Mary Jane Defending Peter Parker

About

Mary Jane Defending Peter Parker refers to a reaction image of Spider-Man character Mary Jane Watson turning towards the camera and saying something while Peter Parker stands behind her. The image has been used in combination with humorous lines in which Mary Jane defends Peter from harassment or corrects another person talking to him.

Origin

On May 3rd, 2002, the superhero film Spider-Man premiered in the United States.^[1] In one scene of the film, the character Peter Parker, portrayed by Tobey Maguire, runs into his love interest Mary Jane Watson, played by Kirsten Dunst. Parker and Watson talk about her aspirations as an actress when Watson's boss at the restaurant where she works loudly reprimands her for making a mistake. Watson then turns and angrily acknowledges the information (scene shown below).

- Your drawer was short six dollars! Next time that happens, I'm going to take it out from your check. Excuse me, miss Watson!? I'm talking to you! Hey!
- Yes, Enrique, okay, I get you!

On August 26th, 2021, Twitter^[2] user @lillieswamp made an Excuse Me, He Asked for No Pickles joke that used the image as a reaction. The post received over 21,300 retweets and 179,900 likes on Twitter in six days (shown below).

Spread

The image did not see further use as a meme format until August 28th, 2021, when Twitter^[3] user @brisbanethot posted a tweet that received over 15,100 retweets and 158,300 likes in four days (shown below).

On August 29th, Twitter^[4][5] users @fake_jaris and @n0thasghey posted memes using the image that received over 4,900 retweets and 51,600 likes and 11,700 retweets and 153,400 likes in four days, respectively (shown below, left and right).

Starting on August 30th, the meme format achieved viral popularity on Twitter, with several notable examples posted by users in the following days.

Various Examples

Template

Search Interest

External References