Review: 'Spider-Man: Brand New Day' Is Lowkey Super Gay

If the Marvel Cinematic Universe has one goal, it’s to include as few gay characters as humanly possible. With the massive Disney franchise serving as a four-quadrant tentpole that appeals to conservatives and liberals alike (not to mention nearly every international market) including an openly queer lead would immediately hurt the box office numbers. Because of that, gay characters in the MCU are few and far between. If there is an LGBTQ+ character, they only identify as such briefly in a scene that can be cut abroad, or they are shunted to one of the TV shows where the financial impact is much smaller. But as with life in the Jurassic Park movies, queerness finds a way.

When I sat down to watch Spider-Man: Brand New Day earlier this week, I had no expectation that it would comment on gay life in any capacity. I was startled to find then that the fourth of Tom Holland’s Spider-Man films is basically one big allegory for queerness.

Now I would like to say two things up front for clarity. 1) I do not believe that Disney/Sony (while this is a Sony film it’s operating under Disney’s MCU banner as well), Marvel, or the team behind Brand New Day had any intention of making a queer-coded film. Neither director Destin Daniel Cretton nor the screenwriters Chris McKenna and Erik Sommers appear to be queer based on their former work and online presences either. 2) Many people have written about how superheroes in general can be viewed as queer symbols, so this is not a particularly new idea. However, I do not think these two points keep Brand New Day from having a unique and nearly explicit gay point-of-view. Let’s run through the plot quickly with a bit of commentary so you see what I mean.

After the events of Spider-Man: No Way Home, in which Dr. Strange cast a spell so that no one, including Spider-Man’s best friends MJ (Zendaya) and Ned (Jacob Batalon), remembers that Peter Parker exists, Peter is fighting crime anonymously in NYC. (Of course, the dual identities of superheroes are often compared to the gay/straight or trans/cis identities a queer person has while in the closet, but because that applies to most superheroes, I won’t expound on that further.) As Brand New Day opens, it’s four years later, and Peter learns a new big bad, who can telepathically body-hop, is wreaking havoc as they hunt down some top-secret government information. Simultaneously, Peter begins to experience a new set of abilities, one that makes him more powerful, but is harder for him to control. Visiting Bruce Banner/The Hulk (Mark Ruffalo), Peter discusses building an inhibitor device that will suppress his new set of powers, similar to how The Hulk is suppressed. (Now this is where my gaydar started to tingle, because trying to push down a truer version of yourself because you are afraid it could cause trouble in your social life is the first way that most gay people engage with their queerness when they’re young.)

After a chat with Yelena Belova (Florence Pugh), aka the one new Marvel character with unadulterated star quality from the last five years, in a Russian bathhouse, Peter reconnects with MJ and Ned, who do not recognize him. The anonymous big bad then mind-controls MJ to convince Peter into revealing Spider-Man’s true identity. At this point, the plot gets a little garbled with The Punisher (Jon Bernthal) showing up, a government bureaucrat (Tramell Tillman) yucking Spidey’s yum, more tech talk regarding the construction of this inhibitor, and the reveal of who Sadie Sink is playing (after months of speculation).

We then get four scenes in swift succession (that I will try to explain without any real spoilers) that really get gay. The first is when MJ finds a letter that Peter has written in which he reveals their pre-memory-wipe history. While this is a bit of the standard superhero reveal/coming out scene, it more specifically mirrors being outed. There’s nothing truly more terrifying for a closeted queer person than returning home to find someone they love deeply has uncovered their secret and doesn’t quite have the reaction they’re hoping for, which is what happens for Peter.

We then get a laboratory testing sequence that can be compared to conversion therapy, before a final battle in which Spider-Man realizes the only chance he has at defeating the baddies (and therefore surviving) is if he removes his inhibitor and leans into the full strength of his abilities. Recently, from I Saw the TV Glow to Will Byers’ coming out on Stranger Things to “Superpower” from The Lost Boys, we’ve repeatedly seen this trope that connects supernatural power to living as an out queer person. While Brand New Day doesn’t do that explicitly, it is clearly meant as commentary about people trying to shrink themselves or hide their light, when the unique part of them is the part that will help them succeed. There is a very clear gay allegory at work, even if it’s not intentionally so.

The final gay-coded scene, however, comes in the form of a memory of Aunt May (Marisa Tomei), who, when confronted with Peter’s powers, not only accepted his abilities, but celebrated them, loving her nephew fully as both Peter Parker and Spider-Man. In the film, this “coming out” memory is emotionally cathartic for several characters, and represents the ideal way a parent will treat their child when they make the hard truth to share their full identity. Again while not explicitly queer, you’d be hard-pressed to find an LGBTQ+ viewer who didn’t link this scene to their own coming out, for better or for worse.

In many ways, Spider-Man: Brand New Day is clunky. It doesn’t have a straightforward villain, it stumbles into a classic Marvel bureaucracy plotline, it brings in too many characters from other films/TV shows, it is working overtime to set up Avengers: Doomsday, and its ending isn’t a satisfying conclusion to the four-film arc. (Whether that will be wrapped up in a fifth Spider-Man movie or an Avengers film remains to be seen). However, the catharsis in these characters accepting themselves, shepherded through strong performances from Holland, Zendaya, Sink, and Tomei, is enough to smooth over the film’s rough patches.

As someone who stayed in the closet for over a decade post-puberty and endured a rocky coming out, I know firsthand that embracing your queerness is a superpower in its own right (as corny as that sounds). As someone who has watched queer friends try to smother their uniqueness to fit in with their conservative, Christian community (some of whom have elected conversion therapy for themselves), I also know firsthand what it looks like when queerness is swallowed and begins to rot and toxify in the cavities of the mind. Brand New Day elegantly portrays that choice through the symbols of superheroes.

Is Spider-Man: Brand New Day a perfect movie, or even the best MCU film in recent memory? No, that honor would fall to Thunderbolts, but like Thunderbolts, which smartly commented on mental health and depression through the lens of superheroes, Brand New Day does Trojan Horse an important message to its audience. As an allegory for the queer experience, Spider-Man proves the importance of coming out and the joy that comes from accepting people for who they truly are.

THE REPORT CARD:

• Best Performance: Sadie Sink for the win, but Jon Bernthal is a close second for the comic relief

• Best Scene: Marisa Tomei on the bunk bed

• Worst Thing About the Movie: The clunky shoe-horning of Avengers: Doomsday plot setup

• Special Shout-out: To Bellevue Hospital, where I got several COVID tests back in 2021.

• Thought I Had While Watching: Is “V Max” some sort of reference to Wanda Maximoff? (I really thought I was cooking with that.)

• Role Anne Hathaway Should Have Played: Obviously, Anne Hathaway should play The Hulk, and no, not She-Hulk. Annie can be Beth Banner/The Hulk

• Overall Grade: B

You can find more of my written work at matthewhuff.com.

I also co-host a weekly podcast, P.S. You’re Wrong, where I dissect all things pop culture.

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