The Bechdel Test, while relatively unknown, is a very simple way of looking at gender roles in movies. It is a way of determining whether or not a movie represents gender equally. There are 3 simple questions with this test:
1. It has to have at least two [named] women in it…
2. …who talk to each other…
3. …about something besides a man.
This is a comic strip that showed Bechdel’s orginal “Rule”
This seems like an incredibly simple test and something that most movies would pass, but when you start to look at movies with this lens it’s apparent there are a lot of movies that do not pass this test.
So the next step after introducing this test is figuring out how to use it effectively. What is its purpose and how does it help us?
Admittedly it is not a perfect “test” – a movie that fails the Bechdel Test isn’t automatically a movie that has terrible themes and boring plot lines. But what is important is to realize that some really popular movies have a very small portion of the population represented – they are missing 50% to be exact. This is the importance of the Bechdel test, as it shows us the lack of female representation in cinema.
A lot of my favorite movies do not pass the Bechdel test, which either shows the kind of movies I personally like or perhaps it has more to do with the kinds of movies that Hollywood continues to make. One of my recent favorites is Ender’s Game, which happens to be a movie based on an amazing sci-fi book. This being said there are only three female characters in the movie: Major Anderson, Petra and Valentine. The problem is none of these women interact with each other as it is a more male-heavy movie about epic battles.
I’m not saying that we should start to boycott this movie or others like it, but what does this say about our society when these are the kinds of movies we are producing? Why is it so difficult to find a movie that has a bunch of strong characters, both male and female? It is important that we start to back movies that pass the Bechdel test with flying colors, as there are some that just barely pass.
Hopefully in the future there will be more movies that showcase women’s power and versatility and not just their ability to be a good mother, wife or girlfriend. Over the history of Pixar there has been a total of one movie that features a female protagonist: Brave. This is a really important movie for it has made monumental strides in the popular “princess movie” field. In Brave, Merida did not look for love or even fall in love – it was about her relationship with her mother. We need to have more movies about women finding who they are through their friends and families and not their boyfriends.
My hope for the future and for all of us is that we can start to pay more attention to the movies that do and do not pass the Bechdel test. Maybe if there is more support for movies that pass this test then Hollywood will get the idea that these are the types of movies that we want to see.
Feminist Quote of the Week: “Man is defined as a human being and a woman as a female – whenever she behaves as a human being she is said to imitate the male.” – Simone de Beauvoir