This article contains spoilers for Spider-man: Brand New Day
Spider-Man’s origin story in the comics is rooted in the death of his Uncle Ben. He is a hero driven by grief – on a mission, to begin with, to avenge his uncle’s death.
In the latest iteration of Spider-Man, however, his grief is different. In the cinematic Marvel Universe, Spider-Man’s loss comes later in his hero’s journey – in the second film, Spider-Man: No Way Home (2021). And instead of Uncle Ben, this Peter Parker loses his Aunt May.
Two Spider-Man films later, Peter Parker is still grappling with his loss. In Spider-Man: Brand New Day, this continuation of grief is depicted through scenes in which Peter Parker imagines speaking to his late aunt.
As an expert in grief and bereavement research, I was pleasantly surprised to see such a mainstream action film contain such a poignant message – and important lessons about living with loss and grief.
In Peter’s story, we see that loss is something that’s never really “gotten over”. Rather, we grow around the grief we experience. We also see that it can be healthy and productive to maintain a connection with the person we’ve lost after their death.
What Peter is fostering is known as a “continuing bond”. This connection can come in the form of external bonds such as keeping photos, objects and memorabilia. And it can also come from internalised bonds – for example, memories of the deceased or an imagined conversation, like Peter has with his Aunt May.
Research shows that internalised bonds can have a positive effect on our experience of loss. In the film, Peter’s conversations with May are wrapped in a memory – he is often speaking to her as a teenager. These exchanges help him foster strength and resilience.
Loss is not only death
We also see Peter coping with the loss of friends whose memories of him were wiped in the last film, Spider-Man: No Way Home.
Not all the losses we experience are deaths, and not all losses are related to people. We can experience similar responses over the loss of a job, the loss of identity, or the loss of people in our lives who are still living.
The latter can often be seen, by ourselves and others, as not a “legitimate loss” because the people still exist in the world. In fact, this continuation without them can serve to complicate the grief experience.
Peter is not the only one from whom audience’s can learn about grief in this film. We meet Jean Grey for the first time, a mutant whose sister was killed.
Jean is in the most intense phase of grief. When she learns about her sister’s death, she experiences an intense emotional grief response, which brings on the explosive development of her powers.
While grief doesn’t give people superpowers in the literal sense, it can be transformational. You are not the same person after a loss, and you can grow around that grief. We see this in Peter, who transforms as the film progresses – represented by his physical and power transformations.
Both Peter and Jean are isolated characters who have lost their support mechanisms – Peter because of the loss of his friends and Aunt May, Jean because of the traumatic death of her sister. Loneliness and isolation is a common experience following loss, which can confound or complicate the experience. Social isolation creates additional emotional strain.
For fictional super-powered people, this can have devastating consequences for more than just the characters themselves. In the film, we see Jean’s anger and her struggle to process the reality of her sister’s death result in her taking control and freezing everyone within her immediate vicinity.
The film also provides an important lesson about social support. In later scenes, we see Peter and Jean connect in his mind. Peter provides important support for Jean in her loss, reaching out and letting her know that she is not alone in her grief. This reflects research highlighting the importance of connection to others and social support following a bereavement.
Spider-Man: Brand New Day is a great action film full of fantastical people fighting for good over evil with the help of their super powers. But at its heart, it’s also a powerful meditation on the very normal human experience of living with loss.
It shows us that loss can be a transformational experience, not something simply to overcome. Like Peter, we all learn to live with loss in its many shades. While this can be isolating, the character arcs in Spider-Man teach us that reaching out and connecting with other people can be an important part of processing and adjusting to your loss.
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