[ SECRET POST #2604 ]

[case]

⌈ Secret Post #2604 ⌋

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

01.


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02.
[Star Trek: The Next Generation]


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03.
[Sherlock BBC]


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04.
[Zero Escape: Virtue's Last Reward]


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05.
[Elementary]


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06.
[SPN]


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07.
[Pacific Rim]


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08.
[Harry Potter]


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09.
[Game of Thrones]


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10.
[Thor: Dark World]


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11.
[Breaking Bad]


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12.
[My Neighbor Totoro]


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13.
[Robocop]


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14.
[Unsounded]


















Notes:

Sorry about the late!

Secrets Left to Post: 03 pages, 051 secrets from Secret Submission Post #372.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 1 2 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

Comments

[blunderbuss]

There's plenty wrong with the Bechdel Test. MovieBob absolutely nails it, but long story short? Passing or failing the test can have absolutely no bearing on how feminist or ground-breaking or progressive the film is.

ariakas below mentioned the film Gravity, which would fail. Nevermind that there's only four characters in it, nevermind that the female character has her own arc, nevermind that she's the ONLY character for the majority of the film, nevermind that it goddamn proves that a sci-fi/thriller can have a central female lead and be a success. She didn't talk to a chick, so the film 'fails', which spits on everything this film achieved.

So, sure, we need more female characters in films. We ALSO need more GOOD female characters and more female MAIN characters, which the Bechdel Test does fuck-all to ensure.

And besides, why is it either/or? Why can't both rules, each designed to cover a different problem with women in film, be used in tandem? There is no one rule that can cover every problem in every film, so why stick to just one?

[(Anonymous)]

I absolutely agree that the Bechdel Test is flawed in terms of some magical pass/fail system whereby any lousy 2 second conversation between female characters, no matter how stereotypical, would garner the movie a "passing grade." But the Bechdel Test is valuable in terms of overall examination of female presence in the film. Besides, like you say- why should it be either an independent female character or overall female presence? I just chafe at the MM test a bit because I think it is a shortcoming of that film in particular that there was only one female character in a fairly large ensemble (which makes it no different from a number of films)- because I think it creates the idea that you don't need more than one female character in a large cast, so long as you've done a pretty good job fleshing her out. I just don't think that's good enough.

[skippydelicious]

Bechdel is meant to have an incredibly low benchmark for passing it. Its purpose isn't to give films that pass it a pat on the back, but to highlight that even with such an incredibly low bar to jump just how many movies still fail. Passing isn't an "atta boy", but failing it is a "dude, what the hell? You still cannot get your shit together?".

[(Anonymous)]

Do you know who started using it as a test, though? I know that it's derived from the conversation in the lesbian comic by Bechdel in the 80s but I don't know who decided to apply it to films.