Mary Jane Watson (Spider-Man 3)

Mary Jane Watson, often shortened to MJ, is the deutergonist of the original Spider-Man trilogy by Sam Raimi (or Earth-96283). She is a character first appearing originally in Marvel comic books created by writer Stan Lee and artist John Romita, Sr. in 1965. She is the love interest of Peter Parker and later girlfriend. She was once a ex-fiancé of John Jameson and once ex-girlfriend of Flash Thompson and Harry Osborn.

She was played by Kirsten Dunst in all three films in the original Spider-Man trilogy between 2002 and 2007.

This page is about her flanderization in the original Spider-Man movie trilogy.

Why It's About Her

 * 1) She has little to no character as she's only portrayed as the girl Spider-Man always saves, the girl who gives Spider-Man support, and the girl to look pretty in his arms. In short, her role is just to make Spider-Man look good.
 * 2) She is incredibly useless as all she does as a character is just stand on the sidelines while watching Spider-Man fight, or just being a damsel who can't even get out of trouble.
 * 3) She also has an alcoholic father who treats Mary Jane and her mother very poorly. But, she barely tells Peter about him, only instead talking about people who shout and yell.
 * 4) Speaking of which, she plays as the damsel in distress way too much and she doesn't do a good job at defending herself like her comic book counterpart did.
 * 5) For starters, she ended up in danger three times within the first film alone.
 * 6) Her chemistry with Peter Parker is a joke, as they constantly have corny dialogue, and they constantly go back and forth over if they want to be in a relationship or not.
 * 7) She was especially, incredibly unlikable and petty in the second film.
 * 8) * She refuses to sympathize or even show concern for Peter just because he misses her plays as he has a very busy life with juggling two part-time jobs and college, and she has not even once had concern of how he's doing.
 * 9) * Instead of trying to make her relationship with Peter try to work or improve it, she goes after J. Jonah Jameson's son John Jameson (who somehow has even less personality than her), and she proposes to him. And to insult to injury, she ruthlessly rubs her engagement to John Jameson in Peter's face.
 * 10) * On her wedding day with John Jameson, she called off the engagement by standing up John with a note.
 * 11) Whenever she's the damsel-in-distress, she screaming very obnoxiously in the first 3 films.
 * 12) She constantly cheats on her various boyfriends and kissed various people while still in others' relationships. Honest Trailers calls her out for this.
 * 13) Every mean thing she does to Peter is portrayed as she's right to do so, while Peter is portrayed as in the wrong when he does the same things to her.
 * 14) To further her poor character portrayal, she would be a flat-out boring and small-time character if Spider-Man was taken out of the equation.
 * 15) During the third film, she used Harry's evil memories returning as an excuse to break up with Peter just because he told her to, when she could have just warned Peter around when Harry/New Goblin was getting his memories back, she knew Peter was Spider-Man at the time.
 * 16) She is a complete hypocrite. She calls out Peter for kissing Gwen Stacy upside down as Spider-Man just like the second time he rescued her though Peter just did for publicity purposes and didn't feel in love with Gwen, but if we recall correctly, MJ was dating Harry when Spidey rescued her from those criminals in the first film and she kissed him on her own accord and she even kisses John Jameson in the same way in the second film just to see if she feels the same thing she felt when she kissed Spider-Man. Granted, Peter doesn't know that Mary Jane kissed John like he kissed her, but taking all of this into account, she has no right to criticize Peter for doing this.
 * 17) Catherine O’ Connor and Kari Wahlgren who voiced her in the tie-in video games of the first and third films didn’t sound as much as Kirsten Dunst.

Redeeming Qualities

 * 1) She is a lot more tolerable in the first Spider-Man movie.
 * 2) To be fair, she's mainly like this because her father, just like the comics, is a domestic abuser.
 * 3) She occasionally tries to fight back against the criminals, especially in the third film.
 * 4) * This is shown in the second film when she tried to attack Doctor Octopus from behind. Unfortunately, Aunt May did that earlier in the film, and Doctor Octopus learned from that mistake. But hey, it's the thought that counts.
 * 5) Despite being the "damsel in distress" in all the times, it was originally planned to have Gwen Stacy as the "damsel in distress" and MJ was going to have a more proactive role by convincing Harry to help Peter, but this was unfortunately changed during filming.
 * 6) She's a bit more sympathetic during the third film and she and Peter start to have actual chemistry with each other, before it's ruined by Reason #10.
 * 7) She's very gorgeous and attractive.
 * 8) Kristin Dunst did a good job portraying Mary Jane.
 * 9) She does apologize for her actions towards the end of the second film.