Kirsten Dunst has some thoughts on that tweet that called her "Spider-Man's girlfriend"
Aux Features Kirsten Dunst
Beyond the occasional retweet and stray promotion here and there, Kirsten Dunst is not the most active being on social media. However, she did manage to catch that oddly reductive tweet from Reuters and, unsurprisingly, she was less than pleased. When the news broke last month that Dunst, whose career spans three decades, would finally get a star on the Walk Of Fame, Reuter reported the news in a since-deleted tweet that read, “Kirsten Dunst, best known for her role as Spiderman’s [sic] girlfriend, receives a star on the Walk of Fame.” At the time, Dunst did not respond to the lackluster description, but she really didn’t have to: Fans were very quick to remind the publication that Torrance Shipman did not convince Rancho Carne High School’s cheer squad to stop plagiarizing in Bring It On just to endure such disrespect. (There’s also, of course, dozens of additional high-profile roles to choose from.)
While stopping by CBS’s The Talk to chat up her new Showtime series, On Becoming A God In Central Florida, Dunst addressed the offending tweet:
“Well you know, I don’t really look at Twitter and stuff, so I’m not really a social media girl. But I was looking for the show and everything, and it felt like, you know, I read it too and was like ‘Yeah, that’s pretty shitty.’ So I was proud that my fans and everyone rallied around and supported me. It was a very ignorant tweet, and it was probably done very carelessly by a man.”
Keep in mind that the issue doesn’t lie with the idea that, to many, Dunst’s most resonant role might just be her turn as Mary Jane Watson in the original Spider-Man trilogy. That would be totally fair. And there’s a chance that the original caption was formulated without any shady intentions whatsoever. But considering that Dunst had just received a damn star on the Walk Of Fame, the Spidey qualifier just wasn’t necessary. Either way, Dunst doesn’t appear terribly haunted by the whole mess, so we can return to our regularly scheduled excitement for her Showtime dramedy, which our own Danette Chavez earnestly praised here.
[Via Uproxx]
107 Comments
THAT TWEET WAS DEFINITELY WRITTEN BY SOME SOY-BASED MANBOY WHO STILL PLAYS VIDEO GAMES AT 23 OR SOME VERY JEALOUS WOMAN WHO IS HEAD OF THEIR SOCIAL MEDIA TEAMWHATS THE ODDS?
Yeah, everyone knows she was Iron Man’s girlfriend.
I mean, it’s not untrue, though. Anybody is going to be best known for a role in a series of movies that made more money than everything else she’s been in combined, and her function to the story was that she was the love interest of Spider-man.
She’s had a fairly underrated career. She went from child star, to teen star, to young adult, to mature actress with no real breaks or transitional points along the way. That’s hella impressive and I’m glad she’s actually being recognized.
This. We all knew we had something special when we saw her play an immortal toddler, and she has never let us down since. I only expect her to get better.
Not really. She’s not that great of an actress.
She was perfect in Melancholia. That movie still haunts me. I hated and loved her character all at once in that movie.
“But considering that Dunst had just received a damn star on the Walk Of Fame, the Spidey qualifier just wasn’t necessary.”Don’t they usually mention the person’s biggest role if they aren’t a household name like Tom Cruise?
Then using the name she had in that role might have been a good idea.
That’s funny, considering that before Spider-Man, she was most well known for being in a Tom Cruise movie.
But they didn’t even mention the name of the character. They said “Spiderman’s girlfriend”, as if not only she were background, but the role was only significant in its relationship to the main character.
They basically said that someone being celebrated by the city of Los Angeles was best known for standing next to somebody else that actually matters enough to name. It’s definitely shade, and a rather common type for women, even if it was unintentional.
I don’t think “main character’s love interest” is a background role. And yeah, she is mostly significant for her relationship to Peter, that’s how supporting roles in movies usually work. They basically said that someone being celebrated by the city of Los Angeles was best known for standing next to somebody else that actually matters enough to name. It’s not like they said Tobey Maguire’s name, or bothered to hyphenate Spider-Man.
“…or bothered to hyphenate Spider-Man.”
Finally, someone is outraged by the right thing.
like Tom Cruise?
Isn’t Kirsten Dunst a household name?
Chateau Kirsten Dunst is.
This seems like entirely manufactured outrage.“Best known for” =/= “only known for”Yeah, she’s had some iconic turns in, e.g. Interview With A Vampire, Bring It On, Eternal Sunshine, and so on, but I think it’s pretty inarguable that she is best known for playing MJ in “Spider-Man, the most financially successful film of her career to date” and its two sequels.Like, Marlon Brando is extremely famous for his performances in (among others) A Streetcar Named Desire, On The Waterfront, and Apocalypse Now, but it similarly wouldn’t be at all inaccurate to say “Marlon Brando, best known for his role as the patriarch of the Corleone family in The Godfather, ….”
“Marlon Brando, best known for his role as God-Father…”
It’s not manufactured outrage if her fans were genuinely pissed off. That’s the exact opposite of manufactured. Dunst has been a professional actress for 31 years and her career deserved more respect than being reduced to that time she played notable douchebag Tobey Macguire’s significant other.
How about on a platform that only allows a certain amount of characters per tweet? They should have written more but they physically are unable to because of the restrictions of twitter. She doesn’t “deserve” anything.
You may think you’re an Incel, but you choose to be like this.
Lol what the fuck are you talking about? I’m an “incel” because I noted that the medium of twitter does not allow for a full filmography to be listed? Do you have any idea how fucking stupid that is?
“She doesn’t ‘deserve’ anything.”You’re a sad little brat that can’t read their own post.The world isn’t a bad place. People like you just work extra hard to make it one. But it is okay. You are not smart enough or talented enough to really make a difference in the end.
Boy that’s a lot to derive about someone from a sentence. It’s almost like you’re an idiot who see’s whatever you want in otherwise innocuous posts.
I smell an incel!
You’re a very unintelligent person then.
She doesn’t “deserve” anything. Unf. That kind of nineteen year-old not a kid anymore, old man! sentiment makes me want to clang and bang in a dusty old basement gym while listening to some Tool, while also sharing my awesome revelations about the world to my awestruck little brother. Like, how does money even work? It’s only paper that we pretend is valuable! Feel this bicep! That’s what’s real! I’m gonna be so fucking huge in three months, just wait.
This may be the dumbest fucking thing I’ve ever seen put to writing.
“Kirsten Dunst, best known for her role as Mary Jane Watson in the Spider-Man films, receives a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.”
That’s 130 characters. Well within Twitter’s original 140 character limit. But Twitter doesn’t have a 140 character limit anymore. Twitter’s character limit was doubled to 280 in 2017. So Reuters could have tweeted, “Kirsten Dunst, best known for her roles in Bring it On, Interview with the Vampire, Marie Antoinette, and Melancholia and as Mary Jane Watson in the Spider-Man films, receives a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.” and still had 65 characters left. Maybe do ten seconds of research before making up bullshit to defend a stupid, sexist tweet.
Heh, this is a good reminder that most “reasoning” and argument involves deciding on your conclusion first and then trying to think up the supporting arguments that prove you are right. Dude probably thought that the limited number of characters thing was fucking airtight.
Lol. So many assumptions. I remember when sexism used to actually refer to gender based discrimination not “this tweet about someone wasn’t as fully thought through as I’d like”. Seriously though, cry me a fucking river.
So many assumptions.You mean like the one you made when you confidently asserted that Reuters made a shitty tweet because of space issues? That kind of assumption? I’m so sorry that a woman’s entire career being carelessly minimized as she’s being honored professionally doesn’t live up to your standards of proper sexism. I bow to your wisdom, oh great arbiter of discrimination.
That’s called an alternate explanation, not an assumption. I also didn’t realize that her “entire career” being “minimized” by a fucking tweet is something that should matter to anyone on the face of the earth. Silly me. Continue fighting the good fight though. This is stuff that really matters and not, say, content dredged up by people who need to produce something/anything to justify the demands of a 24-7 news cycle least the clicks stop coming.
I feel like you’re missing the point.
Well, if it’s there in the Wikipedia menu for her entry then it must be the case.
Nobody is claiming that Mary Jane wasn’t a significant or recognizable role for her, they’re annoyed that she was rendered nameless as “Spider-Man’s girlfriend.” If the tweet had said, “…best known for playing Mary Jane Watson in the Spider-Man films,” this wouldn’t be a story.You’re missing the point. Mary Jane is probably her most famous role, but that phrasing diminishes her career to that of some interchangeable pretty face as she’s literally getting a star on the Walk of Fame.
Well said. It is definitely meant as a slam. It reads as “undeserving actress gets star”.I suppose it may have been meant as a joke, given how famous she is, but a weird place to try it.
Everything on this site is manufactured outrage.
HOW DARE YOU!
Even the reviews of Disenchanted?
And you get a star simply because you speak the truth.
…and hyperbole.
Well … *pushes up glasses on nose* … strictly speaking if going by worldwide boxoffixe, Spider-Man 3 is her most financially successful film.
You’re missing the reason people are mad. It’s not necessarily that they cited Spider-Man as her most well known movie, but that they failed to even name the character (arguably the most well known nonhero/villain character in any Spider-Man property).You even do a better job expressing the same sentiment than the person tweeting, “best known for playing MJ in “Spider-Man”” would have worked just fine.For your Marlon Brando example, it’d be like saying, “Best known for playing Michael’s dad.”
Wrong. She was reduced to a single part when the woman has a 30 year career, and there’s no way she’s known more for this than Bring It On (not that that’s the point). It’s about (likely a man) reducing a woman’s influence.
lol you genuinely believe more people know her from some shitty cheerleading movie than one of the most successful and popular movie franchises of all time?
Even if she is best known for that role, it’s a like when they refer to people as “sports player’s girlfriend” when the woman has her own accolades. They could have said “She is best known for her role in the original Spider-Man trilogy, where she played Mary Jane Watson, who was Peter Parker’s girlfriend.” That describes the role AND gives her agency as an actual person who exists in the universe and not just relative to a man.
But in your argument it would be, “Marlon Brando, best known as Sonny’s Grandfather…” or “Brando, Val Kilmer’s more eccentric costar” or “Brando, best known as the dick the butter rode in on…”
“the dick the butter rode in on”From now on, I will only refer to Brando as this.
She’s best-known for having been an actress for like 20 years now while appearing in dozens of high-profile films with plenty of leading roles. That’s why she’s getting the star.
Ehh…. you don’t get a star as a reward for some kind of standard of work, you get a star because someone nominated you and put up $30k.
That’s not really what I’m saying, I’d never associate this stupid thing as a marker of talent or fame. But it IS what the article in question is saying, and if we’re talking about why that article should have been written differently, it’s pretty relevant. If you want to say that shitty Hollywood PR stuff like this shouldn’t exist, hey, no argument here. But as long as it does then at least be respectful, especially when it comes to not being at the very least passively sexist and reductive.
The post addresses this. Keep in mind that the issue doesn’t lie with the idea that, to many, Dunst’s most resonant role might just be her turn as Mary Jane Watson in the original Spider-Man trilogy. That would be totally fair.The problem is the reductive language. The fact that it couldn’t even be bothered to name her character, to reduce her to her relationship to a man. I like her turn as Mary Jane, but it’s a dick move to call her simply Spider-Man’s girlfriend.
Dunst was in Eternal Sunshine?
No, no. Your example would be best, had you described it like so: “Marlon Brandon, best known for playing Fredo’s dad in the Godfather”.See? Reductive.
You do have a habit of saying some truly dumb shit. This is such a time. The problem is that that person referred to her as just someone’s girlfriend. Had he said “as Mary Jane in the Spider-Man movies”, it wouldn’t have been as insulting. Moron.
They didn’t say “She’s best known for co-starring in the original Spider-Man trilogy” or “One of her best known roles was Mary Jane in Spider-Man.” The fact that they couldn’t even be bothered to look up the name of a character. “Best known for playing Spider Man’s girlfriend…” isn’t the best way to recognize an actress with 30+ years in the business.
Yeah, totally (sarcastically)
Like how we mostly know Keanu as “man with dead dog” and “computer game guy.”
Mark Hamill will forever be “Darth Vader’s kid” and who can forget Brad Pitt as “a soapmaker.”
Pinch your dick off at the base and notice that the outrage was manufactured by simple ignorance. That’s what you stand in defense of. Just some retard with a twitter account.
(I use the word “retard” with full cognizance of its troubling implications.)
I think a less reductive way to say it would be:
Kirsten Dunst, best known for her role as Mary Jane Watson of the Spider-Man Trilogy, receives a star on the Walk of Fame.
“A Ton Of Words” =/= “Gets the point”
It would definitely have been polite to mention other roles, but since the Spider-Man movies dwarf her other work in both box-office and public awareness, I’m not surprised they didn’t dig farther for a simple, two line blurb. I would have preferred to see “for her roles in Spider-Man, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, and Hidden Figures” (though most news outlets would probably sub Bring It On for the final film, since she starred in it.)
The description is reductive, but tbf, it’s her most famous role.Of course, that doesn’t preclude Reuters from listing a bunch of her other work, or describing it as “Mary Jane Watson” instead of Spider-man’s gf.
Is it truly? Because if you asked me to name a Kirsten Dunst movie, it wouldn’t even be in my top five.1. Bring it On2. Marie Antoinette3. Interview with a Vampire4. Melancholia5. That beauty pageant one with Ellen Barkin and the beer hand.6. Elizabethtown7. The Virgin SuicidesThen I might think of Spiderman. Or maybe not because I never watched more than a few minutes of them. Hell, I’d think of Pleasantville or Ciderhouse Rules for Toby McGuire before Spiderman.
Obviously your personal experience can alter it, but for the public as a whole, it’s going to be Spider-Man.Spider-Man 1 2 and 3 grossed about a billion dollars domestically.The seven movies you listed grossed maybe 200-250 million combined.Most people just ain’t gonna think of a Lars von Trier movie when they think Kirsten Dunst. They’re just gonna think of upside-down raining Spidey kiss, cuz that’s what they know.
If it’s only about box office then someone like Samuel L Jackson would be best known for his Marvel appearances rather than Pulp Fiction or the iconic Snakes on a Plane. Or Tom Hanks for the Toy Story movies rather than the annoying Forest Gump or Castaway. Or Robin Wright for Wonder Woman or Forest Gump and not the oft quoted Princess Bride.Maybe it is all about box office and Sir Ian McKellen is mostly only known for the Xmen and not the amazing Richard III. That’s just sad to me.
Pulp Fiction and Forrest Gump did make an absolute fuckton of money and become instant pop culture classics widely known to this very day.
and Bring it On had a bunch of sequels including one a few years ago. Which churns up interest in the original. I suspect people are just as likely to have seen that as a decade old Spiderman series.
Of course it’s not only box office, but it’s an easy measure for popularity or public knowledge. Robin Wright had a long career before Wonder Woman and only had a short supporting role in that. (Also Wonder Woman is only one movie).
Tom Hanks as Woody might be well known, but you don’t see his face and he’s also the lead in a ton of blockbusters (the totality of Toy Story’s run is huge, but just as many people saw Forrest Gump/Cast Away/the Da Vinci Code/Saving Private Ryan etc etc etc plus Gump is on everyday on cable TV).Sam L similarly was a bona fide leading man with a long career as a BAMF before his Marvel time. But I also wouldn’t be very surprised if someone today writing a snippet about his career wrote Nick Fury as his top line role.But yes, Ian McKellen would be best known for either Gandalf and Magneto.
I fucking love Pleasantville. What a great movie.
Don’t know if this was supposed to be a joke (if it was, it wasn’t funny) but Kirsten Dunst was not in Pleasantville. That was Reese Witherspoon.
It was about Toby Maguire being in Pleasantville, not Kirsten Dunst. Best known for playing Mary Jane Watson’s boyfriend.
The reply was in regards to that latter part of post.
Not sure if that was supposed to be a joke (if it was, it wasn’t funny), but Kirsten Dunst wasn’t in Pleasantville. That was Reese Witherspoon.
I’m pretty sure everyone involved with Elizabethtown would be OK if no one ever brought it up again.
Yet sometimes the duds just stick in your memory. Like New Coke.
Not bad enough to be hated. Bad enough to have been a colossal mess.
Her character is the original Manic Pixie Dreamgirl. It’s hated.
The Manic Pixie Dreamgirl trope goes back way further than that. The earliest example I can think of off the top of my head is Hepburn’s Holly Golightly in Breakfast at Tiffany’s, but there’s likely an earlier example. Maybe one of Chaplin’s “gamins”?
And melancholia for that matter
Never seen the movie but thanks to a horrible breakup in 2008 I know the soundtrack pretty damn well.
What’s the beauty pageant beer hand movie? To your description intrigues me.
I actually had to look it up because I couldn’t remember the name but it’s seriously fuckin’ funny.
If you are liking her new show- I feel like Drop Dead Gorgeous is perfect pre-cursor character. It’s streaming on Hulu and also has Allison Janey playing the same role pretty much as in I,Tonya, but only not bitter and angry yet.
It’s fantastic. It’s one of those mockumentary-style movies like “Best in Show” but the cast is amazing and it’s hilarious. And yes, Ellen Barkin ends up with a beer can fused to her hand after a trailer park fire.
If you asked anyone to name Kristin Dunst movie, they’d probably say “who?”.
It’s the only thing I know her for, and i’ve never seen any of those movies. And neither have most people you will ever ask.
Okay but thinking of all those before spider-man is not normal. You can’t even name your own number 5. Wait you wouldn’t instantly think of spider-man for Tobey Maguire? What the fuck
You are correct. I’m not a “normal” film goer. The last movie I watched in a theater was a french comedy Shinny Shrimp (a week or two ago). Last night I watched a scifi film out of SXSW on Hulu called Prospect (I recommend it). So I absolutely would not have equated either Toby Maguire or Kirsten Dunst with Spiderman until this article.I rarely see any of the DC or Marvel films and when I do it’s a social thing, not because I picked to go see them (Deadpool excepted because those movies are fuckin’ amazing). While I’m aware that those Spiderman movies exist, I’ve never watched them and they were 10-15 years ago so they wouldn’t be at the top of my list. And no, I couldn’t remember the name of Drop Dead Gorgeous until I looked it up (currently streaming on Hulu) but I’d seen it several times so it would come up to me before a movie I hadn’t seen and don’t think about.
The argument was whether or not MJ in Spider-Man was her most famous film, not if you saw and liked the film. It’s possible for someone to like films like Prospect and still know basic movie trivia. For example, me.
They are the type of person that claims to never have heard of Beyonce and totally does not own a TV.
If Spider-man is not the first thing you think of with Tobey Maguire you are either lying or are so removed from mainstream culture you don’t get to be an informed voice on the topic.
The 7 movies she mentioned made together 228 million with 75 percent of it coming from Bring it On and Interview.
Bring It On is my guiltiest of guilty pleasures. I would have tossed Fargo near the top but to each their own.
“Laura San Giacomo best known as the fucking furious mistress written out of history by the narcissistic sociopath Picasso in ‘Interview with the Vampire’ (1994) looking a little like a prettier version of Hailee Steinfeld and along with Lindsay Lohan being the inspiration for the whore with an assault rifle and the nigger with a gas can in the 2004 video game ‘Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas’ was found shot in the back of her head in a car doused in gasoline and set alight earlier this morning” it’s just lovely to have friends isn’t it Lindsay go fuck yourselves everyone else
Why is On Becoming a God in Central Florida not covered anymore with regular reviews here?
Let’s be fair. It was an exceptional onscreen kiss.That scene will be shown in Oscars montages 100 years from now as an indelible cinematic image. It’s like Kirsten Dunst’s lips were Australopithecus, and Toby McGuire’s face was the alien Monolith – arcane and unknowable.Iconic stuff.
um… You know they have to buy those stars themselves, right? It’s not like it’s a honor that is bestowed upon them. They’re invited to purchase one by the Hollywood Chamber of Commerce.Sure, it’s a nice thing to have your name enshrined on a filthy tourist sidewalk, but it’s also a bit of a racket.
The studio usually pays for them as promotional effort for an upcoming project. Dunst herself is not shelling out the requisite $30k.
I really enjoyed her performance in season 2 of Fargo
You should check out On Becoming a God in Central Florida – she’s excellent in that as well.
she has been so fantastic in so many great things that she might be my favorite actress ever.
Kirsten Dunst is not that good of an actress and has been in a lot of either small movies or shitty movies. And yes, she is probably best known for the Spiderman movies, not That being said, she is her own person who plays her own characters, not just someone’s girlfriend.
I just want to see Kirsten Dunst and Kristen Bell do a movie or TV show together.
dozens of additional high-profile roles to choose fromincluding her bloody screen debut.
Most memorable role because it’s really hard to justify Spidey loving such an eyesore.
I mean at least it’s not “Memory of Lwaxanna Troi’s dead daughter in Star Trek: The Next Generation”.
In my opinion, I find it ridiculous that this much outrage is happening over a relatively minor tweet. Labelling MJ as Spider-Man’s GF made it easier to understand for anyone not following the spider-man franchise. Also, anyone find the ‘Man’ part at the end of her tweet a bit sexist?