MCU’s New Spider-Man Actor Breaks Silence Following Backlash To Controversial “Woke” Comments

CineShout

9 hours ago

MCU’s New Spider-Man Actor Breaks Silence Following Backlash To Controversial “Woke” Comments

The newest Spider-Man actor in the Marvel Cinematic Universe is opening up about the backlash he received following his “woke” comments about the new Disney+ series. While 2025’s Marvel releases began with the arrival of the Your Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man show telling an alternative version of Peter Parker’s MCU origin story, the Phase 5 series opened with some controversy. After the show’s leading actor, Hudson Thames, expressed his initial concerns about Your Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man being “woke“, it didn’t take long before the Marvel star got criticism about his commentary.

Nearly two months after the Your Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man controversy, Thames has discussed this matter, as the MCU voice actor addressed the situation in a new interview with Juju Green. During their conversation, Thames, who also voiced Spider-Man in the What If…? animated series, stressed that he felt his initial statement had been “cherry-picked and used essentially with no context just to kind of stir up some drama,” as he said the following in the new interview:

So, obviously, something that I said was cherry-picked and used essentially with no context just to kind of stir up some drama. We were talking about that little period of time before the show came out, and I was noticing a lot of comments online that I was getting, that was either people being nervous or expressing concern that the show was using topics of diversity and equality in an inauthentic or disingenuous way.

It made me defensive, like I wanted to kind of defend our show a little bit. It was such a poor choice of words. My point was that our show doesn’t have to do that, it doesn’t have to pull any tricks. Jeff [Trammell] did such a brilliant job, in my opinion, of writing what he knew. Equality and diversity was just already baked into the story he wrote, and nothing felt forced, I suppose, so I was really just trying to compliment the grace in which that all plays out in the show, and ironically, it’s what attracted me to the show so much in the first place.

The original quote that made the headlines in January 2025 came from an interview with Collider, where Thames had expressed his early concerns about the Your Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man series. This is what Thames originally stated prior to the Your Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man premiere:

I thought it was awesome. I mean, my biggest fear was that it was gonna be annoying and woke, and it wasn’t, and I was like, ‘Yes, this is great, it’s so well written,’ like it feels real. I’m the oldest of five boys, so I feel like I kind of know what’s happening in their lives and in high school, and it felt like it was doing that justice.

From Thames’ statement, it’s evident that he regrets his original comments when promoting Your Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man season 1, having described them as “such a poor choice of words“. While Marvel Studios has yet to respond to the controversy, the Your Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man showrunner Jeff Trammell didn’t take long to show his support for Thames back in January 2025. Whether or not Trammell or Marvel Studios will comment on Thames addressing his initial quotes remains to be seen.

Based on Thames’s latest comments, he has no problems with diverse Spider-Man stories being told. What Thames was seemingly more concerned about was how the Your Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man series would tackle inclusion and representation. In the end, as seen through Your Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man season 1, the show kept a balance in showing the web-slinger in a reality where he is surrounded by many different cultures and communities while also keeping it organic for the overall story.

While it’s good that Thames has now addressed his original statement, time will tell if this will affect Your Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man season 2 in any capacity. Even though the next season has already been produced, having a new series start with controversy could easily affect some viewers in terms of whether or not they will tune in for Your Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man season 2 when it premieres in 2026. But for now, only time will tell if Thames’ clarification will have any effect on Your Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man season 2.