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Tom Holland is a G! The new Spider-Man jumped to the defense of Zendaya when asked about the criticism she received for her role in Spider-Man: Homecoming (hitting theaters everywhere July 7th, 2017). Last year, rumor broke that Zendaya would be playing Mary Jane Watson, the love interest of Peter Parker. A few fans of the comic went nuts saying that a Black woman couldn’t play MJ, sparking a sea of racist comments on twitter.
Good Morning America’s Amy Robach then referred to news about Zendaya role using the term colored people. The 43-year-old journalist said, “We all know Hollywood has received recent and quite a bit of criticism for casting white actors in what one might assume should be a role reserved for colored people.”
I asked Tom about the uproar about Zendaya.
“The thing is with Zendaya she knows that, from being on set with her, everyone is always complimenting everyone. Everyone is so loving here. What I love about working for Marvel is how welcoming and kind everyone is. She has such a large following on Instagram and the majority of those people are all for her and all love her. I feel like our generation of people, are moving on past this whole idea you can’t cast someone who is not of the right race of a character and stuff and I really think we’re breaking through and changing all of that. Z is perfect for it, she’s so powerful and so strong willed and it’s not going to shake her at all.”
Director Jon Watts also chimed in about the Zendaya controversy saying that people get these rumors all wrong. “It’s really fun to watch people respond to all these incorrect rumors and reveal a lot of other things that they think might be going on. It’s just fun. It’s like being a magician.” As far as Zendaya’s actual role in the film — described only as “Michelle” — Jon remained tight-lipped about exactly who she is playing: “It’s all these weird rumors flying around right now and I’d rather just not say anything until people see the movie.”
Well people will have that chance when the film comes out on July 7th.
