A British TV channel that played the 2002 movie Spider-Man has cut a homophobic joke made by Tobey Maguire’s Peter Parker.

In the original scene, Parker pokes fun at Randy Savage’s Bonesaw, commenting, “That’s a cute outfit. Did your husband give it to you?” The sentence was intended as an insult and is widely considered to be homophobic.

However, when the movie was recently played on UK channel ITV2, Parker’s line was cut off after, “That’s a cute outfit”.

Users have taken to Twitter to express their support to ITV2 for removing the offensive line.

Love Film & TV?

Get your daily dose of everything happening in music, film and TV in Australia and abroad.

“I’m not condoning or condemning the act of changing old movies, but… Kids watch superhero movies. If you don’t expose them to lines like that, they can’t repeat them. It may not do a mountain of good, but it’s removing one possible source for kids to learn homophobia,” wrote one user.

“When the punchline is gay marriage it’s not really a good punchline,” added another user.

Tom Holland, the latest stay to play the titular Spider-Man character has recently confirmed ‘conversations’ around Spider-Man 4, 5, & 6.

“We’ve had conversations about the potential future of Spider-Man, but at the moment they are conversations,” Holland told EW, “We don’t know what the future looks like.”

However, franchise producer Amy Pascal, was more open about the potential of more additions of Spider-Man movies.

Pascal told Fandango Spider-Man No Way Home “is not the last movie that we are going to make with Marvel — [this is not] the last Spider-Man movie.”

“We are getting ready to make the next Spider-Man movie with Tom Holland and Marvel. We’re thinking of this as three films, and now we’re going to go onto the next three,” she said. “This is not the last of our MCU movies.”

For more on this topic, follow the Film & TV Observer.

Get unlimited access to the coverage that shapes our culture.
to Rolling Stone magazine
to Rolling Stone magazine