Spoiler warning for across the spider-verse:
For anyone who’s seen this movie, you know how masterful the scene is of Gwen confronting her father. The audio, visuals, everything about it is executed expertly. Most of the time, the color design of this scene is praised for being representative of Gwen being transgender, which is awesome, but I’d like to discuss another instance:
This is the moment when Gwen has just revisited her home and is attempting to sneak back out, only for her dad to notice and follow her to the window. At first, she plans on ignoring him, before he starts stammering and asks her to look at him. This shot, of her sitting in the window as her father tries to talk with her lasts only about two seconds, but represents a fundamental change in Gwen’s character, indicated by that fact that her costume has changed colors to look exactly like Miles’.
For most of this movie, Gwen Stacy has ran away. From her past, her father, her dimension, her mistakes, and even from Miles. Miles, meanwhile, has spent that same time running towards something: towards Gwen, the clubhouse, Spot, and his father and dimension.
The film has a general theme of rewarding those that seek and punishing those that flee. At the film’s start, Miles runs away from the Spot for his meeting, acting as the catalyst of all of the following misfortune. Spot, meanwhile, never stops seeking self betterment, and the narrative rewards this with his huge power increase.
It is in this moment that Gwen decides, perhaps against her own wishes, to act like Miles and engage with her father. She would have left, she can and wants to leave, but she doesn’t. Because running away is what got her in this situation. She chooses to do as Miles would, run forward, and the narrative rewards her. She gets her father back, who quits the police and saves himself from being Gwen’s canon event, and he gives her Hobie’s bracelet, allowing her to help Miles.
Gwen decides, in the space of two seconds, to be like Miles and turn towards something, and because of these two seconds, Gwen has secured herself a happy ending.
