fandomsecrets | [ SECRET POST #2888 ]

[ SECRET POST #2888 ]

⌈ Secret Post #2888 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.

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Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 03 pages, 060 secrets from Secret Submission Post #413.
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Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

This is an interesting idea, I like it.
And the Bechdel Test is limited. It is a great way to point out the usually limited presence of female characters in movies, but I feel like people rely on it too much to discern whether a movie is "feminist" or not.

The Bechdel test isn't there to test if a movie is feminist. It is there to test if it fails to be misogynist. Sadly far too many movies and shows fail to be not misogynist.

I disagree. There are films that could not have any female characters and not be misogynist. Military films, for example, depending on the length of time we follow the characters. If everything happens over the course of a week in the trenches, it wouldn't be surprising at all that there's no women.

It's neither, but it's closer to being a test of feminism than lack of misogyny. Women talking about men or there being only one woman (who may be the main character, and interesting and well-written) doesn't by any stretch mean the writers hate women.

The bechdel test is literally from a comic. It is nothing more or less then the test that the author's insert uses to determine if she'll go see the movie or not.

It's a good point made and it's interesting but people on all sides have made it a lot more since.

Thank you for posting this.

I realize at this pictures size it's hard to read the title, so for those interested, the comic is "Dykes to watch out for" by Alison Bechdel

I would like to see Rambo Meets Godzilla plz.

What annoys me is that -- if I've understood it right -- two female cops talking about catching a male perp would fail the test; two women raving about the latest washing powder would pass.

This is why I like my test better.

Those two female cops are just presented as officers -- they could be of ANY gender and the scene would work.

Whereas you couldn't have two men raving about the latest washing powder without breaking Hollywood conventions. And that shows how limited those women's roles are.

Yes, I like your test!

ETA: Mind you, thinking about it, the female characters in my stories are both -- they do things (investigating, fighting, making tough, moral decisions) that any gender could do, but they also do stereotypically female things (like longing to have a child).

Edited 2014-11-29 23:20 (UTC)

Personally, I'd argue that a movie shouldn't automatically fail such a test if there were a brief moment where the female cops spent a few lines talking about washing powder, as long as there was also a scene where they discussed the perp and did other Police Things. In other words, the movie passes if there are female characters who don't necessarilly need to be female and who do things that don't revolve around their femaleness, but they still *can* do conventionally female things - it's just not the entirety of they're characters. They don't need to be consistently gender-neutral all the time to pass. You could still just as easily make the cops male without breaking conventions by changing the washing powder discussion to one about sports because it's just a few throw-away lines between two cops on patrol before all hell breaks loose or whatever.

You're right, but that's not the point.

The Bechdel test was never meant to judge an individual movie. A movie passing because two women talk about washing powder doesn't mean it's a feminist movie just as a movie that fails the test because the female cops only talk about catching the male perp can certainly be feminist. The purpose it to apply the test to a bunch of movies (like all movies hitting the theaters this year) and look at the percentage of movies that fail to reach this incredibly low bar. Because many movies don't even fail because the female characters only talk about men; they fail because they don't even have two named female characters just one token chick, or they have two women but they completely revolve around the male characters and only talk to them and never to each other.

I feel like the problem with this, though, is that a lot of films/works star a male lead. So while there might be great female characters, you may not get an instance of them talking to each other simply due to the fact that you're following a male character around and seeing things through his eyes.

For instance, would say Season 1 of Avatar the Last Airbender is still great even though it mostly only featured Katara. But it was how she was portrayed that was more important.

You're right that one of the reasons many movies fail is because the protagonist is male but I think that's less a problem with the test and more a problem with the movies. About 50% of people are women so why can't about 50% of movies have a female lead? (In 2013 only 15% of the 100 highest grossing movies had a female protagonist. Of the top 50 [couldn't find the stat for top 100] films 24 passed the test.)

That's the point.

The Bechdel test was never meant to judge an individual movie.

I think this is the root of most misunderstandings of the test. It drives me crazy that I can't see a movie and look at posts about it on tumblr without finding someone saying it was a bad movie or knocking off points from their review because it didn't pass the test.

Can you explain why applying it to a bunch of movies makes it any more valuable than applying it to one movie? Because it's still testing the same thing(s). What am I not understanding?

[I write mystery stories in which female characters investigate, fight, make tough decisions, and interact with male characters as equals, but I seldom write scenes were two women talk to each other, and if they do, it will be about the case, so it will probably involve talking about men. I've always felt the Bechdel test was a blunt instrument.]

Because it shows that women's roles in movies revolve around men in a way that men's roles don't revolve around women.

Around 57% of 5615 movies on bechdeltest.com pass the bechdel test. That obvs means 43% fail one or more criteria. Now try to think of a movie that fails the reverse bechdel test. A movie that doesn't have two or more named male characters that talk to each other about something else than a women. There certainly are some, if you look at romcoms you might even find plenty, but it's certainly not nearly half of mainstream movies.

Because it shows that women's roles in movies revolve around men in a way that men's roles don't revolve around women.

OK. So, at its very best, all it's actually doing is providing consistency in sampling by telling us what to sample?

I'm actually surprised that as many as 57% pass. I just hope the ones that do pass aren't passing because the women are discussing washing powder.

Yes, exactly. That wasn't even the original purpose though. It originated as a joke in a comic and people took it and made it the test it is today.

Also many movies that do pass, pass on a technicality indeed. There have been proposals to amend the test with a rule that the conversation has to last for more than 2 sentences to count.

But the thing to take away here really isn't "the Bechdel Test" is the instrument to accurately measure female representation. The "joke" of the original comic was basically just the realization how many movies fail to fulfill these very basic requirements. I think since the rule became more widely known the percentage of movies that pass has increased but that doesn't mean that the industry has become more feminist.

If you write complex female characters the likelihood of passing the bechdel test increases but your work doesn't immediately become sexist if it fails the bechdel test.

I already posted above before I saw this, but this.

No, that's exactly what I've always thought the Bechdel test was -- it was just seeing people treating it as a litmus test and noticing a tag on AO3 that made me think I must be missing something.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[ SECRET POST #2888 ]

Re: Alternative to the Bechdel Test?

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most people don't even know the origins

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a lot of works star a male lead

Re: Alternative to the Bechdel Test?

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Re: Alternative to the Bechdel Test?