Your Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man premiered in January to great reviews, but its debut came with some controversy. Hudson Thames, the voice actor reprising the role of Peter Parker/Spider-Man from the animated series What If…?, was giving a seemingly innocent interview to promote the show’s debut when some of his comments soon went viral. In the interview, Thames spoke about his initial concerns that the show would be “woke,” and it was a sentiment that was met with near-universal criticism. Now, with some time away from those controversial comments, the actor is trying to set the record straight.
During an Instagram interview with Juju Green, Thames admitted that he thought the media “cherry-picked and used essentially with no context” his comments “to kind of stir up some drama.” From there, he attempted to retract his initial “woke” comment about the series.

“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 a poor choice of words. My point was that our show doesn’t have to do that, it doesn’t have to pull 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 complement 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 quote that received so much negative attention seemed to garner most of its criticism because of his use of the term “woke,” which has become a buzzword to indicate some kind of forced diversity and equality. During that first interview, Hudson Thames discussed his initial fears about Your Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man by saying, “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.”

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Created by Jeff Trammell for Disney+, Your Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man takes on Peter Parker’s (Thames) origin story and his humble beginnings as Spider-Man. The series is set in an alternate timeline from the main Marvel Cinematic Universe and sees Norman Osborn (Colman Domingo) taking on the role of his mentor from Tony Stark. Although Peter Parker is still Caucasian in this universe, the world he inhabits is diverse, with his best friend Nico (Grace Song) being Asian and LGBTQ+ and Norman and Harry Osborn (Zeno Robinson) being Black.
Reviews for its first season have been quite stellar, with the series registering a 97% on Rotten Tomatoes and a consensus that reads, “Embracing the wholesome aesthetics of the webslinger’s original comic run while adding some fresh plot wrinkles, this family-friendly Spider-Man is a more lovable incarnation of the Marvel superhero.” The series has already been renewed for two more seasons, with Season 2 premiering in 2026, while a third is in development.

Your Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man is currently streaming on Disney+.

Source: Instagram