[ SECRET POST #3602 ]

[case]

⌈ Secret Post #3902 ⌋

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

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Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 02 pages, 42 secrets from Secret Submission Post #559.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 0 - not!secrets ], [ 1 (unless there's some kind of series based on clipart?) - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

Comments

[(Anonymous)]

Well, to be fair, 99% of the dialogue was about men skating, for all the characters including the male cast lol.

Does Yuko telling her triplets to go to bed count? I think Yuri's mom and the alcoholic ballet teacher talk about not-Yuri at some point. like when mom tells her to drink less. or something

[(Anonymous)]

TBF I don't think the occasional passing comment in the middle of conversations about the male skaters counts as passing the Bechdel test.

But as you say, this isn't an issue exclusive to female characters. In a show all about male skaters, you kind of know what to expect going in.

[(Anonymous)]

Does the Bechdel test have any wriggle room if you're talking about a male character not as a character, but as a hobby? Like characters talking about figure skating because they enjoy watching it seems like a genuine hobby, and even though it's technically about "men", it's not really about male characters if they are talking about it as a sport. If it's "oh I hope Yuri doesn't get nervous for his routine!" that's one thing, but "oh look at that technique! Ohh he missed that quad!" type lines are a little different.

[(Anonymous)]

No.

[(Anonymous)]

I think it's a case of YMMV what counts and what doesn't.

Personally, I'm happy to count technical commentary, even if it is about male skaters, for exactly the reasons you stated -- it's a hobby as much as an investment in the male character -- but other people might say it only counts if there's no discussion of a man at all. So I guess it's on you as to how you define it?

[erinptah]

They could also just as easily have written the characters talking about the technique of a female skater.

Hobby-based conversation (and job-based conversation, and so on) is arguably more useful for developing the women as characters with their own lives and interests. But the Bechdel-Wallace Test isn't a scale of usefulness, it's a yes/no binary. If you want to talk about subjectivities and shades and nuances, do that for its own sake, don't do it as a way of trying to game the test.

[(Anonymous)]

Thank you.

[(Anonymous)]

But the Bechdel-Wallace Test isn't a scale of usefulness, it's a yes/no binary.

I have friends who interpret the bit about "talk to each other about something besides a man" as meaning "have a conversation about something other than het romance/sex." Or in other words, they read the line metaphorically rather than literally.

I prefer to read the line literally myself, because I think a statistical comparison of the literal versions of the Bechdel-Wallace Test and the Reverse Bechdel-Wallace Test (measuring whether a film has at least two men who talk about something other than a woman) is the most illuminating. But I don't think that a metaphorical reading is unreasonable or an attempt to "game" the test.

[erinptah]

...well, geez, if you decide to read it metaphorically, you could turn it into a metaphor for anything you want.

I think if people want to come up with a measure for how much het romance/sex is in something, fine, but give it its own name.

(Same with the people I've seen trying to insist on a narrower version of the test. Stop projecting extra meanings onto the thing! Just make your own thing.)

[(Anonymous)]

The original purpose of the test was to show how hard it is for lesbians to find female characters to relate to. So actually, that does imply that the conversation about a man has to be about him in a romantic or sexual sense. So either the test was later expanded to include all conversations about men, or Alison Bechdel thought no lesbian could relate to a non-romantic/sexual conversation about a man, even though that's obviously not true.

[erinptah]

Here's the original strip that lays out the test.

It doesn't say anything about "the goal is to find characters that I as a lesbian can relate to lesbianically."

It says conversations about "something besides a man." Full stop. No qualifiers.

There are lots of female characters whose roles in their stories are defined in relation to male characters in nonromantic ways. As mothers or daughters, as coaches or cheerleaders, as bosses or sidekicks, as whatever. And that's a problem. Because in real life, women -- including lesbians, but not limited to lesbians! -- have lots of conversations that aren't about men in any way. Even the straightest of straight women, whose romantic and sexual interest is solely focused on men, have other interests in their life, and would find it fulfilling to see those on-screen. The way they're under-represented is worth commenting on for its own sake, because it hurts all women, of all sexualities.

(For the record, I say all this as a lesbian. And I would find it really weird if, every time I made a comment about women or feminism without mentioning sexuality, someone said "ah, but you only mean that to apply to lesbians, right?")

[(Anonymous)]

Nayrt, but thank you -- I was struggling with how to articulate this and you've laid it out so well.

[erinptah]

Hey, cool. Thanks for getting it <3

[(Anonymous)]

AYRT

...well, geez, if you decide to read it metaphorically, you could turn it into a metaphor for anything you want.

It's not as though this particular metaphorical reading is an obscure one. When a tween girl says to her friend, "Let's talk about boys," she means that in a romantic sense. "Talking about men" in a romantic/sexual sense is just the grownup, slightly less cliched version of the same metaphor.

[erinptah]

But who uses "let's talk about something other than boys" to mean "let's talk about boys, just in a non-romantic sense"?

Now I'm just waiting for the day someone says "by 'man', they meant in the metaphorical sense of Humanity, and therefore it doesn't refer to conversations that are all about Spock."

[jainas]

Well, if from "let's talk about something other than boys" the characters go to talking about politics and what the prime minister did last week, what their favorite male musician is up to, or how to rob that rich CEO, I think it fits actually pretty well...
Well, it's still means that this fictional universe is mainly populated by men, but for me it would pass the Beschdel test.

[erinptah]

"Let's talk about something other than men, let's talk about...men."

As far as I can see, one of the most striking points of the Bechdel-Wallace test is that all the failures highlight how many fictional universes are "mainly populated by men." There is no intrinsic reason why those universes have to be that way.

[(Anonymous)]

...but het romance/sex involves a man by default. I don't see what the difference is here.

[erinptah]

One category includes the other, is the difference. Something like a mother talking about how she's proud of her son's grades would fall in the category of "about a man", without being in the specific subcategory of "about het romance/sex."

[(Anonymous)]

I don't think you're correct. The Bechdel test was a tongue-in-cheek concept to show whether or not a film had female presence.

I don't think it would apply in the case of two women talking about a hobby. I think it applies when their conversation is only meant to a) further develop a male character or b) reduce their presence to only romance.

I don't think talking about ice skating = talking about men = female presence in the series is reduced.

[erinptah]

If it was about "a female presence," then why wouldn't you just count the number of women involved, and stop there?

The original presentation of the test doesn't give any subjective qualifications, no caveats of "it can involve a man under X conditions." It's short, strict, and straightforward.

A show can have plenty of female presence without actually passing the test. For that matter, a show can be good and valuable and feminist and all kinds of other wonderful things without passing the test. I think sometimes people get defensive because they think failing the test means a flat condemnation of the series in every way, and it doesn't. It's just one specific aspect that's worth thinking about.

[ypsilon42]

No they really couldn't have had conversations about female skaters?

Or maybe they could have, but only in a very different show. It's an sport anime about men's figure skating. Men skating is literally the thing happening on screen? And usually you want the dialogue of the characters to be kinda connected to what is happening...

Idk, wether I would give the conversations a pass or not. I don't recall them in enough detail to say tbh, but in this show about they definitly could not just have talked about ladies figure skating instead of talking about the very thing the show is about.

[erinptah]

"maybe they could have, but only in a very different show"

...yeah, that's kind of the point. You could write a different show, with more women in major roles, in order to include more conversations that pass the Bechdel-Wallace Test. Or you could write this show, which, don't get me wrong, is great in plenty of ways! It just gives itself fewer opportunities to pass the test.