Actor who let her face be used in Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 posted an announcement on their Instagram account, saying people should be ashamed.
Another day, another unexpected outcome of people’s wrongdoing. The actor who had their face used as Mary Jane Watson in Insomniac’s Spider-Man 2 came forward and addressed a few things that have been bothering her since her inclusion in the game. The topic of how Western game developers have been portraying women as always “perfectly” shaped and looking for a long time is being discussed from time to time. Even the portrayal of women in the newest trailer of Grand Theft Auto VI raised some questions on whether the screen time of women in the trailer was too much or not.
There is no middle ground according to games that see women in games, it is either beyond a female’s reach or always despised due to said female character’s appearance. The latter can be said for the female characters in The Last of Us series, who are always targeted by a minority by how they look and how they look masculine rather than feminine. Although masculine and feminine is a different topic, the incident of MJ’s face model happened due to harsh criticism of players and haters who did not find the role model fit for MJ.
Insomniac’s Spider-Man 2 has been out for a long while and included both good and middling feedback, mostly stating that the game felt more like a DLC rather than a fully-fletched new entry for the series. While people were discussing the necessity of the second game, some people started making videos or Twitter posts about how MJ’s new model did not fit the style of Spider-Man and was usually being compared to original comic book series and movie adaptations.
On January 8, Stephanie Tyler Jones, the face model for MJ, posted on Instagram about how people have been treating him for his role in the game. While the positive feedback was great, she states some people have been stalking her and this is indeed crossing the line. She states, that from now on she won’t be auditioning for roles as people have been harassing and bullying her for what she loves to do.
It is very odd to see some dedicated people actually going to a movie like this, as it has been already decided by both Marvel and Insomniac that Stephanie Tyler Jones was going to be the person. Bullying a very passionate person for their success and achieving her dreams seems very crude, at least she seems to keep her cool by releasing a brief statement and willing to continue her work for her own benefit and her close ones instead.
