Is the Bechdel Test Useful?

[Leoreth]

Actually doing a version of this test for homosexuals would be quite interesting. Since not many movies have homosexuals, let's just only use movies that do. With that in mind. How many of these movies.

1) Have two or more (named) homosexual characters
2) Who talk to each other
3) About something other than being gay.

The better litmus test would probably be "is this character only gay to include cheap jokes about his campy behavior or to act as a male best friend to the female protagonist?".

How much I hate that every homosexual character in every movie must always be campy. No wonder that so many people think there is a "gay lifestyle".

Still, you'd expect a lot more movies passing than actually do.

Yeah, don't disagree here.

 

[Crezth]

It seems as though the number of passing bechdel tests should match the number of passing reverse bechdel tests. In a truly egalitarian society, anyway.

 

[metatron]

The Bechdel Test, for those of you unaware, is as follows:

A movie passes the Bechdel Test if:
1.) It has two or more named women in it,
2.) Who talk to each other,
3.) About something other than a man.

I can tell you right now, without having read the thread (yet) that it will be mostly about two things:

1. People being amazed by the blatantly obvious fact that outside of 80% of popular movies fail this test.
2. Knights in shining armor who consider themselves pro-feminists coming up with shortsighted and superficial explanations as to why this is (which they would consider an insult to their otherwise high intelligence if the topic was any one but this one - thus demonstrating that rooting out sexism is more tricky than one might think).

*scrolling down*

Yeah... two for two... *sigh*

As such, the Bechdel Test is less a litmus test and more a yardstick that helps to frame the conversation.

"...frame the conversation..."

Does this have Republicans in it?

As you said, the fact that it is such a low bar, and that so few films actually pass the test, is remarkable and rather depressing.

It is.
But i guess we have rather different reasons for saying that.

I can think of plenty of films that would work just as well with the genders reversed.

Yes!
Lawrence of Arabia!
Or...maybe not.

Mrs. Doubtfire!
Or maybe not.

I can think of plenty of films that would work just as well with the genders reversed. The conclusion that this leads me to is that Hollywood has a bias towards casting males and/or choosing scripts with male lead characters. I can't think of a good reason why films with male leads are better than films with female leads.

Yeah, or it may be about the topics...

It's useful in aggregate, which is how it was intended: to illustrate how few films meet what seem like really quite modest criteria, rather than to suggest that the worthiness of a specific film hinges on meeting those criteria.

Ok, let's reduce the pack to movies that...

...are not about sports.
...in which nobody gets killed or severely injured by another person and that is on graphic display.
...don't feature cabals about apolitical power (corporate conspiracy nonsense and all that).
...have nothing explode.
...don't show or debate the commiting of felonies that involve violence or physical coercion.
...don't play in an era in which women where by and large barred from doing whatever is done in the movie.

Sure, that's a minority of movies (or better: of box office record breakers), but i'd guess more than 95% would pass the test and the failure rate for the reverse test wouldn't be significantly lower.

On the former point, what folks in the know always say, is that most blockbusters in the past, for whatever reason, are male-dominated, Bechdel failing films. Now, you could put women in the same lead roles played by men, and the movie would likely be just as good.

Erm. No. Mostly no.
If "good" means - as i asume - violent and gross.

Considering Twilight films nominally past the test, I'm skeptical of its power.

Never seen that stuff.
From what i heard it's mostly about about young male actors presenting their physique and middle-aged female viewers looking for batteries.
You know, harmless fun. Opposed to that pony-pedophilia nonsense.

So what about a movie in which everyone is a warrior, and about 50% of the warriors are female. They don't take much time out for chick flick talk. Is that really a fail? Or does it reflect an agenda to the Bechdel test---that discourse is critical in a movie for it to defy gender?

They don't talk to each other, iirc they don't even meet at all.
Plus: They are not warriors. Warriors get hurt or killed or at least have to kill, walk through oceans of mud etc.
Giving fancy speeches and riding a bit about on your horsie: not typical warrior behavior.
Aristocrats do that, when they are under the delusion of participating in warrior behavior.

And that's actually the point:
Blockbusters are about action and violence and violence is preferably shown as something done by men to men.
It is done by men because women are supposedly not that violent.
And more importantly it is done to men because we live in a amazingly sexist society that considers members of one sex but not the other as expendable.

I think a lot of the more prominent film critics happen to be men, for some reason, so I guess there's that factor too.

It still baffles me that a supposedly liberal bastion like Hollywood can be so anti-feminist.

Way to find someone to blame. Like people listen to film critics.

Popular movies, all the more if they involve any kind of action are about violence and all sorts of gross things.
And there comes the single perk about dying in that coal mine (or doing some of the other marginally reasonable things typically done by men): You get that silly folk song written about you.
If you find a movie that plays during this millenium in say a school and fails the test, give me a call.

As has been said before, it's not so much which movies pass the test, it's which movies don't pass it. And looking at the top 250 imdb movies...it doesn't look good tbh.

Let's go through the imdb's top 40.
(No. 40 is Alien).

1. Convicts. Some violent, some not.
2. Violent criminals.
3. Violent criminals.
4. Violent criminals.
5. Violent criminals. (Western.)
6. (->1957)
7. Passes the test.
8. A fascist millionair being a fascist milllionair.
9. Racist, classist, obscene war propaganda.
10. I don't even know where to start...
11. War.
12. Ok, the protagonist is a convict, a war vet and boasts about having commited statutory rape...
13. Racist, classist, obscene war propaganda.
(I have no idea what 14 is about and no intention to change that).
15. Violent criminals.
16. War.
17. Violent criminals. Bordering even more on war than the other cases of "violent criminals".
18. Somewhat solipsistic and protofascist nonsense as an excuse for blowing stuff up. Pretty much the apex of male disposibility: An all out war against agents without personhood. It even surpasses 9, 13 and 22. Which is an accomplishment.
19. Pass.
(I have no idea what 20 is about and i probably should change that.)
21. Racist, classist, obscene war propaganda.
22. Violent criminals. (Western. And this one is actually good.)
23. Violent criminal.
24. (-> 1942)
25. Violent criminal.
26. Technically this could be your best case since it's technically "adventure". But i'm sure you can see the avalanche of qualifications coming after that...
27. More criminals.
28. More crime.
29. The fascist millionair again.
30. Pass.
31. Genocide.
32. Assasssin.
33. (-> 1950)
34. More violent crime.
35. Violent criminals. Nazis.
36. War.
37. Pass. (lol but true)
38. Genocidal madmen.
39. War.
40. Alien.

Three rather old movies ('42,'50,'57) leaving 37:
Alien and four other movies that pass the test.

That leaves us with 32 movies about men being violent and/or criminal and/or murderous and/or genocidal or hunting each other down for any of the above reasons. Most of these 32 movies contain graphic violence commited against some of the men that in terms of the intensity of the display catastrophically surpasses anything that was ever done to a woman in a popular movie (even by Tarantino).

Yes. The misogyny is truly appalling...

It seems as though the number of passing bechdel tests should match the number of passing reverse bechdel tests. In a truly egalitarian society, anyway.

As i said: Substract everything that has sports, organised crime, graphic violance or direct combat in war in it and you get pretty close.
Even non-graphic violence isn't a dealbreaker. Plenty of murder mystery and courtroom drama with women talking to each other and all that...

 

[Traitorfish]

Ok, let's reduce the pack to movies that...

...are not about sports.
...in which nobody gets killed or severely injured by another person and that is on graphic display.
...don't feature cabals about apolitical power (corporate conspiracy nonsense and all that).
...have nothing explode.
...don't show or debate the commiting of felonies that involve violence or physical coercion.
...don't play in an era in which women where by and large barred from doing whatever is done in the movie.

Sure, that's a minority of movies (or better: of box office record breakers), but i'd guess more than 95% would pass the test and the failure rate for the reverse test wouldn't be significantly lower.

I don't follow; why would we want to reduce the pack? Isn't that missing the point? ("There's hardly any cockroaches if the building, if you ignore all the cockroaches.")

 

[cardgame]

Re Leoreth's last post, I agree that it's more important to make sure female characters aren't stereotypes, but I also agree with BvBPL, that an easy way to do this is simply to flip a well-crafted male character and make it female instead. I don't see why it is wrong to do that at all.

The lack of decent female characters is a problem in itself, and can easily be solved, just by flipping male characters into female characters. We all agree that those characters are just as good when they are female as when they are male, so nobody loses out -- everybody wins. Where's the problem?

yay, rule 63

 

[metatron]

I don't follow; why would we want to reduce the pack? Isn't that missing the point? ("There's hardly any cockroaches if the building, if you ignore all the cockroaches.")

The point is that not movies in general fail the test that often but rather certain types of movies overwhelmingly fail the test and that those types of movies (crime and action for the most part) are overexposed both in public consciousness and in this thread.
Other types of movies (you know, without body parts flying about) tend to pass the test remarkably more often.

Seriously: Don't you find it odd that all that has been debated in this thread as a concrete example falls into that category?
(Alien, Men in Black, James Bond, some others).

 

[_random_]

Racist, classist, obscene war propaganda.

I've never actually seen the Lord of the Rings movies, but I'm curious about this assessment.

 

[History_Buff]

Erm. No. Mostly no.
If "good" means - as i asume - violent and gross.

I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that you don't care for most "blockbuster" movies? That's fine, I was making a relative statement.

The point remains, that in many cases, you could take a male role, make it a female role, satisfy the test, and the movie would be no better, and no worse. You might like the movie, I might not, but that's not important. The point is that the gender of the characters has little effect, unless you're trying to abuse some character archetype.

 

[Lillefix]

I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that you don't care for most "blockbuster" movies? That's fine, I was making a relative statement.

The point remains, that in many cases, you could take a male role, make it a female role, satisfy the test, and the movie would be no better, and no worse. You might like the movie, I might not, but that's not important. The point is that the gender of the characters has little effect, unless you're trying to abuse some character archetype.

I think that's only half the point. Many of these "blockbuster" movies are male oriented. Why are there so few good female oriented movies?

 

[History_Buff]

I suspect there are a lot of them when you get right down to it, and they're probably the same films. I often go see movies that girls have picked, and subsequently really enjoyed; I enjoy them as well.

There's still the 'insane-violence/Nicholas Sparks' gap of course, but I think the majority of both men and women equally enjoy films in the middle of that range.

 

[Traitorfish]

The point is that not movies in general fail the test that often but rather certain types of movies overwhelmingly fail the test and that those types of movies (crime and action for the most part) are overexposed both in public consciousness and in this thread.
Other types of movies (you know, without body parts flying about) tend to pass the test remarkably more often.

Seriously: Don't you find it odd that all that has been debated in this thread as a concrete example falls into that category?
(Alien, Men in Black, James Bond, some others).

Not really no. The point of the Bechdel Test is to illustrate the greater exposure that popular cinema lends to men and men's stories, so it makes sense that the emphasis would be on the most highly-exposed and widely-viewed films. Certainly, the fact that the disparities to some extent map to style and genre is worth taking into account, but it hardly resolves the issue as long as films of styles and genres which minimise women remain the most highly-exposed and widely-viewed.

 

[metatron]

I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that you don't care for most "blockbuster" movies? That's fine, I was making a relative statement.

I generally do not care as much for action, crime and horror movies as many other people do, yes.
I have no general problem with big budgets, lots of effect or movies having violence in them.
Out of those 40 movies i appreciate roughly 20 as something in the ballpark of "good".
And of the other 20 i could easily replace all that are not action or crime with movies of the same genre that have a similar level of violence and/or special effects in them.
For example i feel that 39 is manure and should be replaced with The Thin Red Line.

The point remains, that in many cases, you could take a male role, make it a female role, satisfy the test, and the movie would be no better, and no worse. You might like the movie, I might not, but that's not important. The point is that the gender of the characters has little effect, unless you're trying to abuse some character archetype.

That's obviosly true for some of the 40 movies i commented on.
In my view No. 11 and No. 16 and No. 26 could easily have more women in them or have the protagonist being female to begin with, since my argument regarding graphic violence does affect them much less then most other movies on that list.

I think that's only half the point. Many of these "blockbuster" movies are male oriented. Why are there so few good female oriented movies?

They are action and violence oriented. That's not the same thing.
Violence in movies works way, way different depending on the sex of the involved parties, particularly the sex of the recipient.
There is also an argument to be made on whether or not women really are 50% of the audience for movies in general (in the west). I doubt they are. The reverse argument could possibly be made about narrative literature.

Not really no. The point of the Bechdel Test is to illustrate the greater exposure that popular cinema lends to men and men's stories, so it makes sense that the emphasis would be on the most highly-exposed and widely-viewed films. Certainly, the fact that the disparities to some extent map to style and genre is worth taking into account, but it hardly resolves the issue as long as films of styles and genres which minimise women remain the most highly-exposed and widely-viewed.

No.
"popular cinema" =/= quarter billion budget blockbusters

Action blockbusters are not representative of "popular cinema" in general. They are actually a small minority. They are highly exposed due to the concentration of ressources which obviously comes with the territory.
With the budget of one such action fest you can shoot 20 decent dramas of which several would fare well on the box office and with critics. That they fail to conquer a spot on imdb's list of big movies about big stuff exploding doesn't mean they are not exposed or don't influence popular culture.

I've never actually seen the Lord of the Rings movies, but I'm curious about this assessment.

I'm not sure if it's wise to get into it, since it's a tangent and we know it will be controversial. But since i started it...
In broad strokes: The whole trilogy is essentially about a bunch of extremely white people who live in societies that would be incredibly naive yet amazingly perfect if it weren't for those pesky outsiders. The latter are of course dirty, vile creatures, agents without personhood, destined to be evil with the only possible remedy to their condition being slaughtered in huge numbers by the protagonists.

 

[GoodGame]

In broad strokes: The whole trilogy is essentially about a bunch of extremely white people who live in societies that would be incredibly naive yet amazingly perfect if it weren't for those pesky outsiders. The latter are of course dirty, vile creatures, agents without personhood, destined to be evil with the only possible remedy to their condition being slaughtered in huge numbers by the protagonists.

While possibly Tolkien had some racist subtexts in his writings, LoTR was not about xenophobia nor racial superiority.

 

[metatron]

While possibly Tolkien had some racist subtexts in his writings, LoTR was not about xenophobia nor racial superiority.

Everytime the above claim is debated the defenders of LotR make this argument. If it only mattered...

What matters is what is actually displayed on the screen. We don't have to indulge in lengthy debates of Tolkien's bio or any such nonsense to assess that.

 

[Goodfella]

@metatron: What genocide is in It's a Wonderful Life?

 

[Traitorfish]

No.
"popular cinema" =/= quarter billion budget blockbusters

Action blockbusters are not representative of "popular cinema" in general. They are actually a small minority. They are highly exposed due to the concentration of ressources which obviously comes with the territory.
With the budget of one such action fest you can shoot 20 decent dramas of which several would fare well on the box office and with critics. That they fail to conquer a spot on imdb's list of big movies about big stuff exploding doesn't mean they are not exposed or don't influence popular culture.

I don't think anyone's arguing otherwise?

 

[metatron]

@metatron: What genocide is in It's a Wonderful Life?

Oops!

Due to haste and wanting to get to the end of it i confused that with La vita è bella.
Should have noticed the year...

My bad.

 

[Goodfella]

Oops!

Due to haste and wanting to get to the end of it i confused that with La vita è bella.
Should have noticed the year...

My bad.

I don't know if it passes the test. I haven't watched it in a few years. But is there anything really violent in it?

 

[Goodfella]

Oh and Pulp Fiction passes the test:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qxck4zts1FA&feature=related

 

[metatron]

I don't know if it passes the test. I haven't watched it in a few years. But is there anything really violent in it?

La vita è bella?
I don't really remember either.

The site says it fails the first criterion. But that has obviously a lot to do with the topic.
I don't know about the violence either, since to fit my argument the violence has to be graphic. For example Guido being shot in the end (off screen) wouldn't count, cause that's something that frequently happens to women in movies.

It's a Wonderful Life probably is a pass.
And if not it's covered by my movies-from-the-stone-age-don't-really-count argument.

Oh and Pulp Fiction passes the test:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qxck4zts1FA&feature=related

Yeah, probably some more movies among those 40 do. I really was looking for the movie (or movies) on that list that a) doesn't pass b) is not full of graphic violence and/or crime c) wasn't made before say 1965. I ruled out movies one way or the other, whatever came first to my mind.