SPIDER-MAN AND THE SURVEILLANCE STATE

By Siena East

I have now seen Spider-man: Brand New Day twice, and it has been out for a week. I love the film. I thought it was smart, fun, incredibly thoughtful, and a good step forward for the MCU. As the first generation of the MCU (at it’s best) explored the complicated relationship between Iron Man and Captain America— I feel like the current iteration of the MCU has found it’s own ripe relationship in Spider-man (Peter Parker) and Black Widow (Yelena). Both heroes are born out of the previous establishment— Yelena as the “younger sister “of Black Widow, and Spider-man as the protégé/“son” of Iron Man. Both morn the loss of the hero they saw in their predecessor. Iron Man firmly believed in using the state and it’s power and responsibility over people— ignoring the importance of personal freedoms. Captain America firmly believed in the state being good, only to time and time again come to distrust the intentions of a government who does not value the rights or freedoms of it’s people. Iron Man is comparable to Yelena who very publicly works with the state as one of the New Avengerz (in the way that Iron Man was making deals with the government and working with their financial support) and Captain American is comparable Spider-man who works outside of the government with the sincere belief that the state should be good (willing to question it, but not wanting to). As Marvel movies at their best continue to reflect upon our own times, the totalitarian fascist violence of the state becomes unavoidable table setting in our super hero movies. 

Of all the Marvel heroes, Spider-man has the most interaction with the common man— not just living among regular people, but being regular people— he is not a god, a billionaire, a recovering assassin— Spider-man was just a kid trying to go to the school dance, was a student trying to get into college, and now is just a guy who pays rent. Unlike other heroes, he is just as much a victim of the mass surveillance as he is an abuser of it— but Spider-man’s relationship to the surveillance state started long before Brand New Day. 

Spider-man: Far From Home (2019) is a movie I have one thousand beefs with— the largest being Spider-man’s inheritance from Iron Man. Far From Home takes place after Avengers: Endgame— everyone has been recovered from the snap, life has started to go back to normal, and Iron Man is dead. While Spider-man is on a trip to Europe with his school, Nick Fury shows up and is like Iron Man left you these glasses saying “Uneasy lies the head that wears the crown.” This was the MCU’s first attempt to set up Spider-man as the new face of the MCU. Later, on the bus with his classmates, Peter discovers they look like sunglasses but are actually crazy tech that allows you to command E.D.I.T.H, the augmented reality program that has access to/control over Stark Industries data bases and it’s orbital weapon supply. The movie continues in a sort of Spider-man way— with great power comes great responsibility, but with a goofier tilt— how will a teen balance this unimaginable power of the surveillance state and direct access to nukes? He uses it as every teen would— to spy on his friends text messages of course! So silly! But they deserved their privacy…. Right?! Things get worse when Spider-man accidentally puts a drone strike on his classmate who has an embarrassing photo of him. Oh no! Now Spider-man has to stop a bomb from killing his classmate without revealing his secret identity! How crazy it is to be a kid stepping into Tony Stark’s place— war crimes but at school?!?! What will Spider-man do? Overwhelmed by the responsibility of the glasses he gives them to Quentin Beck, a guy who he thinks is a superhero from another dimension, but is actually one of Tony Stark’d old engineers who hates Tony and has created a bunch of monsters throughout Europe to scam Spider-man into giving him E.D.I.T.H. Quentin plans to use the glasses to kill a bunch of people, so he can save a bunch of people and then he can be the new Iron Man. By the end of the movie  Spider-man discovers the problem is not the DRONE STRIKE SURVEILLANCE STATE GLASSES EXISTENCE, but the glasses being in the wrong hands of an asshole phony guy. It’s supposed to be symbolic of Spider-man accepting the mantle of Iron Man— realizing that he must now be the savior of Earth. The evil power of the glasses and whether or not they should exist is never addressed— instead life goes back to normal with a new more confident Spider-man, until his secret identity is revealed— making him— like Iron Man— now inseparable from his super hero status. In multiple ways Spider-man is removed from what makes him a compelling and relatable hero — thanks directly and indirectly to Iron Man. 

Iron Man, the hero of the MCU, is canonically a major supporter of the surveillance state. From creating Ultron to the Sokovia Accords to E.D.I.T.H., Iron Man has no respect for personal autonomy or the right to privacy. His dream of “a suit of armor around the world” is thoroughly discussed in Jack Saint’s video essay The Ideology of the MCU. In 2019 when Avengers: Endgame came out, the world was different. We thought we were voting out Trump for good, we had no idea there would be a global pandemic, and conversations around the surveillance state were considered unreasonable and paranoid. However, since Iron Man saved everybody, no one acknowledged how fucked up a lot of the shit he did and believed was. Everyone just has super reverence for him because he was dead. Then Marvel piqued my interest by casting Robert Downey Jr. as Dr. Doom in the upcoming Avengers: Doomsday with the tagline “New Mask, Same Task”— is Marvel contending with the unintentionally fascist ideals of Iron Man by putting his ideas through the lens of a supervillain? I don’t know, the movie hasn’t come out yet. All I know is after a week of people buzzing about how great Spider-man Brand New Day is, the internet has begun to bristle at Spider-man’s use of the surveillance state in the movie— and being someone who REALLY beefed with the concept of those EDITH glasses, I have thoughts on this. 

So to catch you up if for some reason you’re reading this without having seen the other Spider-man movies— after Far From Home we got Spider-man No Way Home in which Spiderman does a bunch of multiversal magic shit to make everyone forget that Peter Parker is Spider-Man, but he messes up and at the end of the movie has to make a major sacrifice that makes everyone INCLUDING his friends forget who Peter Parker is, leading us to Spider-man: Brand New Day. Spider-man is a broke guy in his twenties, working with the cops to stop bad guys by swinging around the city with his webs and also using a police scanner app thing with access to a bunch of cameras in the city that are essentially Flock cameras. The first half of the film revolves around finding a telepath who is controlling people and using them to try and break into Department of Damage Control. Spider-man doesn’t know who is doing it or why, but he knows they gotta be bad guys and he’s going to stop them! Damage Control is a government department that studies like super people and learns about their powers and supposedly ‘rehabilitates’ some villains to work for them as “good guys.” Spider-man thinks this is all good and is down to help. The trouble is Spider-man/Peter Parker has been isolated for so long, his spider DNA is giving him new powers. Unable to control his new powers, Spider-man attempts to re-establish the status quo by creating an inhibitor he puts on his neck to control his RNA. He asks Bruce Banner for help who thinks this is a dangerous technology, but Spider-man (as Peter Parker) is like no this is actually for the good of a lot of people. Finally, Spider-man uses his goggle cameras to get a glimpse of the telepath’s face and discovers she is Jean Grey. Spider-man then uses his tech to surveil the whole city searching for Jean Grey’s face so he can apprehend her— and it works to the horror of many on the internet. I have seen written again and again “Spider-man uses Flock cameras to catch the bad guy!?! Seems like propaganda.” However, this is not the first time this type of technology has been utilized in a super hero film.

In 2008, Nolan’s The Dark Knight came out in theaters and it fucking rocked everybody’s worlds. I have some beef with the trilogy, but it would be insane not to acknowledge that it fucking rocked everybody’s worlds. When the movie came out in the United States, we were coming to a new reckoning with our government. The Bush Era was ending, and we were becoming aware of the reality that the NSA was authorized to spy on international communications of US citizens without a warrant— a major violation of the right to privacy. The Dark Knight reckons with American’s concerns about the right to privacy. In the film, Batman needs to find Joker so he can stop him from terrorizing and killing everybody in Gotham. The problem is, Joker has no records or anything that can make him traceable. In order to find Joker, Batman shows Lucius, Wayne Enterprise’s CEO, a big wall of blue screens. Batman has created the technology to turn every cell phone in Gotham into a microphone and high frequency generator receiver using Lucius sonar text. Using the cell phones, Batman can image all of Gotham. Looking at the tech, thinking of it’s power, Lucius says to Batman “This is wrong.” Batman says he needs to find Joker and Lucius says at what cost? While Lucius does not want to be a part of this he discovers Batman gave him the sole power to weld the tech. The way it works is if Joker talks near any cell phone, they can use the cellphones to triangulate his position anywhere in the city. Lucius agrees to do this, but only one time. As long as the machine is at Wayne Enterprises, he will not be. Batman agrees to this and like Spiderman is able to use mass surveillance to find “the bad guy.” Once Batman has apprehended Joker, Lucius sees the machine self destructs— showing that Batman agrees with Lucius— mass surveillance is unethical. He used it once, but it was wrong.  Unlike the movies in the MCU, Batman actively addresses the moral implications of his tech. 

In Spider-man Brand New Day, the film does not end with the use of mass surveillance to apprehend the bad guy. Jean Grey is taken by Damage Control and Spider-man is like okay cool did it, until he discovers okay cool didn’t do it. Spider-man figures out the head of Damage Control, Bill Metzger lied to him, and that Sarah is Jean’s missing sister. We then go to Jean and see her backstory— how her sister was kidnapped by Damage Control, studied and tortured because she was a telepath and how Jean has been working to free her. She was never the bad guy, Jean and her sister were always the victims, and now Damage Control has Jean. While she is being studied and tortured, Jean discovers that her sister died (was killed) due to the rigorous tests Damage Control was performing on her. This is when Spider-man swings into action— and he doesn’t need mass surveillance to find the bad guy this time— he knows the center they are holding her in. After fighting some “reformed” bad guys who are now working for Damage Control, Spider-man discovers they have been building weapons specifically to deal with him. Being a helpful good guy did not keep him from being a target of the state. The guns they use destroy his webs, and Spider-man realizes he must take off his inhibitor in order to be able to defeat them with his new spider powers. He saves Jean by talking to her about being lonely and keeping her from being shot, and she saves him by helping him survive the gun shot wound. The movie ends and everything is good— right?

Something interesting happens in the second half of this movie (many interesting things happen I think it’s a great movie about true love, heroism, identity and growing up), but I mean with relationship to Marvel’s surveillance state. The state— backfires on Spider-man. The surveillance tech he’s been using the whole movie caused him to track down and apprehend the victim. The inhibitor he created (which was critiqued by Banner) took the only power the victim (Jean) had at her disposal, leaving her open to the violence of the state. Then Spider-man discovers the state does not have his best interests at heart and is prepared to take him out if necessary. The illusion Spider-man had of Damage Control is broken, and now he must right the wrongs he committed in his attempt to “get the bad guy.” The film might not say “that’s bad” but it shows us… that’s bad. What’s interesting is when Spider-man finally acknowledges who the real oppressors and victims are— he doesn’t need the surveillance state. He knows exactly where to go— Damage Control. Spider-man is asked a few times who his actions serve, and if they are ethical or not— and while it’s never explicitly stated in the film, as viewers we are asked to contend with who mass surveillance serves? Who does the state serve? Who do the inhibitors truly serve? Who do drone strike sun glasses actually serve? Because in the end, the Flock camera bullshit Spider-man uses helps no one, it only hurts. In the end, the glasses just fucked shit up and helped no one. Right now, we are being sold the idea of mass surveillance left and right— the idea that it will make life safer is shoved down our throats in everything from Paw Patrol to Super Bowl commercials. Spider-man: Brand New Day proves… it won’t. It’s a tool that will be used against the victims again and again. A tool that will be used to violate and control.  A tool that will destroy our communities and families, as was done to Jean Grey. And the bad guys? We don’t need mass surveillance because we know where they’re at— the ICE Detention Centers! I was going to write ICE Detention Centers and cross it out and write “Damage Control” to be cutesy, but fuck it. We all know where the violence is being perpetrated, where the oppressors are, where the victims are being held. We can look up Detention Centers as easily was Spider-man can swing over to Damage Control. While the ideas weren’t directly contended with in Spider-man: Brand New Day, I feel that it sets up for an interesting conversation in the MCU. Jean Grey has pointed out to Spider-man that the state is not his friend. His surveillance tech has failed him. Bruce Banner pointed out that the tech he created was dangerous. 

The previous MCU came from a world that was starting to understand wars were fought on lies, technology had brought us together, and the future seemed bright. The previous faces of the MCU, Iron Man and Captain America contended with gods, aliens, and a world that felt bigger, exciting and more dangerous than ever. However, the world has changed. Families are being torn apart, “not-wars” are being fought on obvious lies we are expected to accept, the laws set to protect us are being destroyed while the laws set to oppressor us are being pushed into reality. Hate and violence are the norm. People are out of work. Lettuce is evil. It’s a lot, and the world that the new faces of the MCU— Black Widow and Spider-man— is different too. When everything was put back together after “the blip” their worlds remained broken— their loving mentors Iron Man and Black Widow gone forever. But even with a mostly “back to normal world” this is a new normal. There is no benevolent billionaire bossing around the government. No living symbol of freedom to bring justice to your cause. While Iron Man and Captain America dealt with exterior threats, Spider-man and Yelena will deal with victims. The mutants (traditionally victims of the state) have come into the MCU at the perfect time to discuss the violence of the state, the right to privacy, and the power of community—- and Spider-man: Brand New Day perfectly sets up the MCU to deal with the legacy of Iron Man— to reject to the surveillance state, to hold the government accountable for it’s sins, and to protect those who would be persecuted by those in power. We can talk about how Spider-man used flock cameras to get to Jean Grey—- or we can talk about the failure of Flock cameras when it came to truly stopping the bad guys and protecting the victims of their violence. Spider-man was warned by Bruce Banner and Jean Grey— I’m curious to see what he does with that warning.