The Bechdel Test, or Bechdel-Wallace Test, is a tool to measure how well female characters are represented in a work of fiction. It was developed by cartoonist and feminist Alison Bechdel who published it in her comic called “Dykes to Watch Out For” in 1985.
The Bechdel Test only composes of the three following questions:
1. Does the work of fiction feature at least two named female characters?
2. Do these women talk to each other?
3. Do they talk about something other than a man?
Even though the Bechdel Test seems simple and easy to pass, surprisingly a lot of popular movies fail to meet the three criteria. Some movies that don’t pass the Bechdel Test are Harry Potter and The Goblet of Fire (2005), The Lord of The Rings trilogy (2001, 2002 & 2003), The Avengers (2012) and La La Land (2016), just to name a few.
The test might be a well-known tool in pop culture, but it has no validity whatsoever. Just because two female characters are talking about something other than a man, does not make them feminist. For example, imagine two housewives in a movie from the sixties talking about what to serve their husbands for dinner. On the other hand, women’s conversations about men can be feminist. Women talking with or to other men can also be feminist.
It is safe to say that you cannot assess female representation based on one single test, especially based on one that has low validity and doesn’t accurately measure feminism.
Although there has been some progress regarding female representation in the film industry in the last few years, gender disparity and representation of minorities remain a fundamental problem and we are still a big step away from reaching equal representation in media.
