The Dark Side of the Man

So now everyone in the whole, wide world and their sister has seen Spiderman 3 (alright not everyone, only my loser generation that will barely admit to the Saturday afternoon DD-tinted nostalgia this character provoked). Now everyone who’s anyone interested has seen the movie, I can talk about it. See, I’m so not a spoilsport! Why do people think I’m evil anyway? *sweet, brave smile*. Let’s talk about the man behind the spider.

I wonder why I like Spiderman. No, actually I don’t. The second movie was quite mildly put, pathetic. Doc Oc, a terribly Plain Jane Mary Jane in a movie minus the sizzling upside-down kiss of the first one…was a bad sequel. But then came that one scene – framed in a broken window, Peter Parker muses

Must I never have what my heart desires?

And oh, we were lost, lost, lost from thereon.

Yes, I like flawed men. It used to be bad boys but it has also been the brooders, the ‘deep thinkers’, the rebels, the strugglers and the stragglers. I don’t like perfect. I don’t like nice and simple. Give me a man with problems any day. The one with secret demons, unseen worries, deep-seated fears and dark nightmares.

Peter Parker continues to be a man haunted by the shadows of the past and the unpredictable dangers of the future. I didn’t so much enjoy the triple evil action of Sandman, whatsisname best friend-enemy’s son and icky-sticky black goo-gunk. I didn’t so much as bat an eyelid at the nemesis/friend drama though I had to curb an impulse to burst out into

Yeh dosti…hum nahin todenge!

right in the middle of the scene. But yuzz I really liked all the soul-searching, the cringe-inducing antics of the Black Spiderman.

It couldn’t have been more perfect. This is a superb understanding of the flaws of human nature. Beauty lies in the eyes of the beholder after all and the men I love are wonderfully attractive to me on account of each one’s unique dents and scratches and flaws.

And finally….a flawed man will eternally remain flawed. So the diffident, burdened by an over-zealous conscience Petey of Spiderman 2 turns to the slick, glossy Poison Parker in Spiderman 3. Good job, that’s a man who will never be happy unless he’s messing things up. First, he does too much, then he does too little. Back and forth he goes.

There’ll never be a dearth of women for him. We play mama, we play punching bag but we’re as much a part of the Flawed Man’s internal games as his flaws. After all….the woman who loves a flawed man is running away from her own flaws by trying to heal someone else’s. And hoping perhaps that no one notices the cracks in her veneer. Or maybe that someone does and ‘loves it right’ like she promises to do to the Flawed man.