The internet is like that verse-jumping device that Evelyn uses to tap into her other selves. We see paths not taken in the lives of others. The internet is more than a depressing video feed. The internet is a great place to experiment with all kinds of possibilities, to mold yourself beyond your current physical circumstances, as Evelyn learns.
Those are just some of the benefits of exploring one's identity online. All that anonymity can turn heroes into monsters. In the first four minutes of Spider-Man: No Way Home, Peter is framed for murder in a misleading video that gets publicized by a pundit with a huge platform. He turns out to be a guy with a ring light and a greenscreen. Peter is canceled because now he and his friends can attend college. Peter is trying to live two different lives as his aunt explains, and he can't handle it. The internet knows who Peter is, but the real Peter is not.
When the line between public and private is destroyed, there is a need to take hold of a personality that can traverse many different spheres while holding up to scrutiny. It is daunting. Like Evelyn in Everything, Peter wants to return to the simpler times of his life. Instead, both characters are splitting at the seams while facing an onslaught of enemies: vicious foes ruled by foreign motives. Isn't that the nightmare of the internet, that we say private things in a weird semi-public space and are judged by strangers who don't know our context or intentions?
The multiverse narrative that is playing out in these films strives for completeness. It isn't a sustainable state to jump between worlds and selves. Peter and Evelyn both find this elusive wholeness, which Everything likens to enlightenment, in not just embracing a range of selfhood but by embracing their enemies. In a moment that makes whole theaters burst into tears, Evelyn's husband pleads with her. Evelyn and Peter realize that defending themselves and the people they love means treating enemies with respect. It's good to watch superhero and villains fight on screen, but it's not good to face dehumanizing attacks online.
They have powers. Their care for their enemies transforms them into other people. It is patronizing to be told that the reason that people like transphobes and anti-abortion activists don't give up their agendas is because they haven't been treated with enough respect.
If you are no longer protecting your identity, you must think that it is not worth it. To feel safe online will require that we take advantage of the internet's unique characteristics of experimentation, community organizing, access to boundless knowledge, and an abiding compulsion to share, to form new ways of celebrating and supporting our diversity. We might be able to take seriously the lesson in the multiverse-as-internet movies. We're all traveling from different worlds, aliens to one another, and we might as well say "I come in peace" upon meeting.
All Rights Reserved © 2024
