Let’s talk about Jessica Drew - Character Analyzation/Rant (People don’t like powerful women)
LOOK AT HER.
This magnificent woman sports a luscious afro while wearing 80s style clothing. Afros and natural hair in general are symbols of African American pride and embracing your African heritage. Her clothing style is very similar to the clothing style and fashion that African American women wore in the 80s.
I couldn’t find a better picture, but do you see my vision? Also they are serving 🤩
She oozes culture and black power. She’s a pregnant, yet badass black woman who drives a motorcycle and is proud of her heritage. Yet people dislike her. Why?
Because she’s an aggressive, no-nonsense, black female character
One of the reasons people dislike Jessica Drew is because we see her reprimanding Gwen for visiting Miles, and telling her that she can’t see him again. However, controversially, I think Jess was right about this. Gwen disobeyed direct orders and let her heart get in front of her head. She ignored her mission and the result of that was Spot’s escape and a possibility of interdimensional unraveling. Jess had all the right to reprimand Gwen for this, because in her perspective, Gwen messed up. But even though Gwen messed up, Jess was still willing to give her another chance. She agreed not to tell Miguel, because she knew Gwen would be sent home, proving that she still had Gwen’s best interests at heart and didn’t want Gwen to have to go back to deal with her dad and the possibility of being arrested.
The second reason people dislike her is because she allowed Gwen to be sent back to her universe. However, people are completely forgetting the fact that she wasn’t the person sending Gwen back to Earth-65. Miguel was. Jess did her best to protect Gwen, and gave Gwen numerous chances, but in the end, Gwen failed her mission and disobeyed orders, causing her to be sent home. This is notJess’s fault. People are also ignoring the fact that Peter B. Parker, a man that knew Gwen way before Jess did absolutely nothing to save Gwen from Miguel’s rage. What did he do instead? He stood there and madejokes. Instead of actually addressing the situation and a girl who considered him her friend, he decided to crack a joke. Not even a funny joke. But people are blaming Jess for this. Why?
Because people don’t like seeing strong, aggressive female characters. Jessica oozes confidence. She’s confident in her heritage, she’s confident in her capabilities and she’s confident in herself. Her tone is sharp, she doesn’t mess around and she doesn’t put up with people’s bullshit. Ex. her telling Peter B to “stop talking” and her telling Hobie he’s “not helping”. People don’t like seeing aggressive black female leads, because it makes them uncomfortable. People are quick to label a woman who’s aggressive as “harsh” and “argumentative” but proceed to label Miguel, the person who sent a homeless teenager back to her dimension, as someone who’s “doing what he has to”. I’m not saying Miguel is a bad person. I’m saying Jessica isn’t a bad person.
Jess is also most definitely going to get a character development arc considering how she was obviously doubting her loyalty to Miguel in the last 30ish minutes of the movie right after Gwen was sent-home and during Gwen’s speech with Miles’ parents when Jess was listening.
Jess Drew was slightly harsh on Gwen, and didn’t object to her being sent back to her dimension. Was this wrong of her? Yes. But does that make her a bad person? No. People are misinterpreting her character. She is not a bad person and she does not deserve the hate people are spewing against her. She is a strong black female character and we need more people like her in the media to look up to.
BTW, I’m not black but I tried to be as accurate in my description of how Jess embraces her heritage as I could, so if you see any inaccuracies or have any comments, please correct me <3
