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

[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 :-)