The ‘Bechdel Test’
An introduction to the paradigm-shifting, feminist TV-and-film litmus test
“All these relationships between women, I thought, rapidly recalling the splendid gallery of fictitious women, are too simple. … And I tried to remember any case in the course of my reading where two women are represented as friends. … They are now and then mothers and daughters. But almost without exception they are shown in their relation to men. It was strange to think that all the great women of fiction were, until Jane Austen’s day, not only seen by the other sex, but seen only in relation to the other sex. And how small a part of a woman’s life is that.” — A Room of One’s Own, Virginia Woolf
It is patently obvious, poring through the history of cinema, that men and male roles have dominated the silver screen. Woolf’s quote (particularly ‘and how small a part’) alludes to an underlying, misogynistic thread in fiction, and especially film, that itself serves as a constant reminder of how far we haven’t yet come.
Dictionary.com defines misogynistic as “reflecting or exhibiting hatred, dislike, mistrust, or mistreatment of women.” In the case of women in film, the “reflecting” portion speaks to film’s tendency to mirror certain, prevalent cultural attitudes and mores — whether right or wrong — and “mistreatment” is really the issue at heart.
In her landmark lesbian-centered comic strip “Dykes to Watch Out For,” Alison Bechdel often addresses the mistreatment of women that Woolf described, most famously in a 1985 strip entitled “The Rule.” In it, one of the female characters outlines three criteria a film must meet before she will endorse or watch it. As they have come to be applied to the analysis of cinema, the three rules (basically) are:
- the film/show must have two or more named female characters
- who have a conversation
- about something other than a man.
The criteria might at first seem strange (especially if you identify as a man), but as writer Charlie Stross and film director Jason Reitman pointed out, an astoundingly small proportion of films actually ‘pass’ all three components of the test.
The principle informing the test is deceptively simple to grasp: In film, women have for the most part been treated as secondary characters — satellites of the men, whose ambitions, hopes and fears drive the narratives. The effect is twofold.
First, the way that the media chooses to portray women is reflective of the mean (as in, average) perspectives and attitudes of our culture. Second, simply by conforming or adjusting to the backward, women-as-bench-players mindset, we implicitly endorse that attitude. Neda Ulaby, an NPR reporter in the arts, cultural tends and digital media sphere, said of the Bechdel Test: “It articulates something often missing in popular culture: not the number of women we see on screen, but the depth of their stories and the range of their concerns.”
The sad truth is that the vast majority of films made in any given year fail to live up to the relatively modest standards of the Bechdel Test.
These standard-fare films suggest, through only portraying women as relevant to the narrative by virtue of their relationship to the men the story is actually about, that women actually are as they are so often depicted: primarily and almost exclusively concerned with men or a man, with little other motivation or drive.
You don’t have to pass the Bechdel Test for me to enjoy your movie, and just because you write two named women discussing something other than men doesn’t mean I’m going to like it, either.
But the moment I see a Bechdel-beating scene in a show or film, it tells me something about how much thought and care went into crafting the women characters that populate that world, and that’s information worth knowing.
It always boils down to this: look for ways to think and be critical in your approach to media. Human beings absorb more than they intend to — and more than they realize — from the content they consume. Being mindful and critical isn’t easy (or fun, most of the time), but it’s vital.
And celebrate the movies that DO bother to pass the test and which contain real, deep, nuanced women characters. There’s not nearly enough of them, and they don’t get nearly enough love — off the top of my head, Lars and the Real Girl is a great example. Respond to this story with your fav Bechdel-beating films or shows, so we can celebrate them together!
Originally published at thedailycougar.com on April 8, 2013.
