There seems to be a lot of confusion about the Bechdel test. Many people think the goal is to pass the test, but actually, that’s not it at all.
For those who don’t know, the “test” comes from a comic in which one character cleverly gets out of going to the movies with another by saying she will only go to a movie that contains two named female characters having a conversation with each other about something other than men. That rules out every movie available because, well – think about all the movies you can think of. These scenes are stunningly rare.
Make this observation in the context of discussions on how women are represented in the media, and you often get a response like: “Oh, so I’m supposed to shoehorn this stupid scene into my story so the PC police will get off my back?” But that’s a thought process short-circuited. How on earth would inserting a scene as potentially dull as the one described in the comic make a movie less sexist?
The point of the Bechdel test is something else entirely. Upon realizing how rare these scenes are, the average person is stunned enough to wonder precisely why these scenes are so rare?
Answer: because so few movies and TV shows include multiple, developed, relevant women characters who have any part in advancing the story. Imagine how hard it would be to avoid a scene in which two named men chat about something other than women. Why do you suppose that is? Because virtually every movie and TV show contains multiple, developed, relevant male characters who have some part in advancing the story. See?
Female characters are traditionally peripheral to male ones. That’s why we don’t want to hear them chatting about anything other than the male characters: because in making them peripheral, the writer has assured the women can’t possibly contribute to the story unless they’re telling us something about the men who drive the plot. That is the problem the test is highlighting. And that’s why shoehorning an awkward scene in which two named female characters discuss the price of tea in South Africa while the male characters are off saving the world will only hang a lantern on how powerfully you’ve sidelined your female characters for no reason other than sexism, conscious or otherwise.
It’s not that the audience doesn’t want to hear what “women” characters have to say, as one film pro told me (see above-linked article). It’s that we don’t want to hear what’s said by irrelevant, underdeveloped characters who have nothing to do with the plot. If this was the only role 99.9% of male characters were allowed in film, we might get the idea that male characters never say anything relevant, and should therefore just shut up and look hot.
This, by the way, is why I retain a warm spot in my heart for Xena, despite its flaws: it rarely passed the reverse Bechdel test, thus proving men are not remotely essential for exciting, action-packed stories. Like Xena, Buffy the Vampire Slayer featured women doing exciting things. Neither show could’ve avoided passing the Bechdel test regularly if they’d wanted to: the plots, which relied on women characters, would’ve stalled out in the first act.
Whether or not your story includes the Bechdel scene says absolutely nothing about whether it’s sexist or not. The measure of sexism is whether your story denies women the opportunity to participate in it.
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Because you mention things like the comic Y: The Last Man and make me <3 you?
I love that graphic novel. I know that it's been optioned for a film. But I'm wondering how they'll do it. I mean, sure it is kinda from Yorick's perspective and he's a man, but…so many women! And it's not a rom com about a wedding or being rich and dating in New York! It makes me wonder if they'll actually do that well or if they'll focus on and glorify certain parts that [SPOILER WARNING WHOOOOOOO!] involve the few, random other men that they encounter. I mean, I can just see massive subplots focusing just on the astronauts, the scientist with the monkey….
The Other Anne(Quote) (Reply)
XENA FOREVER!!!! (I am so glad to see a fellow Xenite! *HUGS*) I hate having to apologize for my love of the series, but it was so awesome.
Ayiyiyiyiyi-cheeee-aaaah!
Chai Latte(Quote) (Reply)
It was! I’m definitely sensitive to complaints that it co-opted from other cultures, because it did, and that’s unfortunate. But there was a lot of great about it, and I think one can acknowledge both without “apologizing.”
(As for people who think the show was silly and can’t believe I loved it, I feel their assessment so completely misses the point that I just shrug it off.)
Jennifer Kesler(Quote) (Reply)
I hear you. People tell me they think “Buffy” was silly all the time. Too bad for them.
The Other Patrick(Quote) (Reply)
I completely agree with what you are saying about the Trek movie – in the strictest sense, it does pass the test thanks to one scene (the scene in Uhura and Gaila’s room where they are talking about Uhura’s work) but since they are both in their underwear and Kirk is spying on them, I’m not sure it counts, even though that conversation does further the plot down the track.
Also, since Gaila’s name is only mentioned once in the movie (in that same scene), it very nearly doesn’t pass since if you aren’t paying attention, you don’t know her name…
I definitely feel they could have done a better job in that sense – it very much feels like that is a token scene to say ‘yep, we pass! now back to the real story’.
Angela_B(Quote) (Reply)
There’s a very easy way to make any movie pass the Bechdel test.
Movies are full of minor characters, mere spear-carriers whose job is to advance the plot by doing one thing, or perhaps just to convince us all that this world is actually populated by people. You need a random cop to hassle the hero? Make it a woman. A paramedic? Woman. Snotty bank officer who won’t give out a loan? Woman. Any character archetype short of “macho man” could be a woman.
Then, have the hero have a sidekick or romantic interest who is a woman, and allow her to actually have conversations with someone who isn’t the hero. If the second lead, who is female, gets lines with people who aren’t the hero, and half your random extras are women, then your movie will naturally end up passing the Bechdel test, and you will not have to introduce a single scene you didn’t already have, *and* you don’t have to have icky girl cooties all over your hero or your villain.
Of course, if you could go so far as to make the hero or the villain (or BOTH) a woman, this would become a lot easier. There are unfortunately movies with female heroes which don’t pass because the female hero never gets a chance to talk to a single random extra who isn’t a man. Just make a lot of random extras female, and you’ll get a Bechdel pass pretty easily.
Alara Rogers(Quote) (Reply)
OMG, I think there’s a post on this site that talks about that scene, and how a guy’s friend said the new Star Trek movie was a “chick flick” because it passed the Bechdel Test with one throw-away “check-minus” compliance scene.
Casey(Quote) (Reply)
I was talking to a friend about how one of our favorite comic writers, Beau Smith, a writer with an ultra-macho persona who does action/humor books, tends to write amazingly good women and very female-friendly stories. She pointed out that one of the things he does is have background characters that are randomly female, by which I mean there’s no plot reason for them to be female, no male character to hit on them and nothing would change if the extra in question had been a man. it’s actually a shockingly rare thing once you notice it.
Ragnell(Quote) (Reply)
Yes, Tangled certainly sums up a movie passing the test, but not really doing anything feminist. I just got around to seeing it and it really bugged me in a a few places (but never when Goethel was singing, omg, loooooved her). It reminded me of a behind the scenes segment on pixar’s The Incredibles where theyshowed how they made all the background people out of one main male template. They managed to have about equal gender ratios in both the main cast and the peripheral, but I thought that was very indicative of how most people see background characters – you can even make background women out of your standard male template! I laugh, but I can forgive them for budget constraints, but it bothered me in Tangled that they had 3 main female faces – Goethel’s and Rapunzel’s were distinct (except for Rapunzel looking exactly like her mom) and kind of awesome faces. Then you had bland background woman/girl. There were at least a dozen distinct male faces, all dramatically different.
megsies(Quote) (Reply)
I think it would be difficult for a show with the basic premise of cheerleader-turned-monster-hunter to not be silly sometimes, but BtVS was also sometimes scary, depressing, funny, sweet, infuriating, and joyous. Often within a single episode. That’s kind of why we love it so.
Robin(Quote) (Reply)
Definitely!
The Other Anne(Quote) (Reply)
Are chick flicks really not about women? I hardly ever watch them, but I just assumed that they were pretty parallel. I mean, “guy” movies are about hilariously stereotyped guys doing super-macho things, I always thought “girl” movies were the same except, you know, with girls. I really had no idea that it was so hard to find that kind of movie, that’s just bizarre to me.
sep332(Quote) (Reply)
I read an article with the director (I think?) of The Tourist in the Metro in December and he openly stated that he didn’t have other women in the movie because of Angelina.
I can’t remember if the statement amounted to ‘Angelina is enough woman for a movie all alone!’ or ‘What woman could share the screen with someone as beautiful as Angelina?’ but it was one of those two, or a hybrid.
It was clearly not an accidental omission of female characters, and rather a conscious decision. Making it, frankly, that much more damning.
Joel(Quote) (Reply)
Replace “hilariously stereotyped” with “infuriatingly bullshittingly stereotyped” and you’re pretty much right…except yeah, most chick flicks are about women freaking out over menz/weddings/babies/shoes/that cheerleader bitch/menz/losing and gaining weight/menz/menz and menz (‘cuz that’s what a stereotypical woman does, apparently).
Casey(Quote) (Reply)
No, “chick flicks” are about women needing men and not having men and wanting men and pursuing men, and so they fail the third part of the test ferociously. And to me they feel like they’re not actually about women at all: they’re mostly about how tragic it is to be without a man, which, you know, is just weird. I mean, sure, if you want sex/love at the moment and aren’t getting any, it sucks, but I have NEVER personally known anyone to suffer the levels of desperation women in these films express.
Imagine if someone made an entire movie genre about men mowing the lawn and constantly talking about crab grass and wailing about how they’re gonna die if they don’t get a riding mower [I think I just invented a weird kink here, LOL], and that was all the “guy movie” genre offered men. Imagine that, and you know how I feel with “chick flicks.”
Jennifer Kesler(Quote) (Reply)
Juno doesn’t have an antagonist and passes Bechdel while failing reverse Bechdel. There are several male characters (Paulie, the dad, and Mark) but they all either only talk to female characters or talk to male characters, but only about female characters.
Waitress has a female protagonist and a male antagonist and passes Bechdel but fails reverse Bechdel, if I remember correctly. Unless you count the scene where Joe tells Earl off, but I’m not sure that was a conversation as much as a lecture.
And here’s one more for the female protagonist/antagonist list: Deepa Mehta’s film Water. It takes place in a widow’s ashram in India, there’s only one male character of any importance, and when he talks to his male friend, it’s about his love interest.
…yeah, I like these kinds of movies.
Genevieve(Quote) (Reply)
Huh. It’s remarkable no one sees that as a reason to remove all other men from a Johnny Depp film, isn’t it? Can you even imagine?
Jennifer Kesler(Quote) (Reply)
“Imagine if someone made an entire movie genre about men mowing the lawn and constantly talking about crab grass and wailing about how they’re gonna die if they don’t get a riding mower.”
Sounds like something Hank Hill would like, LOL.
Casey(Quote) (Reply)
I have a neighbor who would probably watch those movies, but only if there were gratuitous leafblower scenes thrown into the mix.
Patrick McGraw(Quote) (Reply)
It seems REALLY optimistic to call action hero film characters “stereotypes” of men, doesn’t it? I mean, when I think of a stereotypical man, I certainly don’t think Ah-nuld kicking ass and talking names, or a macho spy, or a gun-toting ex-cop with revenge on his mind. So while these characters might be a stereotype of the super-macho male CHARACTER they are not really stereotypes of MEN, whereas in chick flicks the women portrayed act in ways that people truly believe women act. I know way too many guys that get really surprised when I say I don’t want kids, and in fact don’t like being around them and don’t think they’re cute, or that I am not interested in getting myself a significant other because I really don’t want to and don’t have the time for it, or that I love video games…because they think I should like flowers and that I want to get married and can’t have friends that are male because really we just want to have sex amirite? Urgh. As soon as movies like Tomb Raider or Resident Evil count as chick flicks just because they star women doing kickass things that are considered a feminine stereotype of people and not characters I might consider this comparison valid. Until then, I gotta disagree.
The Other Anne(Quote) (Reply)
Yeah, you’re right. It’s more about fantasy than stereotype. I think chick flicks are also fantasy, but they have terrible “morals”. The last chick flick I saw, *The Invention of Lying*, made me want to stab myself in the eye on multiple levels
Whereas, in *The Expendables*, the guys with weaker morals were less effective and ended up damaging their relationships with their friends. The situations were ridiculous, but there were “morals” in the movie that I could actually live with.
sep332(Quote) (Reply)
I absolutely hated The Invention of Lying. The parts of The Expendables I saw I enjoyed. Which reminds me to go watch The Losers, which I never got around to seeing but wanted to. XD
I always prefer “man” movies, because the action and whatnot appeals to me more. But the overwhelmingly male dominated cast never really does, and when women have roles they’re usually romantic or Michelle Rodriguez, who I love, but usually she just…er…dies. And that gets sad.
The Other Anne(Quote) (Reply)
Sorry to double post….I think a more similar comparison to chick flicks is the buddy movie, which typically stars two men in arguably normal plots who are buddies or become buddies. So, like, The Hangover, Due Date, buddy cop movies that are *more* realistic ish than anything involving spies…but maybe not, as well.
And a typical plot in those movies is “women be bitches” who whinge and cry and are shrill. Or something.
The Other Anne(Quote) (Reply)
This reminds me of the TVTropes article on “The Room”, the conversation between Lisa and her mother regarding said mother’s breast cancer seemed shoe-horned in as a half-hearted attempt to pass the Bechdel test.
Casey(Quote) (Reply)
I think this makes a valid point, the test is not to point out a problem within any particular movie but with the movie industry as a whole. The movie 50/50 fails the test due to the fact that the women never have a conversation that don’t involve Adam, however it would be weird if they did given how grave that situation was and the circumstances of the conversation, in fact none of the conversations in the movie don’t turn around to talk about Adam and his cancer unless Adam himself is involved (and even that’s rare) or at the beginning before he finds out he has it. Moneyball is about a mens league baseball team and it would be weird if two female characters had a conversation bout something other than the team or specific member because that is the basis of the plot and those are the main characters. This doesn’t make these movie any less brilliant or poignant simply because they are male centered, what the Bechdel test does is how how many male dominated films there are versus films that have even the most basic of female involvement, and that is where the problem is. Movies can even be feminist even when they don’t pass the test, The Avengers has a very strong main female character, a strong female secondary character and a short appearance by Pepper Potts, an already established strong intelligent character. Natasha’s fighting costume, although skintight is clearly something designed for stealth and fighting, even her male counterpart also wears skin tight uniform, and her uniform doesn’t conveniently rip in revealing places, she doesn’t have sexual tension with any of the male characters or become a damsel in distress which has become the expectation of action films. She holds her own without losing her femininity which are big achievements for a female character and that doesn’t lose importance just because she doesn’t talk to other female characters.
Catherine(Quote) (Reply)
I was thinking about the Australian movie Oranges and Sunshine today. It technically passes the test (the lead female – actually, the *films* lead – has several short conversations scattered through the film with her female superiors and various female victims about the abuse perpetrated by their governments/churches) though I’d say 75% of her interactions are with her husband and another 10% with men. But in the context of the film, it would be silly for her husband, another counselor/crusader, NOT to be her primary confidante. It doesn’t take away from what a strong, compassionate, persevering woman she was, or how she exposed the corruption and coverups of two governments and a bunch of churches. (Think Erin Brokovich, but on a bigger scale.) So I think this is an example of not tossing in interactions with other women (even though they WERE there) and having her primary relationship be with a man but still having this very strong, nuanced character.
Gabriella(Quote) (Reply)
Catherine,
I wouldn’t say that Natasha is a secondary character. She gets the third highest amount of screen time in the movie, and she’s probably the character who does the most to advance the plot (tricking info out of the trickster god, stealing an alien vehicle, shutting down the magic doohickey, and so on).
Other than that, I agree with you. The problem isn’t individual movies, it’s the industry as a whole. There’s nothing wrong with a movie that focuses on men, it’s the lack of a movie that focuses on women to balance it out.
Sylvia Sybil(Quote) (Reply)
Sylvia Sybil,
One issue I had with Natasha is how much of her motivation revolves around men. Where other characters have much more internal motivations, hers is all about the men around her, be they Barton or her superiors. She’s an awesome character and fighter and is notable in her lack of superpowers, holding her own with men who do, but her own motivation matters even more to me because she’s the only major female character.
She’s important, surely, but too much of her is in service of men for me. She is the eye candy for the male gaze, and her self is wrapped up in the men around her.
The Other Anne(Quote) (Reply)
The Other Anne,
I personally didn’t see that. I thought Natasha was the most goal-oriented of any character except perhaps Fury. She had internal motivation, to atone for her past and “balance her ledger”, and there’s nothing in the text to indicate anything more than that in her interactions with Hawkeye and with SHIELD (subtext, yes; text, no). I also thought she was less invested in the men around her than they were with each other.
I think that most of the “Natasha is just eye-candy and service for men” comes from fandom projection rather than the movie itself. Was Natasha’s catsuit really any tighter than Captain America’s spandex? Is her taking orders from Fury really that much worse than Coulson doing it? Because what I saw was Natasha Getting It Done, a quality I much admire. There are two distinct points in the movie when Natasha directly thwarts Loki in a way no one else does – and for the interrogation, I’d argue no one else could have done it.
I totally agree, however, that since she’s the only woman with more than a dozen lines it’s important she live up to a higher standard. If three of the six Avengers were women, Natasha could have more flaws without representing all of womanhood.
Sylvia Sybil(Quote) (Reply)
wow yeah you’re right
Catherine,
Desireee(Quote) (Reply)
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