Limbo of the gutters: The omission of color in the construction of Afrolatinidad in Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse (2018)

Abstract

Cinema, as a sense-creating device, has the potential to produce images in the minds of its viewers by simply suggesting ideas. With small symbols it is possible to create meanings that operate in the mind of the observer through an analytical exercise: those who watch a film use their capacity of comprehension or interpretative limitations to read what they are observing on the screen. So, absences; for example, situations that happen out of frame, or incomplete representations of bodies, can all be used to create meanings. And even more so when that which is not seen makes so much noise that its existence is perceived. That is, when elements are omitted that, despite their omission, produce an echo in the interpretation of a type of spectator capable of perceiving them. This is the case with the film Spider-Man: Into Spider-Verse (2018), which is presented as the first big-screen version of an Afro-Latino Spider-Man. 
This article reflects on the constitutive elements with which Afro-Latinness is constructed to affirm that Miles Morales as a character is a presumably inclusive instrument, which incipiently and precariously develops the construction of an Afro-Latinness, limiting the character to his skin color as an integrating element. It is proposed that such precariousness in the construction of Afro-Latinity coincides with the fact of attributing to him the ability to become invisible, thus eliminating the only inclusive aspect that makes him stand out. It is concluded that it is precisely the black-skinned character, whom they intend to make visible in the discourse of diversity and racial integrity proposed by the narrative plane of the story, who lacks visibility, so that in the film the racial condition and the Latino origin of Miles Morales remain in a non-place that, instead of making Afro-Latinity visible, invisibilizes it as a method and narrative “virtue”. In addition, it proposes the figure of the mentor of conscience as a transforming guide that can really have an impact on the construction of the character’s identity.