[Feminism]Have you guys ever heard of the Bechdel Test for film and TV?

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Charlie Don't Surf

Charlie Don't Surf

I'll let wikipedia describe it. There is a terrible article on TVTropes too, if that's your bag.

Bechdel credits her friend Liz Wallace for the test, which appears in a 1985 strip entitled "The Rule", in which a character says that she only watches a movie if it satisfies the following requirements:
It has to have at least two women in it,
Who talk to each other,
About something besides a man.[5][6]
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There's also a variant on it for minorities/people-of-color that is:

at least two POC
who talk to each other
about something other than a white person

I'd heard about this a while before, but lately I've been thinking about it more. It's really kind of sad how many movies don't pass either of these. I'm not going to call the test some hard-line rule. There are lots of movies that pass the test, and are horribly misogynistic. There are lots of movies that fail the test and still promote healthy portrayals of women and all that good stuff. But it's just something to think about. Still almost every 'main character' is male. Most female characters are only defined by their romance with the main character. Most females still only seem to exist and talk about their love for the main character. As you probably know, I really love movies and TV, so stuff like this kind of upsets me. And I wish it were better! Another thing that kind of spurned this was me feeling good about the movie Salt coming out. I read somewhere that this was originally a script and movie completely set up for a man, for Tom Cruise, Brad Pitt, Johnny McActionStar. But it stars Angelina Jolie. Without massive changes. She's playing a straight up, bad-ass movie star super-spy. It's a welcome thing to see. Her sex didn't matter in it at all, as far as I can tell.

So, yeah, it's just something I'd been thinking about and I wonder what you think of, in general, about the state of affairs for racial minorities/women in movies and TV right now?
 
AshburnerX

AshburnerX

All you need to know about why this rule exists: Most Writers Are Male. In short, men write women as talking about men when they are alone because men talk about women sometimes and because it's likely the writer has never been in a position to KNOW what kinds of things women talk about personally. This is not sexist in and of itself, but rather indicative of a small pool of reference to pull from.
 
I

Iaculus

Yep, I've heard of it, but then again, I'm a TV Tropes regular. Incidentally, what's your gripe with the article? I might be able to give it some tweaking.

Personally, I wouldn't call it sexist so much as an indicator of sexism, only really raising alarm bells when a significant amount of a writer or genre's output fails to pass the test, or when there is no real reason for it not to be passed. It's logical, for instance, that a film like Das Boot wouldn't pas the Test, but if you've got a wide-ranging, diverse cast in a non-gender-segregated setting and you still fail to pass... that's when you might have a problem.
 
D

Dubyamn

Yeah nearly every show that I'm a fan of fails.

Pysch: Juliet is the only member of the real cast and she never really has a conversation with the chief.

White Collar: They always have 1 female agent but she never really talks to anybody but the main characters who are dudes.

Futurama: Leela and Amy only really talk when Leela is having man troubles.

South Park: Can't remember any time when the girls were the main focus or where they really talked to each other.

Course in all of these I can say that the female members of the cast are the least interesting characters so I guess you never really notice it.

Can't say it really effects my enjoyment of the shows but it is interesting.
 
Charlie Don't Surf

Charlie Don't Surf

Espy;417455][QUOTE=The Lovely Boner;417452][QUOTE=AshburnerX said:
This is not sexist in and of itself,
Click to expand...
Why do you assume this? [/QUOTE]

Why do you assume it is?[/QUOTE]

Because even female directors at the highest level (say, Kathryn Bigelow) still aren't taken seriously by a lot of people. There are a disproportionate number of male screenwriters to female screenwriters, and I just refuse to believe guys are inherently that much better at moviemaking.
 
Espy

Espy

I haven't heard of it, and reading over their list and it's really interesting. I'll be sure to notice this more and more and be mildly annoyed now by it :\
 
I

Iaculus

The Lovely Boner;417461][QUOTE=Espy;417455][QUOTE=The Lovely Boner;417452][QUOTE=AshburnerX said:
This is not sexist in and of itself,
Click to expand...
Why do you assume this? [/QUOTE]

Why do you assume it is?[/QUOTE]

Because even female directors at the highest level (say, Kathryn Bigelow) still aren't taken seriously by a lot of people. There are a disproportionate number of male screenwriters to female screenwriters, and I just refuse to believe guys are inherently that much better at moviemaking.[/QUOTE]

I think Ash was saying that the choice of male writers not to focus on female characters was not sexist in and of itself. Which is a whole 'nother kettle of fish.
 
D

Dubyamn

The Lovely Boner;417463][QUOTE=Dubyamn said:
Course in all of these I can say that the female members of the cast are the least interesting characters
.
Click to expand...
Why do you think this is?[/QUOTE]

Well in most of the cases I listed the female is usually the straight character who are there to point out the silliness of the main characters who are all larger than life.

As to why that is well for the most part I've always kinda figured it's because that is the way it has always been besides a few stand outs because writers try to emulate past successes while network executives get scared when things go outside the usual status quo.
 
AshburnerX

AshburnerX

Iaculus said:
I think Ash was saying that the choice of male writers not to focus on female characters was not sexist in and of itself. Which is a whole 'nother kettle of fish.
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Basically this. Women don't get a lot of development in many works by male writers because the writer simply doesn't understand women well enough to know about the things they'd talk about when guys aren't around. The tendency for female characters to talk about male characters is simply a matter of the writer wanting them to talk about something he understands better himself: the characters that HE identifies with.

However, this isn't to say that it CAN'T be a sexist portrayal, because it can be. I'm simply saying the act of doing this isn't sexist, even if the content could be.

Dubyamn said:
Well in most of the cases I listed the female is usually the straight character who are there to point out the silliness of the main characters who are all larger than life.
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This is generally true because it's become nigh verboten to portray women in anything other than a positive light (which, oddly enough, this very thread proves). The feminist image does not allow for women to be flawed and since women watch sitcoms in much higher numbers then men...
 
Charlie Don't Surf

Charlie Don't Surf

So you're saying it's a fault of women because they are just so WEIRD and DIFFERENT and boys JUST DONT UNDERSTAND THEM, and that's why there are no representations of them in popular media?
 
P

Philosopher B.

Personally, I think a problem with some male writers is that they subconsciously think of their female characters as 'female' characters, and their male characters as just plain 'characters', hence they either get nervous and just turn out a boring female character (or female 'straight man') who may or may not be stereotypically girly, or they charge too far in the opposite direction with some kind of 'Amazonian' who ultimately has to be saved by a dude or dudes, thinking that that constitutes a 'good' and 'unique' take on a female character. People need to stop worrying sometimes and just craft a character you can give a shit about, whether it's a man, woman, or gay blind dwarf. Yeah, your gender helps shape your outlook/personality, but plenty of women writers get away with writing men just fine.

As for amount of female characters, well, if you're not comfortable writing about women to begin with, you're not going to overpopulate your work with them.
 
Hailey Knight

Hailey Knight

The Lovely Boner said:
So you're saying it's a fault of women because they are just so WEIRD and DIFFERENT and boys JUST DONT UNDERSTAND THEM, and that's why there are no representations of them in popular media?
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There are no representations of women in popular media? If I turn on a TV, I won't see any women?






...Well actually I won't, because we don't have cable. I'll just see static.
 
Charlie Don't Surf

Charlie Don't Surf

Yeah, I realized that right after I posted it that the only known screenwriters are known to nerds anywyas.

---------- Post added at 09:44 PM ---------- Previous post was at 09:43 PM ----------

The edit button is broken for me for some reason, forgive the typo
 
R

Raemon777

Sexism (and racism) doesn't mean people deliberately set out to screw over women and black people. When the entire system creates and perpetuates both discrimination in hiring AND character portrayal, the fact that nobody specifically intended to do so is little consolation.

Also, while it's a racism thing rather than a sexism thing, Hollywood executives actively argued that Will Smith couldn't be the lead in "Hitch" without a white co-star because they didn't think white people would go to see a romantic comedy starring non-white people. That was only a few years ago. So the entire notion of "this just sorta happens, they aren't doing it intentionally" isn't even necessarily true.

I learned about the Bechdel Test during my Terminator craze a year ago, which was a particularly interesting area to think about it. Terminator 2 only really has 1 female character (not counting Mrs. Dyson) but she's a very strong lead who is attractive in a fit, muscular way. Terminator 3... pretty much fails. The Terminator show has a LOT of strong female characters... but almost all of them are robots and spend 90% of their time talking about John. (Regardless I give it a pass, since it's a really good show and everyone is really well developed).

Terminator Salvation had one woman whose job was to sit home and be pregnant while John went out and did stuff, and another whose job was to pine over Marcus Wright. And then there's this one scene where suddenly they were face to face and I am a bit embarrassed to say that my immediate thought was "sweet! This film's about to pass the Bechdel test!" but then all they talked about was boys.

Avatar: The Last Airbender passes this test in spades.
 
Norris

Norris

The Lovely Boner said:
So you're saying it's a fault of women because they are just so WEIRD and DIFFERENT and boys JUST DONT UNDERSTAND THEM, and that's why there are no representations of them in popular media?
Click to expand...
I'm sort of impressed at how far you were able to take a relatively simple point and distort it until the original point maker would likely not recognize it as his. Men do not know what women talk about when they are not around...because they are not around. Men do not know exactly how women think anymore than women know exactly how men think. Our brains are, in fact, wired a little differently (neither being the right way, just like neither genital type is the "right" one). Adding in that accusations of sexism can occur if you write a female character as more flawed than a male character (and not vice versa) AND that most screenwriters are male, you get the sad state you have today. I'm not saying it is OK. I'm that that it just IS.
 
sixpackshaker

sixpackshaker

Kill Bill passes the test. They do talk about Bill from time to time, but they mostly talk about cutting each other up...

I don't know how feminists feel about that film, since it is still a bit exploitative.
 
bhamv3

bhamv3

I've never heard of this test before, and now that I think about it, it's true, very few of the movies I can think of pass this test.

Although I've never really had cause to pay attention to the sex of the character before, unless it's important to the plot. Otherwise they're just characters to me.
 
AshburnerX

AshburnerX

sixpackshaker said:
Kill Bill passes the test. They do talk about Bill from time to time, but they mostly talk about cutting each other up...

I don't know how feminists feel about that film, since it is still a bit exploitative.
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True, but is it exploitative because most of the assassins are women or because they are ATTRACTIVE women? It's pretty clear that Bill himself is somewhat misogynistic, so it makes sense that he'd only surround himself with beautiful women.
 
sixpackshaker

sixpackshaker

AshburnerX;417573][QUOTE=sixpackshaker said:
Kill Bill passes the test. They do talk about Bill from time to time, but they mostly talk about cutting each other up...

I don't know how feminists feel about that film, since it is still a bit exploitative.
Click to expand...
True, but is it exploitative because most of the assassins are women or because they are ATTRACTIVE women? It's pretty clear that Bill himself is somewhat misogynistic, so it makes sense that he'd only surround himself with beautiful women.[/QUOTE]

It is not just that they are attractive, but the fetish costuming, especially on Daryl Hannah and the School Girl.
 
Silver Jelly

Silver Jelly

I had trouble finding a scene in a movie for a class practice. I had two actresses and an actor, and they all needed to talk between them and have a more or less equal time "on screen".

I faked my way out, changing a scene from Little Miss Sunshine.
 
MindDetective

MindDetective

The Lovely Boner said:
Fun fact: can you name one female screenwriter that is not a former stripper?
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Was Tina Fey a stripper?

Speaking of Fey, my wife and I have been watching 30 Rock lately. Let me start by saying we both love it more and more as we watch. Nevertheless, the writing for the show does have a different feel to it (at least to me) that is a bit more feminine. I don't say it as a criticism, of course, just that in writing for the main character they need to have an understanding of women in society and the workplace. 30 Rock does this successfully, I think, which is why there is a slightly different vibe to it than you see with How I Met Your Mother (for which there has been at least one female writer, the wife of Sheldon artist, Dave Kellett) or Big Bang Theory. I think this lends some credence to Ash's point that a man writing convincing dialogue for women roles is hard, just like a suburban kid writing lines for a character from the ghetto would be hard. There is no point of reference except broad strokes they've heard or seen themselves. Thus, I would hope that men are not trying to write about things they do not know, since that will simply lead to boring and cliched writing. A good writer would obviously do more research to try and write appropriately.

All that said, I don't think there is a true Injustice(tm) here. Yes, more men are writers than women. That's clearly changing, but I don't think it is really the root of the problem. The problem is the people that greenlight the project. And those are most assuredly a much higher concentration of men than women. Obviously the people spending the money to have the movie made are going to be influenced by their own interests. You can do all the market research in the world to see what your audience wants but if you're going to spend 100 million dollars on a project, you aren't going to do it unless you like the script yourself. So since the money tends to be filtered through men, the ideas will tend to be filtered through men as well. Throw in all the men in leading film making positions, such as directing and editing and you've got a built in masculine filter on the industry.

Yet I wouldn't say it is intentional and it may be in part do to differences in biology. It isn't that women CAN'T write, produce, direct, and edit films (among the many other jobs they've been able to do) it is that women's biology inherently biases the entire gender towards different choices. Whereas men strive to impress women so they can briefly capture a chance to pass their genes along, women are fundamentally charged with maintaining that offspring, at the very least for the 9 months of the pregnancy and in most cases for many years beyond that. It isn't that men don't play very important roles along the way, they do, but that the biological cost to women is fundamentally different than for men. And that is freeing for a man in many ways. To me this implies that women will always have a place in movies (or politics or business or...) if they choose it. But their absence alone does not imply an institutional oppression of women. You would have to show that artists (and producers) of equivalent quality are being treated differently. Good women writers should be submitting just as many scripts as men and are rejected. Good women directors must be passed over disproportionately more than men, etc. And that is a much more difficult case to make than noticing an absence of good female parts.
 
I

Iaculus

Now I'm starting to wonder just how many ex-stripper screenwriters are out there...
 
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