It’s not his fault, really. Tobey Maguire did not personally ruin my life. I may be a tad bit overdramatic. But, I have talked about it with other people. Most of them agree with me.

I try to not bring it up, as it still haunts me, a little more than a decade later. That one scene. From the third Spider-Man movie. You know it. The one when Tobey Maguire swoops his hair in front of his face and does that “dance”.

Before I get into how this scene ruined my life, I would like to take a moment to thank Maguire. Not to say that he started the whole super hero movie genre, but those Spider-Man movies kind of kick-started them. I am no movie history buff, so I do not know exact details. It does, however, seem like Maguire’s Spider-Man was the beginning of all these more recent blockbusters, though. He also gave us that iconic upside down kiss in the first movie, so thanks for all that.

Now, back to what we are here for. If you have not seen this movie (from 2007!), this is your spoiler alert. Venom, basically, the bad version of Spider-Man, takes over Peter Parker’s body for a bit in the middle. This is when things get, let’s say, weird. Peter starts to strut around town. He wears all black, he has his hair covering half his face, he has this strange confidence. Then, he dances.

This is the scene that ruined my life.

I saw this movie in a theater! Little 11-year-old me was scarred for life! The amount of second-hand embarrassment this one scene gave me was enough to keep me away from any other Tobey Maguire movies. Well, until The Great Gatsby came out a couple years later at least. Even then, I had vivid flashbacks throughout.

To this day, when the movie comes on TV, I have to change the channel for that one part. Spider-Man has always been one of my favorite Marvel characters and Tobey Maguire played the part really well. He just, you know, ruined my life a little bit.

Featured Image found here.