Spy vs Spiderman

Explaining a joke is like dissecting a frog: you understand it better, but the frog dies in the process.

- Mark Twain

Looking at Vamsi's comment to my previous post, I couldn't help but think that the point of Old Lady's comment was completely lost. Let me try to explain the joke without killing it in the process.

When you are kid, especially a boy, being a spiderman or being a superman are not fantasies, they are options.

Old lady's nephew, Pranay, is a perfect example. He is 5 years old and has grown up on Spiderman movies. Show him any ten random 10 scenes from Spiderman I, II and III and he can tell you which scene is from which movie in 3 seconds flat. When he was a little younger, he used to be think that he could grow up to be a Spiderman. His Grandma would sometimes call him Spiderman and he would feel all shy.

I think old lady was tyring to say that our kid would be probably want to be a spiderman instead of limiting himself to my somewhat practical fantasy of being a Jason Bourne like spy.