In a household where biscuits, bedtime, and the television remote have long served as quiet instruments of feminist pedagogy, an Irish mother named Esther McCarthy brought the Bechdel Test to bear on the latest Spider-Man film — and found it barely standing. The test, born from a 1985 comic strip, asks only three modest questions of a film's female characters, yet most mainstream cinema cannot answer them satisfactorily. McCarthy's lesson, aimed at her sons and met with teenage resistance, belongs to a longer human story about who gets to matter in the stories we tell ourselves.
Spider-Mammy's Feminist Reckoning: Why Marvel's Latest Fails the Bechdel Test
You can be a feminist and petty at the same time
Mark
Why does the Bechdel Test matter so much to you? It's just a game, isn't it?
Mimi
It's a game, yes, but it's a game that reveals something real. When you watch enough films fail it, you start to see a pattern. Women aren't there to have their own stories. They're there to support the men's stories. That's not a game—that's the world.
Mark
But your sons clearly didn't want to hear it. Why push it?
Mimi
Because they live in that world too. If I don't help them see it, they'll just accept it as normal. And maybe they'll grow up thinking that's how things should be.
Mark
Do you think you're actually changing their minds, or just annoying them?
Mimi
Probably both. Right now, I'm annoying them. But I'm also planting something. They'll notice it eventually. They'll be watching a film and suddenly think, 'Wait, those two women never actually talk to each other.' And they'll understand what I was trying to say.
Mark
What about the good things in the Spider-Man film? Doesn't that count for something?
Mimi
Of course it does. Tom Holland is wonderful. The message about responsibility is important. But you can appreciate those things and still notice what's missing. You can love something and still want it to be better.
O Pulso
- A simple three-question test — do two named women speak to each other about something other than a man — exposes how little space mainstream cinema grants to female interiority.
- Spider-Man: Brand New Day barely clears the bar, with female characters who exist largely to serve, advise, or react to the male hero, including a disembodied AI voice continuing Marvel's pattern of feminised digital servitude.
- When McCarthy shared her analysis the day after the cinema trip, her teenager accused her of manufacturing grievances — a friction that is itself part of the lesson she is trying to teach.
- She held her ground, modeled emotional regulation, and proceeded to enumerate every flaw anyway, because feminism and pettiness, she notes, are not mutually exclusive.
- The effort is not to spoil a beloved franchise but to raise sons who can hold two things at once: genuine affection for a story and clear eyes about the world it reflects.
In a household where biscuits, bedtime, and the television remote have long served as quiet instruments of feminist pedagogy, an Irish mother named Esther McCarthy brought the Bechdel Test to bear on the latest Spider-Man film — and found it barely standing. The test, born from a 1985 comic strip, asks only three modest questions of a film's female characters, yet most mainstream cinema cannot answer them satisfactorily. McCarthy's lesson, aimed at her sons and met with teenage resistance, belongs to a longer human story about who gets to matter in the stories we tell ourselves.
Esther McCarthy has been conducting a quiet experiment in her home for years. Since her three sons were small, she has been finding ways to make visible the invisible — the way the world tends to distribute power along familiar lines. When abstract explanation failed, she turned to film.
The Bechdel Test became her instrument. Before any movie, she'd set the boys watching for three things: two named female characters, a conversation between them, and a subject other than men. It sounds minimal. It is minimal. And yet, as Alison Bechdel observed when she drew the strip in 1985, most films cannot manage it.
The latest Spider-Man installment, Brand New Day, seemed like comfortable territory — one son once wore the costume exclusively for over a year. But McCarthy noted, the morning after, that the film had only just scraped through. Jean Grey shares a brief exchange with a sister who goes unnamed for most of the runtime. A ghost offers counsel, but inside a man's head. The police chief mothers Spider-Man from a subway platform. MJ reacts. EV, the AI assistant, explains. It is a familiar Marvel architecture: Karen, EDITH, EV — female voices built to illuminate the hero's path.
Her teenager pushed back, accusing her of searching for problems. She did not shout. She breathed. And then she listed everything that bothered her, because there is no rule, she reasoned, against being both feminist and thorough.
She is not trying to dismantle her sons' love of Peter Parker. Tom Holland's emotional performance moves her. The film's moral core — that power demands responsibility — is one she has been teaching in her own way for years. It is, in fact, precisely the lesson she is applying. Even the power to choose a popcorn size, she might say, comes with an obligation. Even the power to sit quietly and watch a film.
Esther McCarthy has a theory about power, and she's been testing it on her three sons since they were old enough to focus their eyes. Back when they were small, she'd explain to them in a sing-song voice that the world tends to let people with certain anatomy hold the important jobs and make the big decisions. It was an abstract thing for them to grasp, especially when she controlled the biscuits, the bedtime, and the television schedule. So she found a gentler way—sneakier, really—to make the point stick.
She turned film-watching into a game. Before any movie, she'd have the boys watch for something called the Bechdel Test. The rules are straightforward enough: Does the film have at least two women with actual names? Do those women ever speak to each other? And when they do, is it about something other than a man? Three yeses means it passes. The test came from a 1985 comic strip by Alison Bechdel and has since become a useful way of noticing whether women in films get to have their own interesting lives or whether they're mostly just standing around waiting for the men to do something. Most films fail it. Most of your favorites probably do.
The latest Spider-Man film, Brand New Day, seemed like it should be safe ground. McCarthy's boys have cycled through Spider-Man obsession at various points—one wore nothing but the costume for over a year. The house has accumulated every piece of merchandise imaginable. She mentioned casually the day after they saw it that the film just barely passed the Bechdel Test. She thought she was giving them a useful lens for understanding entertainment. What a great mother, right? A fun, feminist way of noticing how the business of show actually works.
Instead, one of her teenagers got annoyed. He accused her of just looking for things to be upset about. She wanted to shout back that she doesn't need to look very hard—there are annoyances everywhere. But she stayed calm, modeled regulation, took a breath, and decided to outline everything that bothered her about the movie. There's no rule saying you can't be a feminist and petty at the same time.
The film's female dialogue is thin. Jean Grey has an extremely brief conversation with her sister, who isn't even named until three-quarters of the way through the movie. It feels forced. There's another scene where the ghost of Aunt May gives Jean advice, but it happens inside Peter's head, so it barely counts. The supporting women don't get much to do. The police chief spends most of her screen time at the subway with her kids, mostly acting like a mother to Spider-Man, asking about his health and nagging him to get his headaches checked. MJ doesn't appear enough, and when she does, she mostly reacts to Peter's choices—though there is one clever moment about consent. And then there's EV, the disembodied female AI voice explaining everything to the audience. It's a pattern in the Marvel universe: Karen in Homecoming, EDITH in Far From Home. All of them built to serve the male hero.
McCarthy didn't set out to ruin her sons' enjoyment of their childhood hero's latest film. Tom Holland's Peter Parker is an excellent role model. The message about responsibility, about doing the right thing even when it's hard, is one she genuinely endorses. Holland's emotional range in this movie is a joy. But if Aunt May taught Peter anything, it's that the power you have—even just deciding between a medium or large popcorn—comes with an obligation to use it wisely. Even if it means being the mother who ruined Spider-Man.
Citações Notáveis
If Aunt May taught Peter anything, it's that the power you have comes with an obligation to use it wisely.— Esther McCarthy
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