Bechdelenalia

[andrewducker]

If you have an interest in The Bechdel Test (which a piece of media passes if it contains:
1) At least two women.
2) Who talk to each other
3) About something besides a man
)
then you might be interested in these two blogs:
http://thebechdeltest.blogspot.com/
http://bechdel-test.dreamwidth.org/

It's fascinating how much discussion is about whether a movie just about scrapes by...

(thanks to purpletigron for pointing me that way)

Comments

[purpletigron.livejournal.com]

The real point of the Bechdel Test, of course, is that most media should easily meet these criteria without any special effort.

Obviously, there are some media which naturally won't, for example something which is in the first person from a man, or set in a necessarily all-male environment such as a male prison, or a historically all-male situation.

But generally, media should include a representative mixture of real people, interacting normally for the situation under discussion.

[andrewducker]

While I appreciate the sentiment, I'm very wary of anything which says that media "should" do anything...

[purpletigron.livejournal.com]

By 'should' I mean, 'in the natural course of things, assuming no other forces are operating' not 'should' as in 'ought to, under compulsion'.

[andrewducker]

Even stuff which isn't first-person from a man's point of view, if the main character is male then the plot/most conversation is going to revolve around them, and most conversation will either involve them or be about them.

I was just reading a review of The Graveyard Book, and while there may be female-female conversation that's not about the main character I certainly can't recall any. Similarly with Coraline, except with the gender roles reversed.

I think the Bechdel test is useful, insofar as it makes people think about gender roles and their portrayal in the media, but I'm not convinced that all action movies (for instance) need to be pushed into passing it.

[purpletigron.livejournal.com]

Just so you know, I'm very under the weather at the moment, so I'm struggling to order my thoughts now ... but ...

I think we are mostly agreeing here.

I see the Bechdel Test as black comedy. As you know, real women talk to one another all the time about every subject. But you wouldn't know that from a statistical analysis of mainstream media.

I am not objecting to media which look at the situations where women in reality rarely interact, or where their interactions are necessarily peripheral to the main story.

Female people will be naturally woven into most real circumstances, and can be naturally part of many or most fictional circumstances too. That might be as 50% or so of the people involved, or c. 10% if you're doing a historically accurate portrayal of women astrophysics students etc. That includes action movies, and without necessarily being forced into a Sarah Connor or a Ripley stereotype (much as I love those characters!) or a screaming victim stereotype.

Most of the limits are in the minds of the authors - women as well as men - rather than in the range of real experience, I think.

[andrewducker]

The thing I find is that most people in action movies are stereotypes. And that people like it that way - they watch action movies for big dumb explosion and stereotypes spouting one-liners. Spending the time to draw detailed characters leaves less screen time for the explosions and one-liners.

Notice, for instance, the praise heaped on the Bourne movies and the Bond relaunch, for having more depth of character, when the characters in them are only even barely 3-dimensional by comparison to other action movies.

I'm certainly fine with there being more female characters in action movies - but I think the chances of you getting away from them being stereotypes, when stereotypes are what those movies are there for.

[purpletigron.livejournal.com]

In that case, no reason not to make half the dumb jock action heroes female?

[andrewducker]

Absolutely. But you wanted to avoid the Ripley/Sarah Connor stereotypes - and that's pretty much what those are.

Well, it's either that or the Lara Croft look.

[purpletigron.livejournal.com]

What I meant was, equality in stereotypes.

If the star role stereotypes are randomly assigned male or female sex, that's equal :-)

[likeneontubing.livejournal.com]

ace thanks :D

[aliiis.livejournal.com]

Cheers for that Andy - it's an interesting new way to think about things. I have to say, in an ideal world I think I'd like a similar test to include (or not need to include) a caveat:
3) About something besides a man
OR SHOPPING

[andrewducker]

But isn't that what women think about most of the time?

[aliiis.livejournal.com]

ಠ_ಠ

[andrewducker]

You can't fool me. I've seen Sex and The City. I know what women are _really_ like.

[ladysisyphus.livejournal.com]

I once had a (male) friend get miffy at me about the Rule, because, as his argument went, if you avoid all media that flunks the Rule, you'll miss out on a whole lot of good stuff -- and if the Test becomes the standard for super-happy feminist approval fun times, it'll mean anything that doesn't pass the Rule will be called sexist.

To which I said, no, even though the comic itself puts the Rule in the mouth of a woman who says she doesn't see any movies that don't match against it, very few people I know suggest that it's a valid filter for what media one should/not consume. Instead, it's more of an awareness tool -- if you want to understand how pervasively male most entertainment in this culture is, consider how hard it is to find something that passes. (TV series are easier than movies, mostly for sheer volume of material.)

...I also saw someone mention the Rule once on 4chan's /co/ board, looking for comics that passed the Rule. Responses were 10% comic suggestions and 90% keyboard mashing about how it's reverse sexism to force all these well-meaning comic authors to conform to uppity female ideas, women just want to whine how they're all so oppressed, is it so wrong for men to read stories about men, you never see them forcing men into chick lit, women don't read comics anyway, back in the kitchen bitch, etc. (Not that I go to 4chan for informed discourse, mind you, but still.)

[andrewducker]

I should hope not :->

And yes, it's clearly an awareness-raiser. Just having people think about _why_ there aren't any women talking to each other makes them think about things they might not otherwise think about, and raises the visibility of the issue.

It does seem traditional for people to go on the extreme defensive whenever issues of sexism or racism are raised. I can look at the issues and say "Huh. That's interesting." and then continue enjoying my silly action movies. But some people seem to take it as a threat - that they're being told "You must change" just because someone pointed it out.

[khbrown.livejournal.com]

Like most media tests I'm aware of, this one seems too dependent on context to really be meaningful except as an aid to thought.