Why Spider-Man is Such a Huge Hit with Young Audiences

Spider-Man is an iconic figure in the American consciousness, made all the more so by the spectacular success of the film series. It should come as little surprise that the Spider-Man film franchise has staked out a niche as the most intelligent comic book translation to film in cinematic history. Compared to the mindless escapism of such franchises as the unfortunate pre-Batman Begins series and the overrated X-Men series, Spider-Man compares in the same way that one might compare a Scorsese film to an Ed Wood movie. Spider-Man connects especially well with younger viewers and why not? After all, Peter Parker is a young kid, a nerd who can't get the girl without having special powers; he's no good-looking millionaire or alien who see through women's clothes.

Spider-Man is a hero to the youth of America precisely because, as Peter Parker, he reflects many of the problems they face every day. During his job as a stringer photographer for the newspaper, Peter Parker must daily accept the mistreatment heaped upon him by the solipsistic editor J.J. Jameson. He must deal with a parental figure who, considering his age, might be thought of a hovering, interfering interloper into his efforts to mature and establish his independence. And, finally, when Peter Parker slips on that form-fitting Spider-Man outfit and slings his web, flying from building to building, he symbolizes the utter freedom that all young people yearn for. Spider-Man is truly the superhero for the young; it is only when one grows older and accepts the fact that breathtakingly tedious and mundane reality intrudes upon one's more noble values that Batman begins to take over. Billionaire Bruce Wayne and his alter ego Batman are the embodiment of the middle-aged realization that there must be more to life than making money. But for those young and eager to break free from the castigation of adults at every turn and the imposition of deadening maturity upon their flights of fancy, Spider-Man is the spectacle that must be worshipped.

But there is something else that makes Spider-Man a considerable behemoth in the wilderness of superheroes. Those spidey senses that seem to tingle Peter Parker repeatedly aren't just the sensory perception of danger. Spider-Man's senses are keener than the average human; he is a very sensitive being. Have you ever met a teenager who doesn't feel like he or she is the only one who feels any of the more profound emotions in the world? Despite all the postmodern posing of nihilistic apathy toward everything imaginable, it is a fact of puberty that most of us are never closer to pathological psychosis than when we are teenagers. Our senses are never more on edge than during our teenage years. Every emotion available to human beings from anger to worry is constantly crackling like electrical currents upon the surface of our being. Spider-Man's spidey senses are a direct correlation to the ultra-sensitivity that overcomes one during the teenager period. Think back to what it was like to go from being a child who pretty much took everything in stride if for no other reason than that we were oblivious to most of what was happening to being in an awkwardly evolutionary stage lying apprehensively between childhood and adulthood. Just as Spider-Man can sense danger lurking nearby, teenagers can sense a wide variety of both dangers and attractions. The problem, of course, is that Spider-Man's senses are unnaturally heightened; he can distinguish being what is a mere attraction and what is a genuine danger. That is, unfortunately, not the case with teenagers.

The Spider-Man movie franchise succeeds because it directly confronts Peter Parker as a character worthy of time as it does Spider-Man. While action-fests like the X-Man and Fantastic Four fill hours of screen time with increasingly boring set pieces that test the creative limits of firestarters more than screenwriters, and while the original Batman and Superman movies each moved closer to parody with their successive sequels, Spider-Man rules as the epitome of how to make a comic book movie franchise precisely because it deals with the issues of both Peter Parker and Spider-Man. This is because the two identities represent a perfect demonstration of the duality of the young; those who dream of empowerment while they are actually oppressed.