's reductive/protagonist's view
Matt Zoller Seitz says goodbye to The Dissolve. I love MZS
THR in terrible news Paramount and AMC collaborating on making theatrical window even shorter. It's like they want to kill moviegoing altogether
i09 Elektra is official for Daredevil S2. The Greek assassin, easily the best of Daredevil related characters, will be played by Elodie Young who is of French & Cambodian descent
Elodie Young is on twitter and while I type this she has 5,766 followers (or like 1,000 more than me to show you how unfamously few). By the time you read this her numbers have probably skyrocketed to god knows what.
Movie City News David Poland reacts with a partial history of the changes in the theatrical distribution model over the years
Matt McGorry wants to #FreetheNipple
PressPlay video essay on Shakespeare on the silver screen
Pajiba looks at Adrien Brody's strange filmography of late. Bet you you've only heard of like one or two of them!
NYT talks to Stephen Sondheim about Lin-Manuel Miranda's new Broadway musical Hamilton
Comics Alliance awesome 15" sculpture of Michelle Pfeiffer's Catwoman available for preorder -- sadly it's $270
Off Cinema
Slate fascinating disagreements out there on whether cats are domestic or wild animals
Finally...
I highly recommend checking out this tumblr "Every Single Word" which takes movies and reduces them only to lines of dialogue spoken by actors of color. I really hope they make more of these videos. Here are two examples: American Hustle and Enough Said... though I suppose Enough Said is more impactful if you've watched all of them.
Reader Comments (28)
Being the wife of his father's brother, Aunt May should never have been portrayed so old -- unless, of course, either the age gap between Ben and Richard is that wide or Peter is a change-of-life baby. Either way, I was more excited to read that Tomei is joining the cast of Empire.
My prediction is that Aunt Tomei will be portrayed as a "cool aunt" character, rather than another Rosemary Harris/Sally Field "wise old grandmother" character.
"Being the wife of his father's brother, Aunt May should never have been portrayed so old"
It is more realistic for Aunt May to be middle aged.
Considering that they cast Tom Holland as the spiderman, it quite makes sense that Tomei is aunt May. It will bring even more recognition for her, but on the other hand, girl NO! This ever expanding superhero shit just gotta stop.
And I just don't get male feminists.
Dylan Marron, the guy producing those "Every Single Word" videos is a voice actor in "Welcome to Nightvale," a darkly comedic podcast presented as a radio show for the fictional and "quirky" town of Night Vale. I just got into it and his part 50+ episodes in seems to have gotten slightly bigger so I finally looked him up and I found out about these videos. Timely!
Saw Southpaw last night and Jake really continues to up his game. And Oona Laurence, the little girl playing his daughter, is amazing.
Nice Aunt May/Tomei post, but I kind of look at it the other way: the hottening of Aunt May, or grandmotherly aunts in general (cf. Kristin Scott Thomas/ Aunt Mimi). But I'm against it, as you are. Mostly I'm against it because we just did this reboot. I'm bored with the gossip already.
Another cf.: Smallville, which took the grandparently Kents and made them sexy 40-somethings.
Troy H.: The age gap eventually WAS confirmed to be that wide in the comics.
Fadhil -- what's not to get? Every body with any kind of genitals should be a feminist. This world would be so much better if we stopped having all these pointless inequities and divisions
I don't see anything wrong with Marisa Tomei taking a role in a superhero franchise. It pays the bills, keeps her name out there and allows her the financial freedom to do any other projects she wants to. There are far worse gigs to do for money.
Given Amy Schumer's last fuckable day sketch, I thought the Marisa Tomei rumor was a joke.,
Not a big Spider-man fan, but given the age difference I always just assumed Aunt May was Peter's great aunt (his grandmother's sister). Even in the last re-boot, Sally Field seemed too young for the part. Are we at the point where every character has to be sexy?
Irvin -- someone will have to show me examples of actors who use superhero movie to bankroll other more artistic projects because frankly i don't see it. RDJ, Evans, Hemsworth etcetera... they've all been utterly swallowed up by franchise world. Maybe Tomei will be different because she actually has artistic ambition (see her range or roles and frequent stage work) but it doesn't seem like a serious thing to do.
also: people keep acting like these movies pay a fortune for supporting roles when the rumor is that they're actually super stingy with the paychecks outside of their anchor people like Robert Downey Jr.
... someone will have to show me examples of actors who use superhero movie to bankroll other more artistic projects...
"Bankroll" in Irvin's sense of "allows her the financial freedom to do any other projects she wants to" = ScarJo
Although I appreciate the intention of the "Every Single Word" videos, it reduces movies I love to a some sort of victimization that the filmmakers are not at fault. When reading the comments on the videos, I see that the reaction of commenters towards films like Black Swan; Enough Said; Frances Ha(films I so love) and it makes it look like those films have an specific racist agenda for not having cast enough people of color in their movies. Ugh, this PC world is driving me crazy!
The moment I read the Tomei/Aunt May rumours, I though of you, Nathaniel. Weeping in solidarity if this is ever true.
I have boycotted superheroes films. Unless it's an obscure and original superhero, I won't see any superman, spiderman, avengers, etc. in a movie theatre.
If anything, more men should be feminists. That kind of thinking is why there is still inequalities, Fadhil.
Paul Outlaw -- except Scarlett Johansson has always done more artistically minded films and unless she's planning lots of Under the Skins inbetween her Black Widows and Lucys... well the jury is still out.. I just dont see any firm examples of big paychecks making actors more adventurous and ambitious. I usually just see the opposite since complacency and having it easy and not having to reach for success can kill hunger to be greater and i think you need hunger to be great most of the time.
Cris - It's not about a "racist agenda," but about the fact that our society and definitely out film industry is heavily WHITE, even when it shouldn't be. It's not true to life. For instance, if you set your motherfucking movie in NYC and all I see on screen is white poeple, that definitely a problem. You can't tell me for a single second that that's a realistic depiction of the city. THAT's the issue. Other than that, I don't think it's calling out movies so much as simply shining a light on something many [white] people wouldn't think about. Actors of color are always delegated to the background, to small unimportant characters, one-liners. It's stupid.
"If anything, more men should be feminists. That kind of thinking is why there is still inequalities, Fadhil."
Could not agree more.
Aunt May will probably be like the aunt in Big Hero 6 - frazzled and ditzy but a mother at heart, so basically every female romcom character. Also Spider-Man is supposed to be 13 or 14 in this one - so age wise it kind of makes sense. It still sucks and we legit don't need ANOTHER Spider-Man SO SOON after another failed reboot. Like God damn, just let this freaking character go.
And American Hustle sucked. What else is new? Speaking of Marisa Tomei - I MAINTAIN that she should've had Jennifer Lawrence's role in that movie.
^ Marisa would've been good in American Hustle, but after someone mentioned Drew Barrymore once, I couldn't let the thought of her in that role go.
Those videos are great (as slightly ridiculous and not really entirely fair as they are), but the Into The Woods one takes the cake.
Philip - I am aware of the problem; I work for a film organization that promotes and advocates diversity AND I'm an LGBT person of color . My problem is more with the sentimentalism with which this small videos are perceived and the outrage they're trying to provoke. Suddenly now those movies have less merit because in those circumstances a film like Frances Ha or Black Swan didn't happen to include a person of color. I feel its unfair with the fact that Frances Ha is a great film and in many ways universal.
I honestly don't think that any part of the aim of Every Single Word is to influence our opinions of the quality or significance of the featured movies as much as it is to get us to consider in a way most of us don't how large an issue lack of diversity in film is. We've been conditioned for hundreds of years to view whiteness as the default setting for the "universal" human experience, so anyone who watches those videos and consequently decides to hate great movies for exclusion or marginalization of ethnic characters is either naive or plain crazy.
Even in 2015 whiteness, maleness, and heterosexuality are far more represented in the entertainment industry than they should be; therefore, I'll never feel bad that anyone calls out Hollywood for that until it changes.
Nick Davis would be more equipped to write an article on gorgeous women who are character actors. Marisa Tomei and Anne Hathaway fit this bill to me. And part of Hollywood's difficulty with them comes from Hollywood evaluating women on their looks and age and positioning them accordingly. Not recognizing their individual strengths as performers.
Troy H. - Thank you. Precisely. A movie can be great, and even universal, and still represent the film industry's general lack of diversity.
I approve of who could be the only person to play Aunt May who is actually from Brooklyn, where the real Aunt May is from.
I'm sick to death of superheroes in general but seriously, a third Spiderman franchise reboot already is the definition of sheer overkill. And yeah, you kinda hate to see people like Marissa Tomei getting sucked into that world. Wish Hollywood could move on.