We all know there are lots of reasons to criticise Spider-Man 3: too many villains, too many logic flaws, Sandman retconning Uncle Ben’s death, Harry’s conveniently omniscient butler… and yet all of these have been overshadowed by the literal meme that is Emo Parker gyrating and finger-gunning in the street. It’s so bad, it’s hilarious. And yet, if it’s intentionally bad, doesn’t that make it… just hilarious?
Over time, this scene of a moody-fringed, pelvic-thrusting Parker has become shorthand for the film’s many other missteps. But it’s actually a self-aware sequence of unadulterated dorkiness that is perfectly in keeping with a franchise that also brought us 'Peter struggles with the mops in a janitor’s closet’ and ‘Peter gets repeatedly hit in the face with school bags as he picks up his books from the floor’.
