"This is not She-Thor. This is not Lady Thor. This is not Thorita. This is Thor. This is the Thor of the Marvel Universe." So ran this week's statement from Marvel Comics, announcing that hammer-wielding Norse god Thor will be female in a new comic series. While a number of reactions from fans and industry folk have been dead on, others have been predictably hostile.

Coupled with the imminent release of Guardians of the Galaxy, which is the first Marvel Studios movie to date with a female screenwriter, this announcement has reignited an ever-brewing debate about women in superhero movies. More to the point, the lack thereof.



After Black Widow proved to be more or less second lead in Captain America: The Winter Soldier earlier this year, many were hoping that Marvel would finally bite the bullet and announce a standalone movie for Scarlett Johansson as part of their Phase Three plans. No joy yet, although some big announcements are due at Comic-Con next Saturday (July 26).

Looking at the line-up of The Avengers, it's pretty evident that the Y chromosome dominates, but how well represented are women in the Marvel Cinematic Universe overall? To answer this question, we've turned to the much-discussed Bechdel Test, which requires that a film a) contain at least two named female characters, b) who have a conversation, c) that isn't about a man.

It's important to emphasise that the test is a very limited one â€“ not passing doesn't make a film bad, or sexist, and for that matter passing doesn't necessarily make a film empowering to women. All the test measures is gender bias, and you need look no further than this sobering infographic from the New York Film Academy for proof that this is an issue in Hollywood.

Below, Digital Spy pits all 10 MCU movies so far against the Bechdel Test:

Iron Man (2008)



Does it pass? No â€“ 2 out of 3.

Details: The film contains at least two named women â€“ Gwyneth Paltrow's Pepper Potts, and journalist Christine Everhart (a one-night-stand of Tony Stark's played by Leslie Bibb). And the two speak to each other. Yay! But the brief conversation comes after a clearly jealous Pepper encounters Christine leaving Tony's bedroom, and ends with Pepper calling Christine trash. Nay! (It's a funny scene, mind.)

The Incredible Hulk (2008)

Universal Pictures



Does it pass? No â€“ 1 out of 3.

Details: Liv Tyler's Betty is ostensibly a biologist, but in practice she's little more than Bruce Banner's wide-eyed love interest. Still, she's named, as is the ill-fated Major Kathleen Sparr (Christina Cabot), so the film passes the first test. The women never speak to each other.

Iron Man 2 (2010)

Marvel Studios



Does it pass? Borderline.

Details: The film contains two named, and significant, women â€“ Pepper again, and Scarlett Johansson's Natasha Romanoff in her first MCU appearance. They speak to each other, and the conversations aren't technically about a man. Pepper becomes CEO of Stark Industries in Iron Man 2, while Natasha is undercover as a legal aide, so they briefly discuss business once or twice.

But here's why this is borderline: Tony is always present when Pepper and Natasha speak, and the subtext of their exchanges are all about him. Tony flirts with Natasha from her first moments on screen, and once again Pepper is portrayed as jealous â€“ "Green is not your best colour," Tony tells her at one point. It's hard to argue that the two women really share a conversation that isn't about a man, so we can't give this a full pass.

Thor (2011)

Marvel Studios



Does it pass? Yes.

Details: Jane Foster (Natalie Portman) and Darcy Lewis (Kat Dennings) are both well-rounded female characters, and friends at that. They talk regularly throughout the film, and early on it's mostly about Jane's scientific work. Later on, they do talk mostly about the muscular Asgardian warrior god who's appeared in the middle of the New Mexico desert, but wouldn't you?

Asgard's also got its fair share of significant women, with Rene Russo's matriarch Frigga and Jaime Alexander's warrior maiden Sif taking the grand total to a MCU best of four.

Captain America: The First Avenger (2011)

Marvel Studios



Does it pass? No â€“ 0 out of 3.

Details: The only named female character is Hayley Atwell's Peggy Carter. Yes, the film is set in the 1940s in a male-dominated military setting, but the whole 'It's a reflection of its era' excuse doesn't really work when you have one character as empowered and badass as Peggy is.

The closest we get to a second female player is Natalie Dormer's near-cameo as "Private Lorraine", but she's not named in the film, and her only narrative purpose is to aggressively seduce Steve Rogers, thus making Peggy jealous. Meh.

The Avengers (2012)



Does it pass? No â€“ 1 out of 3.

Details: There are three named women â€“ Natasha, Pepper and Agent Maria Hill (Cobie Smulders), but they never speak to each other or even look at one another. To be fair to writer-director Joss Whedon, he already had a staggering number of character dynamics to establish in bringing the Avengers together on screen for the first time, and given that there's only one woman in the bunch, a lack of women conversing was perhaps inevitable.

His script does give Natasha a far more active and nuanced role than she'd previously had, and one that turns her gender into a strength; she repeatedly plays on the expectation that she's weak and emotionally vulnerable in order to get information from enemies.

Still, one out of three Bechdel markers is a disappointment from Whedon of all people, and he's made it clear in discussions since that the male bias in superhero movies aggravates him: "My daughter watched The Avengers and was like 'My favourite characters were the Black Widow and Maria Hill', and I thought 'Yeah, of course they were.'"

Iron Man 3 (2013)



Does it pass? Yes.

Details: With Tony Stark sidelined by his own demons, women come to the forefront in a big way in Shane Black's sequel. As Rebecca Hall pointed out during interviews at the time, her newly introduced scientist Maya Hansen becomes the driving force of the narrative, while Pepper ends up saving the day thanks to Black and screenwriter Drew Pearce's desire to subvert the "damsel in distress" trope.

Even more significantly, Pepper and Maya have an actual relationship and are not competing over a man. Pepper's with Tony at this point, while Maya had a one-night stand with him years ago, and neither one of them cares or gets catty â€“ their shared history with Tony is not the most interesting thing about either of them, as far as the other is concerned. In one of the film's key scenes, they discuss Maya's scientific work, her guilt over a past professional decision, and the threat posed by the Mandarin.

Thor: The Dark World (2013)



Does it pass? Yes.

Details: Once again, Jane and Darcy share plenty of conversations about their work, although Jane's smarting from Thor's abandonment so he does come up a fair amount. The main difference from the first film is that Jane gets transported to Asgard, and shares some brief non-man related exchanges with Frigga during the attack from Malekith.

Captain America: The Winter Soldier (2014)



Does it pass? No â€“ 2 out of 3

Details: There's no shortage of great female characters in The Winter Soldier, from Natasha and Maria to the aged Peggy Carter, and while Emily VanCamp was mostly wasted as Agent 13, she's clearly being set up for bigger things. It's also kind of refreshing that neither Natasha or Maria is shoehorned into a romance with Steve Rogers.

But despite showing up in several scenes together, Natasha and Maria don't talk. They exchange a few words as part of larger conversations, mostly about Nick Fury. Definitely nothing that would qualify for the third point.

Guardians of the Galaxy (2014)

Marvel Studios



Does it pass? By the looks of it, yes.

Details: Okay, we haven't seen it yet. But we did go on the set last year, and we learned a few things about Guardians' two named female characters Gamora (Zoe Saldana) and Nebula (Karen Gillan) that made us pretty certain this one's going to pass the Bechdel with flying colours. While Gamora is a reformed assassin working with the Guardians and Nebula is sidekick to the villainous Ronan, the two share an intimate and complex history, not to mention a major fight sequence.

As mentioned above, Guardians is the first MCU movie with a female screenwriter; Nicole Perlman wrote the initial draft before director James Gunn signed on, and retains a co-writing credit. Here's hoping it's not the last.

"I'm very intolerant of sexism, and of playing irrelevant female characters," Saldana told us on set. "If I don't matter to the story, to the saving of the day, then why the f**k am I here?"

Amen to that.

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