This is a simple test, originated by Allison Bechdel (of the Dykes to Watch Out For comic (see your local free paper.)) The idea is to gauge how much women are represented in any given movie. Not whether it’s a feminist movie, but simply how integral women are to the endeavor.
It’s been floating about for a while now, but this video does an excellent job of giving the two-minute summary.
[ol]
[li]Does the film have two or more women (who are named) in it?
[/li][li]Do they talk to one another?
[/li][li]Do they talk to one another about something other than a man?
[/li][/ol]
I’m fascinated about how many movies fail this test. There’s more here (TVTropes warning!)
First, I don’t even pretend to be a feminist or to be hip to feminist issues. But, I like stories … I mean I really like stories! So, it’s utterly depressing that, after watching that little video clip, I’d be hard pressed to name a movie that passes the test.
Give me a break!
You’d think in a world where >50% of the inhabitants are women, it would be possible to tell a story where >2 named characters are women and are involved in more then the story than just the male characters! I mean … come on … there’s a monster or an epidemic or an alien menace or a German spy or SOMETHING going on, right?
Hell, I’ve got more than two named female character’s at my dinner table every night, and they talk about a lot of things, like their female friends and neighbors and current events and sports. And we’re neither a feminist bastion nor under attack by Nazi Dynosaurs from the Future. You’d think it’d be easier to pass the test in a movie.
My nine-year-old daughter is constantly pointing this out to any one that will listen. “Why are there only male main characters? Why do femaile characters always talk about men?” A while back she created a Star Wars sequel that only had female characters. Her latest is about Super Mario Galaxy and Princess Peach. I tried explaining the damsel-in-distress motif but that just infuriated her. BTW, She is writing to Nintendo.
That’s a pretty awesome kid you got there, Talos. As a modern woman, I’ve certainly noticed the lack of strong female characters in movies, but I’ve never taken it upon myself to do something about it. Give her a hug and an “Atta girl!” from me
Well, on the bright side, a lot of tv is better. Take any next gen star trek, or firefly even. You might not have it every episode, but it does come up.
I’m now going through the movies GWC has done recently in my head, and it’s hard to come up there either.
I did. When I told her about the thread and that I posted about Nintendo, her response was, “I just wanted to point out to them that they make women appear weak. That’s all.”
For the longest time, she was working on pitching a game to Nintendo. It involved a character Cario from the planet Uranus. She was created by the mother and father of another universe and sent to our galaxy to protect Earth. She arrived at Uranus as an orphan, her mother and father needed to hide her to protect her. It gets really involved but that’s the gist.
Yeah, the thing with TV shows is that you tend to have (a) a larger cast, and (b) WAY more time to tell the stories, overall. In movies you rarely get a B plot.
The more I think about it, the real question is the first one, “Are there more than one named female characters.” Given the time constraints of movies, that pretty much means, “Are there more than one female main characters?” (secondary characters of either sex are less likely to have interaction with each other.) So, the Sex in the City movie probably passes this test (I’ve never seen it, but I’m sure they talk about shoes or something at some point.) Not quite sure what to make of that.
I shouldn’t admit to having seen the sex and the city movie, but I do think they maybe talk about something other than guys at some point, but most of the movie focuses on their relationships, and how they deal with their relationships, and what relationships they have, so they really do spend a lot of time talking about their guys.
I have to reach around to things like Serenity (of course, based from tv) and wonder if Ripley and Vasquez talked about something other than men (do the Aliens count as men?)
A lot of the movies I can think of with multiple named women characters and them talking about more than men are chick flicks, or girl growing up movies.
Wait, Phantom Menace might count. I think Shmi and Padme talked about the dangers of podracing and slavery, which would count as a non man conversation.
Movies will generally fail this test because of the time restraints imposed, character-centric scenes tend to be edited out due to pacing issues and the general inability of American audiences to follow a complex plot, and younger viewers tend to lose intrest too easily if the story slows down (ADD).
TV series allow more characters and character arcs, more richly layered plots, backstories and character development.
Books have always been the best source for strong female protagonists and/or female side characters. Books are a better medium for fully realized characters and the worlds they live in, and unfortunately as we have seen even strong and well developed characters tend to get heavily pruned when they are translated to the big screen. A huge loss for everyone if you ask me…
I told my daughter about your response and asked her if it was ok to post the letter. She gave me approval.
[i]To Nintendo company…
Hey Nintendo!
I’m a girl from NY. My name is (removed to protect the innocent).
Did you know you’re sending a mean message to girls like me? That girls are weaker and worse than men?
If you don’t think so, you’re going to have to prove it.
Or else you might send a lie to the world. BOYS ARE BETTER is a total lie.
Also girls don’t think you’re doing well. This is because you need a new character that is A STRONG GIRL. This is what you really need… Because girls are equal to boys.
But you don’t seem to understand that. Because you made a girl SO WEAK SHE PROVED TO THE WORLD YOU DON’T THINK THEY ARE IMPORTANT.
If you do think so, prove it, or else you will never tell the truth…
And your lie shall become a HUGE PROBLEM!
Hey…
I’ve got an idea! What if there was a terrible thing happened, the girls vanished from earth because they thought Mario was TOO POWERFUL to make them survive.
Now males were only left on earth to survive.
Do YOU think Mario is cooler and better than princess peach, the weakling of the world?
If you do, you’ll never see a girl playing Super Mario EVER AGAIN.
[/i]
I think we’re missing the obvious issue here. Movies reflect the experiences, prejudices, and innate characteristics of their creators. And who makes most movies?
Men.
As the video claims, it’s a systemic problem, because the system is overwhelmingly geared toward men. Writers, directors, producers, etc., right up to the executives who run the companies that make and distribute movies. And that, of course, is a societal problem, as women are disproportionately underrepresented in the power structures of most industries.
That’s not to say that men can’t realistically depict women; it’s just that we’re less inclined to do so, for the simple reason that we’re not women. Until there are more women making movies, on all levels, that’s unlikely to change. Sad but true.
An english major I dated back in the day maintained that women were far better at doing male characters than the reverse, because they had pretty much all of literature to draw upon, while men had far fewer women writers to consult (assuming they were so inclined.)
I can back this up. I spent years roleplaying on a various sites on the internet, (Generally associated with the Dragonriders of Pern Series by Anne McCaffery). At the most we had maybe twenty people writing in the various roleplays and the most guys we ever had at one time was four. The universe is set up slightly more fair in the male to female ratio than our world, but still men are the majority of characters, important or no.
The point is, it was the women in this community who wrote up most of the characters, male or otherwise. All the women played male characters (even when they had female characters as their ‘favorites’) Of the men, we would try to write a women or two, but for us it was generally to have ‘something different’ while the women would have all sorts of male characters, and write them quite convincingly in all positions and levels of power.
Badger hits the nail on the head - the majority of creators of books, music, movies, television, etc., are men. The people making the decisions to fund these creative people are mostly (if not exclusively) men. In a society in which women are constructed as lesser beings, and these men (and women, too, at times) can keep constructing women as such, this shouldn’t be surprising. But it’s not fair, and it is not an accurate portrayal of human relationships. Because EVERYONE, regardless of their identity categories, can have interesting stories. We just only hear one kind of story, over and over again, ad nauseum.
In other words, if you’re bothered by this (like me!): Welcome to feminism.
We already knew this, but your daughter is awesome. She should totally have this shirt, so long as we don’t wear it on the same day!
It’s definitely original, but it also reminds me of The Fifth Element. Which is awesome, but um does Leeloo ever talk to a woman in the whole movie?
In terms of my own childhood media consumption, I was always bothered that I was expected to identify with stories about boys (which, depending on the story, sometimes I did) but the boys in my classes were never asked to read or identify with stories about girls (maybe they read a few but no one pushed them to, like what happened to me to read about boys). My growing-up experience of fantasy and science fiction is really different from a lot of people here, because I didn’t read a lot of the “classics” as my introduction, but rather, read a lot of women authors writing about all kinds of people, but oftentimes, with women heroes railing against patriarchy. One can imagine, then, why I tend to have such strong feelings about writers that fail the Bechdel test - and TV, and movies, and whatever, because seriously? I’m a lady, and I very rarely talk about men to my lady friends. We have lives beyond that. It’d be nice for (consumed) culture to recognize that.
The Diva’s assistant talks at her once, but it’s one of those situations where they’re both pretending the other’s not there.
The first time I ever noticed anything was weird was when I was really little and playing Ninja Turtles with my friends, and they kept telling me I had to be April because I’m a girl. Except April wasn’t a ninja, so that wasn’t going to work for me. Then I noticed that Leia was pretty much the only girl in Star Wars, the girl dog in Call of the Wild (my favorite childhood book) was only in a few scenes and then got killed, and there was only one girl Thundercat, Smurf, and one girl in He-man’s crew.
Between that and growing up with pretty much no positive Hispanic influences, most of the main characters in the stories I write now are Hispanic women. There’s that old saying about writing what you want to read, and I want my kids to have more people like them to look up to.
So anyone who wants some good Bechdel Test sci-fi and fantasy literature, I got to recommend Simon R. Green, Ann Aguirre, Jean Johnson, and Jane Linskold. They all write genre fiction (Jean Johnson is found in the romance section, but it’s actually very well done and has great worldbuilding) and have great, memorable characters–male AND female alike.
Speaking of fantasy/sci-fi that passes the Bechdel test (in terms of creators, rather than individual works):
Marion Zimmer Bradley. I love her, and she’s awesome.
BSG’s good at passing.
A lot of Joss Whedon’s work passes, though not all of it.
The Dragonriders of Pern stuff passes sometimes, though my favorite bits (the Menolly stuff) are much more about an independent girl who questions the patriarchal norms around her.
There are others, I’m sure, but I keep thinking of examples that don’t pass
