In June of this year, Sony Pictures Animations released 'Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse'. A sequel to the hit animated movie 'Into the Spider-Verse' of 2018. Across the Spider-Verse was a huge success, gorssing almost $700 million at the box office, as well as developing on a vast fandom that already surrounded the first movie. However, there was one large difference in the fan reaction to the sequel.
One character, that being Gwen Stacy, is seen having a poster in her room in one scene that reads "Protect Trans Kids". Most never even saw this poster as it only appeared for a split second. Those who did, however, were split into three categories. One saw it as Sony offering support in an extremely hard time for trans viewers. Another were the usual weirdos who complain about Sony "grooming their children" or whatever.
The last, which do technically fall into the first, are the group we will be discussing today. Those who looked at that scene and took it as implication that this variant of Gwen is trans herself.
I won't be discussing the validity of this fan theory (all I will say is I do enjoy it, for obvious reasons), since that falls under film more than media. I will say, however, there is fair evidence backing the theory outside of exclusively the poster, such as Gwen's inner turmoil with hiding her identity from her father. What I'll discuss instead is how this fan theory can be linked to the ideas and theories of Henry Jenkins, more specifically his fandom theories.
Jenkins states that audiences take texts and read them in ways that aren't intended by their creators. This is demonstrated in Spider-Verse by audiences combining several aspects of the portrayal of Gwen's character and equating them to a trans experience. As far as we know, the reading was unintentional and the signs were likely just to show support to the trans community. Of course, this didn't stop many fans from accepting it as canonical fact and going along with it, rewriting their own personal meaning of the text. This is commonly referred to on internet spaces as 'headcanons'.
A headcanon is a factor of a media text, typically being features of a character in a text, being created by fans to fit their own ideologies. More often than not, headcanons arise from a lack of representation. I won't be discussing this too deeply, however, as Jenkins is an audience theorist, but I feel it is important to note. This idea of headcanons can be linked to another of Jenkins' theories, that an audience is an active participant in the construction and the circulation of textual meanings. Applying this to Gwen and Spider-Verse, the factors were noticed in the text, linked together by fans online and a headcanon was constructed. The headcanon has even spread to the movie's protagonist, Miles Morales, as his story shares many of what can be widely considered a trans or a queer allegory, as they are very similar to the experience of a queer person coming out.
Of course, there are thousands upon thousands of other headcanons that I could apply Jenkins to. Seriously, just check Tumblr. However, this one felt especially personal to me as a trans person, so I wanted to analyse it from a media perspective. How it was constructed, why it came about and of course, the idea of headcanons themselves. To conclude, a headcanon is a way for an audience member to feel closer to a character in media. Not on a parasocial level, but more in a way where they can feel like they are able to see a character and say "They're like me", which is especially important for marginalized groups. Fandom can be a curse in some cases, but things like this are what make them important. Bringing communities together over something positive. #ProtectTransKids
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