If you’ve spent any time in feminist circles, you may have heard of the Bechdel Test. It’s a simple set of criteria whose application reveals the lack of attention given to women in movies and TV shows. However, there are problems with it – especially when it’s used as a reason to like or dislike drama.
The Bechdel Test originated in a 1985 episode of Alison Bechdel’s Dykes to Watch Out For comic strip called “The Rule.” In the strip, one character tells another that she only watches a movies if:
a.) It has two women in it;
b.) Who talk to each other
c.) About something besides a man
The character adds that the last movie she was able to see was Alien, where “the two women in it talk to each other about the monster.”
As a comment about how much women and their concerns are ignored in popular culture, The Bechdel Test is apt. The three criteria set a very low standard, which makes the fact that so many movies and TV shows can’t meet them a pithy comment on modern drama.
However, as the comment about Alien might be meant to suggest, a movie can pass the Bechdel Test and still not be much concerned with women’s daily lives – let alone qualify as feminist.
The reverse might also be true. A romantic comedy like When Harry Met Sally or The Princess Bride would probably fail the Bechdel Test (I haven’t checked). Yet considering that such movies are all about relationships between the sexes, it seems overly strict to insist that any conversations between two women in them shouldn’t be about a man. What else do people in love talk about except those who attract them? Similarly, unless the setting is modern, can you reasonably expect a war movie to have two women in it?
In practice, too, the Bechdel Test’s third criterion – the subject of the women’s conversation – is not always so easy to apply.
For example, in the half dozen episodes of The Good Wife that I have watched so far, the lead character and the investigator at the law firm she works at regularly talk about their cases, which would seem at first to means that the series passes the test.
Yet in several of those talks, the investigator refers to the sex scandal that sent the lead character’s husband to jail in the first three minutes of the pilot episode. Are those references enough to make the series or a particular episode fail? Moreover, if you argue that overall tendency is what matters, then everything in the series is framed by the title, which implies that every second of every show is about the lead character’s relationship with her husband.
Still another limitation of the Bechdel Test is that it mostly ignores context. A frequent modification of the Test is that the women characters should be named, but that is only one small part of the problem. What is the bias in the actual words? Is the conversation filmed for the male gaze? Even more importantly, is the conversation central to the main plot? The ways that the women’s conversation can be trivialized are almost endless. Yet the Bechdel Test takes nothing into account except checking off three highly generalized points.
I understand and sympathize with the point the Bechdel Test tries to make. But even by its own concerns, it is lacking. Besides, in the end, the idea of checking off criteria to make a judgment on a piece of art leaves me cold – and, the more I think of what is happening, the more appalled I become. The Bechdel Test simply doesn’t deserve the attention it’s been given by feminists. But, to be fair, perhaps it was never meant to.
Off the Wall 
“Besides, in the end, the idea of checking off criteria to make a judgment on a piece of art leaves me cold.”
Has anyone claimed that a particular film or piece of art should be judged on whether it passes the Bechdel test or not? Have you seen feminists calling for a boycott of un-bechdely films?
Two of my favorite films from last year, “Beginners” and “Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy,” were primarily about men and their stories or relationships with other men. I would hate to think that someone might add a scene to either of these films simply to pass the Bechdel Test.
And yet, when I consider the many movies I’ve watched over the past year in aggregate, a vague uneasiness sets in: where am I in these films? Where are my daughters, nieces, Mom, or female friends? Why do so few of them feature females and their stories, or even depict females at all? Sure, the Bechdel test is not perfectly accurate. But, so what? It doesn’t have to be. It’s main purpose isn’t to be scientific, or to make certain that x number of films portray x number of females in a certain way, but to make the viewer of media more conscious of not just the art, but of the factors that allow art to be made in the first place.
For me, the Bechdel Test helps me think more critically about media and media representation. It also helps me better decide how I spend my hard-earned money. Do I support yet one more action-packed/CGI-enhanced franchise depicting the story of young/middle-aged white males overcoming their foes? Yawn. Do I promote gratuitous representations of naked or scantily-clad young women in media? Yawn. Or, do I spend more money and time searching out media that explores the stories and concerns of girls and women?
Please don’t think that I’m boycotting male-centric films: I’m not. But, the Bechdel test has helped make me a more discriminating viewer when it comes to films featuring male protagonists, and more supportive of films made by and about women.
Do a search on “Bechdel Test” and you should have no trouble finding people judging movies solely on whether they pass or fail the test. There are even web sites that list whether a movie passes. So, although I don’t know of anyone calling for a boycott of a movie because it doesn’t pass the test, people are definitely judging movies by it. You say yourself that you do so.
My point is that it isn’t a very reliable set of criteria for judging. It works best on very obvious cases to make a general point about the state of movies. In more nuanced cases, I’d hesitate to rely on it.
First of all, please try to imagine a world wherein the genders in the Bechdel test were switched. Would YOU feel adequately represented/respected?
I think the test is supposed to be staggering in its simplicity (or “limits,” as you put it): it’s so simple and elementary that it’s hard to imagine any piece of media could fail it. When you see how often most media fails this simple, tiny test, it makes you wonder how far gender equality has actually come.
You said:
“A romantic comedy like When Harry Met Sally or The Princess Bride would probably fail the Bechdel Test (I haven’t checked). Yet considering that such movies are all about relationships between the sexes, it seems overly strict to insist that any conversations between two women in them shouldn’t be about a man. What else do people in love talk about except those who attract them?”
When Harry Met Sally does not pass the Bechdel test (as a quick Google search confirms), but it barely passes the “reverse-Bechdel test” (two men talking about something besides a woman) so I think we can call that one even.
The Princess Bride also fails the test (again, quickly confirmed by a quick search – did you even think to try?), but there are several memorable conversations between men that are about many other things besides women.
“What else do people in love talk about except those who attract them?” Apparently, they talk about strategy, pain, loyalty, revenge, fairness, kissing, marriage, miracles, etc. – but only if they’re men.
(You could argue that, ultimately, it was all about Princess Buttercup, since Westley is trying to save her, but I think that really just reinforces her objectification instead of her personhood.)
The Bechdel test is not about whether a piece of media is good or bad, just whether it represents women as real, full, actual people. As such, since women make up over 50% of our human population, and are equal consumers of media, doesn’t it seem strange that more than half of the available media cannot pass this simple test?
Spare me your rhetorical questions. I understand exactly what the point of the Bechdel Test is. I even suggest that it makes a valid point.
If you re-read carefully, you will see that What I am talking about not so much the test itself, but how it is used. As you say, the Bechdel Test is not about deciding whether a piece of media is good or bad, yet people often use it precisely in that way. That seems to be far more than the test was ever meant to do, and vastly over-simplifies.
As for whether “When Harry Met Sally” or “The Princess Bride” pass the test, no, I didn’t bother checking, mainly because:
a.) The specific examples don’t matter as much as the point I was making.
b.) I was reasonably certain that they wouldn’t.
c.) Before making a definitive statement, I would want to watch both movies and decide for myself, rather than depending on someone else’s opinion.Under the circumstances, I was not about to spend four or more hours confirming what seemed almost certain.
As for what people in love talk about in “The Princess Bride”: Yes, they do talk about “strategy, pain, loyalty, revenge, fairness, kissing, marriage, miracles, etc.” — but a good deal of the talk of such matters is in the context of love and related matters, so I don’t feel the need to qualify my statement.
Just for future reference, the screenplays for these two movies, as well as many others, are available online.
I am a minority voice here, but I think you’ve got some pretty good points. The idea of requiring a film to live up to these standards is just depressing. What about women who have no trouble at all identifying with well-rounded male characters? Actually, well-rounded characters of either sex in today’s movies are very hard to find. But the point is, if gender is irrelevant, they why are women only supposed to identify with women?
Anyway, I can think of plenty of movies that fail the reverse Bechdel: “Stella Dallas”, “Easy A”, “Valley Girl”, “Away From Her”, “Waiting to Exhale”, “Terms of Endearment”, “Queen Christina”, “The Divorcee”, “My Girl”.
Do you want to know the truth? I think that 65% of all movie dialogue is between two members of the opposite sex. And what’s wrong with that?