Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse, A Catalyst for Authentic Diversity

The influence the 2018 global phenomenon Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse has had on the animation industry is pretty hard to understate. With its bright, punchy color palette, and the inspired use of screentones and chromatic aberration (that trick where they offset the colors to look like a misprinted comic page), ITSV is a comic book come to life. Since its release, it has been cited as inspiration for animated media like Netflix’s The Mitchells vs. The Machines, Dreamworks’ Puss in Boots: The Last Wish, and many others. The impact has been described as a renaissance, but the renaissance is more than just visual. Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse was an astounding success, making $393 million worldwide, and it did so with an Afro-Latino boy at the center of the story.  The film was instrumental in expanding the access people of color have to tell their own stories on big screens to wide audiences, and the effect of that on POC communities is so significant. It has been well documented, both scientifically and anecdotally, that people (especially children) are happier and more confident when they are represented not just in their appearances, but also in their cultures and mannerisms. This is one of the many things Into the Spider-Verse does so well.

Miles Morales, the protagonist of ITSV and the Spider-Man of this universe, is Black and Puerto Rican. And, unlike a lot of media that features POC characters, he doesn’t just look it. From the soundtrack of the film, to the graffiti that covers the borough of Brooklyn and inspires his art, right down to the way he speaks, Miles is surrounded by his culture. When Miles is walking through his neighborhood on the way to school he speaks in Spanglish, a Spanish and English mix of language often spoken in Latine communities. But when he’s hanging with his Uncle Aaron, the AAVE (African American Vernacular English) becomes more pronounced in a way that reminds me of the way my own speech changes at family get-togethers. It’s a subtle thing in that no attention is called to it, it’s just the way Miles moves through the world, but the way he moves is both so specific and so familiar. And it’s a hard thing to miss when the film is mirroring pieces of yourself back at you.

More than just a fun superhero story, or touching coming-of-age tale, there is cultural authenticity here, and there’s a reason why. Phil Lord, who is credited with creating the story and who co-wrote the script, is Latino, and grew up in a bilingual home much like Miles did. Peter Ramesey, one of three co-directors who worked on the film, is Black. He was raised in Los Angeles, not Brooklyn, but it’s pretty impossible to think his experiences didn’t help shape who Miles became on screen. As a result of all their hard work, ITSV became the Oscar 2018 recipient for Best Animated Feature, making Ramsey the very first African-American to receive that award. With its monumental successes, Spider-Verse flung open doors for people of color to tell their own stories. 

Shortly after Spider-Verse blew everyone’s expectations out of the water, Sony (the studio that produced ITSV) created the LENS program, which stands for Leading and Empowering New Storytellers. The program’s purpose is to bring together marginalized creatives and place them in leadership positions to craft a short film based on an existing Sony IP. The LENS program’s inaugural project? The animated short film, The Spider Within: A Spider-Verse Story. Jarelle Dampier, the director chosen for the project, spoke about wanting to tell a story about mental health in young Black men specifically. The short film debuted in 2023 at the Annecy International Animation Film Festival, and was released for free on Youtube in March 2024 (and so was the killer original song). The short garnered 5 million views in two short weeks, and now, six months later, has 9.2 million.

Casting an even wider net than just Spider-Verse stories, less than a year after ITSV was released, Sony picked up Hair Love, an independently produced short film written and co-directed by Matthew A. Cherry. Hair Love is an adorable story about a Black father learning to do his daughter’s hair for the first time, which Cherry wanted to combat negative stereotypes about Black fathers. For me specifically, I remember watching Hair Love for the first time with tears in my eyes, because it didn’t just look like my hair, it felt like it. The film went on to receive an Oscar for Best Animated Short Film and currently sits at 107 million views on YouTube. In 2020, Sony announced a continuation to the project in the form of animated series Young Love, which aired on Max.

There’s more I could say. After ITSV came the MCU’s Ms. Marvel, the superhero series centering a Pakistani-American teenage girl, with prominent Desi voices in the writers room. The social media explosion of excitement from those communities at seeing a lovingly crafted depiction of themselves was a thing of beauty. There’s also Disney’s Iwaju and Kizazi Moto, an animated childrens’ show and anthology series respectively, created by, about, and for people from various African cultures. 

Once we get a little farther from the sphere of Sony, it becomes a bit harder to pinpoint exactly which factors or combination of factors led to the increase of diversity behind the screens, but it’s clear that something did. The visual impacts of ITSV go well beyond the boundaries of the studio that made it, and while companies aren’t outright saying it, it feels like an oversight not to acknowledge that Spider-Verse likely played a substantial role in animated media that looks and feels culturally authentic.