May 26, 2010
The Bechdel Test: A quiz to assess the quality of roles written for females
Ask these 3 questions of any movie to determine whether it includes well-developed roles for women.
- Are there 2 or more women who have names?
- Do they talk to each other?
- Do they talk to each other about something other than men?
This video shows quite a few mainstream movies that fail this test…
Regardless of what this means about the industry or society at large, it’s a curious idea. I’m gonna be keeping my eye out for this now.
(via Neatorama)
* * * * *
Three little questions targeting seemingly obvious infomration that normally goes under the radar. Huh!
Intriguing. Now why chick flicks (i.e. romantic comedies) are largely terrible. They are full of women characters with no “female presence” because all they talk about is men.
Agreed, which is why they drive a significant portion of their intended audience up the wall.
I hardly think Milk should be seen as part of the systemic problem. Also, and please know that I am sympathetic to the feminist movement, but sometimes a feminine narrative isn’t important to the film at hand. Would Up (a film shown above) gained anything by following these rules? I think not.
I think a more important set of guidelines for garnering positive female roles in film would be:
1. If there are fewer than 2 women in the film, are they treated respectfully?
2. As the sole female character in the film are they given fleshed out characters that offer substance to the film rather than just
serving as the “female form”?
Look at me: getting passionate about something on the internet…
I am also rethinking my use of the term “fleshed out”.
I think the best way to treat women respectfully is to actually represent them and allow them to speak for themselves, rather than have to see them through the “respectful” lens of male characters.
Do you know if anyone has created a list of movies that DO pass the test?
Good question….I have no idea.
My guess: Girl, Interrupted.
Although it takes place in mental institution…
The ones in my DVD collection that passed the test:
All About Eve
Alien/Aliens (female protagonist)
Children of Men
Princess Mononoke
The Searchers
The Sound of Music
Unforgiven
I should note that my favorite movie is famous (or infamous) for the absence of any women with speaking or credited roles: Lawrence of Arabia.
Paris, Texas: only because the two women leads don’t interact
Counter question(s):
Despite the saturation of male presence in modern cinema, just how many of these roles are positive in nature?
Would we want our sons to emulate any of these characters?
(Today I am cursing my liberal arts degree.)
Bourne Supremacy has Nicky Parsons and Pamela Landy talking together. Sure they talk about Jason Bourne, but they also talk about Nicky’s work with the CIA, where she lived, what her undercover work was, etc.
Don’t get me wrong, that’s quite an impressive list and the point is well taken. But since I thought of the above exception off the top of my head pretty quickly, I wonder how many other exceptions there are.
I caught a few exceptions as well! The criteria seem straightforward, but some of these movies should have passed. I guess they forgot to tell us criteria 4, 5 and 6.
I thought the inclusion of Lord of the Rings (all of them) was a bit off-base too. There are a few significant female characters who play prominent, respected roles (with names) without being “the female form” even if they do not interact with each other.
I mean really: if the Bible was made into a movie, it would not pass this test.
Wimmins be loving their Jesus.
Every screenplay I write from now on (I don’t write screenplays) will include this scene:
Sarah: Julie, this is a great sandwich!
Julie: Thank you, Sarah. It is beautiful weather for a sandwich.
-End scene-
BECHDEL ACHIEVED!
Mary and Martha ;)
These three questions completely fail at discerning the quality of roles for women. Why should we accept this criteria? Why would there need to be more than one woman in a movie in order for her role to be significant? Why would a women need to talk to another woman in order for her role to be significant? Why can’t a woman talk about men and her role still be significant? Some of those movies had excellent female roles.
Well, I don’t think the question is at all about whether the woman’s role is awesome, whether the movie is good, or whether the movie shows that woman character (or two or three) in a respectful light. I don’t think the point is to bash movies where the women talk about men or where women aren’t the main characters.
I think what is interesting is to see that most movies that aren’t rom-com’s–and even some that are–are really built around a male setting and male heroes with a few female accessories (who are usually destined to fall in love with the lead male[s]).
That doesn’t make any given film a bad movie, and it doesn’t make the filmmakers misogynistic jerks. But it is somewhat telling that the majority of films function this way–again, perhaps not saying anything about the specific movie, but perhaps an indicator about our society in general.
Terrific comment, Amanda.
The video is explicit about this: [The test is] not even a sign of whether it’s a feminist movie or whether it’s a good movie, just that there is female presence in it and that they actually are engaging about things other than men.
I mean, almost all the movies that popped up there are good movies. Several have notable/respectable female roles. The video doesn’t suggest that any particular one of those movies would be a better movie if it had more female presence. (Some would–and it would be fun to argue about which ones!) And the video doesn’t even begin to suggest that there is no place for movies about men/male presence.
Frankly, this isn’t a criticism of the movies/roles out there as much as that these are (nearly) the only movies/roles out there. It’s a serious, valid observation that doesn’t evaporate just because most of us like many of the movies that do get made.
According to the title of this post this is “A quiz to assess the quality of roles written for females.” That is what i was responding to. This quiz fails to assess anything but the answer to those three questions.
That’s a good point, Evan–A’s post title is different than what the video claims for itself, namely to assess the presence of women in movies.
Still, I’m pretty sure that if we had a Venn diagram, there would be a pretty significant overlap between quality of roles written for females and presence of women in movies.
A female character who does not satisfy these three questions may be 99 kinds of awesome, but she’s still a flatter, more dispensable, and less human character than she could be.
We’re currently watching Because of Winn Dixie, a bit each night, comparing it to the book, which we just finished reading aloud last week as a family. We like the book much better, but the movie definitely passes this “test”. They really do a great job casting Gloria Dump. She and Miss Fanny Block both have significant roles, and they have plenty of things to engage in conversation about.
well. this post resulted in my husband and i having an argument.
great.
Your husband is wrong. ;)
Actually lol’ed. And so did he :)
Just found this: http://bechdeltest.com/
I think Lifetime and Oxygen make up for the lack in their made for TV movies.
I have a test about department stores and malls:
1. For every 2 stores that sell exclusively to women, is there 1 store that sells exclusively to men?
2. For every store that sells to both genders, is the square footage/shelving/rack space for gender specific goods balanced to 60-40%?
3. Are comparable goods sold to each gender priced similarly, to within 5% of each other?
4. Are revenues in the store or mall equally distributed for gender-specific goods? For every stick of lipstick, are 10 Old Spice items rung up?
I believe we may have a systemic issue with sexism in consumer retail. It’s clearly geared for women!
I’m using the Bechdel Test to open a Bible class I’m teaching today about “obscure female characters of the Old Testament.”