How Many of Your Favourite Films Pass "the Bechdel Test"?

[OtherSideofSky]

Any positive enforcement of women has already been shown (even in this thread where no motive was given other than asking a simple question about which films people like pass, what most would count as the bare minimum, a test of participation for female characters in a film) to get a massive negative response from the male (dominant) population. As I said this isn't only a problem in films, this is a deep flaw in society.

Leaving the grand and largely baseless theorizing aside, might I suggest that this "positive reinforcement" gets such a negative response because the people doing it are unbearably inept? Social Justice types have completely forgotten how to market their causes. There are so many little ways to get people interested and participating, but these days most of the people trying to "help" would rather throw long-winded rants in people's faces. One gets more people with honey than with vinegar, and it might be worth a bit of time to figure out what people find off-putting about one's rhetoric and change it, rather than getting angry all over again about their reactions.

My suggestion on solving the problem of the small number of female directors working today would be to find films by female directors with the potential to appeal to something beyond the film school crowd that already cares about these issues and get them out there where people can see them. "Punisher: Warzone" might not be a classic work of art, but it's a damn good action movie and it can win you a lot of converts you would never reach otherwise if you swing it the right way (it also has a pretty good commentary track from the director and her DP, which doesn't hurt). Making someone a fan of an actual female director, especially a vocal fan, will give you more practical results than getting ten people interested in the idea of one.

 

[MetalMagpie]

This is precisely about science. Social science, but science nonetheless.

*crushes urge to make a joke at the expense of social "science"*

(Sorry. I did engineering at university. Old habits die hard.)

I'm getting the strong impression you're far better read on this area than me, so I'll just abandon conversation here if you don't mind.

 

[JLML]

I don't have time to look up and list, but I know that quite a lot of my favourites actually do. Like, a majority of them.

In fact, the few that don't are either extremely focussed on one single person (like Amelie (given, that one does pass the test, but it's a perfect, well-known example)) and/or don't really have any women in it (like Shawshank Redemption).

A few examples that pass:
Spirited Away
Amelie
Serenity
Watchmen
Aliens

So yea, a lot of my favourites pass.

 

[MetalMagpie]

Porco Rosso: Pass, though offscreen.

Awesome idea. Although I'm going to be picky here and say that offscreen doesn't count.

Good show by Studio Ghibli!

 

[everythingbeeps]

Eh...I'm sure most of my favorites don't. But not because they're particularly masculine. Hell, half of my faves are probably straight up romances.

 

[Blunderboy]

i thought what matter was if the movie was GOOD, clearly i've missed yet another memo about 'shit your now supposed to care about'

It's not really something that matters at all when it comes to my enjoyment of a film. Some will pass some won't. It's a moot point.

Of course not sirs. I love those ten films so much, just looking at the list gives me joy. No one said it was about enjoyment at all, and I used the word favourite to prove its irrelevance. It?s not the point. It?s about something else. What're your favourite films?

To me there are many more important things to a character than what genitals he or she happens to be packing.

Yes. But this is about film and representation, and it?s something I find interesting.

I get that but surely the fact that women are incredibly under represented in any media is hardly news to anyone?

 

[Lunar Templar]

i thought what matter was if the movie was GOOD, clearly i've missed yet another memo about 'shit your now supposed to care about'

Of course not sirs. I love those ten films so much, just looking at the list gives me joy. No one said it was about enjoyment at all, and I used the word favorite to prove its irrelevance. It?s not the point. It?s about something else. What're your favorite films?

i listed to of em in my post, but for the sake of >.> something my brain can't process at this hour, i shall repeat, with extras!

Snatch
Payback
Master and Commander
SWAT
The Italian Job
16 Blocks
Basic
Frequency
Fallen
The Green Mile

and of all those, i think only Basic passes cause the two ladys do talk, at the end, and exchange one line

 

[Frybird]

I recently saw Iron Sky, wich certainly passes the Test but still felt incredibly sexist to me (they are playing with/making fun of sexism at one point, but further in the movie starts to get really uncomfortable without any kind of acknowledging wink...so yeah).

I think the Test is an somewhat amusing thought experiment, but it doesn't really measure anything.

But then again, it has a female lead, and as far as I recall, the female characters were written more as an actual characters than 'females'.

Funny thing about the Iron Sky BTW, I have read/heard several people refer to the black astronaut guy as the 'main character', when he clearly is not. In fact, he is pretty much playing the part usually reserved for women in movies: he doesn't have much of an arc, and is really there just to be the love interest for the female lead.

The test does reveal how marginalised women are in movies, though. Even if there is a woman, and there usually is, she is just there for the male characters, even when the movie isn't just aimed for men.

Renate Richter is sorta kinda the lead, although not exclusively.

And while she is not entirely dependent on male characters, she still latches needily onto them, has no major scene (outside of exposition) without a male character and only seems to develop by acknowledging how one main character is evil and the other being in the right.

Spoiler: Light Spoiler concerning the ending

She does end up saving the day (or...not, it's up to interpretation) TOGETHER with the Astronaut, but on her part she can only overpower the main villian by tricking him by playing to his sexist views...wich is valid, but only barely so and still ends up cringeworthy because her plan depends on endless stupidity of her male opponent and wouldn't work in any other situation...while the Astronaut wins in a more traditional "brawy" way.

And the other female characters are SO. MUCH. WORSE.

The President of the United States (who is not named, but clearly portrayed as Sarah Palin) is shown as a powerful and willstrong Woman, but both of these traits only serve to illustrate her own idiocy and how the U.S. politics only consists of hypocritical bullying.

The other big female supporting character is equally powerful, willstrong and even portrayed as smart, but her contribution to the plot, again, is entirely dependent on the shifting attraction and general relationship to the main villian, going so far that she

Spoiler

a) Gives herself completely to the main villian while she is attracted to him, losing a lot of intelligence in the process
b) Ends up helping to save the day, but in the end clearly states that she only does so because she is heartbroken and felt deeply betrayed by the main villian.

I am not even a feminist or something, but the way Iron Sky parodied sexism while sneaking in a lot of questionable subtext at it's core felt rather unsettling to me.

 

[OtherSideofSky]

This is precisely about science. Social science, but science nonetheless.

*crushes urge to make a joke at the expense of social "science"*

(Sorry. I did engineering at university. Old habits die hard.)

I'm getting the strong impression you're far better read on this area than me, so I'll just abandon conversation here if you don't mind.

Social science certainly gives people a lot of reasons to make fun of it. I'm especially critical of social science which fails to be scientific because of that. Sorry if I came off as being too harsh.

 

[TWEWYFan]

Off the top of my head, I can only think of two. Aliens has already been mentioned and I believe Howl's Moving Castle also passes.

 

[darkfox85]

urely the fact that women are incredibly under represented in any media is hardly news to anyone?

What possible conclusions can be draw from that? (The former part, rather than the latter.)

i listed to of em in my post

Sorry. Maybe I forgot or was asking the other poster? I can?t remember. Also, damn decent list. But I hope you mean the original Italian Job!

"Test" implies there would be some sort of merit in passing or something missing in failure, so who gives a shit?

No it doesn?t. A test often merely determines something. I?m wondering what this test determines in its wider results.

Passing this test doesn't necessarily mean a film has a realistic female character, and not passing this test doesn't mean it doesn't.

We know. This test isn?t about that. It?s about film and representation. What're your favourite films?

That's just not true. It means only 10% of movies have two named female characters who interact with each other and don't talk about men.

What if we reversed the genders in the test? How many films would pass the test of representation then?

 

[DJ_DEnM]

I do believe Scott Pilgrim passes. I can't remember EVERY line of dialogue between Ramona and Kim...But I know the comics definitely pass.

 

[Lunar Templar]

Sorry. Maybe I forgot or was asking the other poster? I can?t remember. Also, damn decent list. But I hope you mean the original Italian Job!

nah, its the newer one, not seen the original though i probably should since i liked the remake

 

[Veylon]

The Bechdel Test (and it's reverse) isn't intended to prove anything one way or the other. It provides a point of data that can be used as evidence elsewhere, but it is insufficient on it's own.

What is illustrates is a larger issue, that half the human race is relegated to only talking about the other half amongst each other (if they get lines at all) in most of the film world. At the very least, that's incredibly bizarre and bears a more sophisticated investigation.

 

[Fenra]

snip

Silent Hill was a good film indeed! I?m glad I?m not the only freak who enjoys it. Good pacing and hands down the best VG adaptation (although that doesn?t say much.)

High five for liking Silent Hill too! I think thats why I liked it so much, well paced, well acted and did a lot of the "game" stuff well, mostly thought it just felt like Silent Hill, like the unnerving air raid sirens just before switches to the otherworld for example, that was a very "Silent Hill" choice as audio plays a big role in the series

Not to mention what game tie-ins they did make weren't completely shoved in your face like some game-to-movie adaptations do in that whole, hollow "look its that thing from that game you love, LOOK AT IT!" way

An interesting test that did make me realise how women are lesser represented in most of my favorite films but I'm not entierly sure of its usefulness, I mean Ellie from Jurassic Park is hardly the damsel in distress, misrepresented stereotype, same could be said about most of the female characters in my movie collection, not just the ones up there. Seems a very broad, too broad and vague, test when it comes to this sort of thing

The reason the test is interesting is that - if it can be shown that a high proportion of films in a particular category fail the test - it suggests that film-makers might not view women as worth including in films in situations that do not relate to men. The theory goes that men only "engage" with scenes/stories that in some way involve men.

In a scene where a woman talks to a man or in a scene where two women talk about a man, there is always a man involved that the (presumed male-dominated) audience will be interested in. If two women talk to each other about something other than a man, then there isn't a male point-of-interest for the audience.

The test does not touch on how women are represented. Just whether or not the above theory is true (or thought to be true by film-makers).

Ah that actualy makes a lot more sense now, thank you for shining some light on it for me, and makes it all the more interesting for it

 

[Pifflestick]

1) To pass, the film must have more than two female characters that have names (Okay, having them be named is kinda important, though even then you could POSSIBLY make a film where names are never mentions, but that's beside the point. You need to have TWO females. Um, why? Can we not have ONE female that's a realistic and positive character? Is a female discussing Plato with a male worth so much less than her having the same conversation with a female?)

2) These two female characters must talk to each other (Even if we ignore my first problem of WHY do we need two females, we still have why do they need to talk to each other? A story can be told about two sets of people who never meet personally but affect each other's lives, is the story somehow less feminist because the women never met?)

3) They must talk to each other about something other than a man/men (So two women discussing (Oh, so two women CAN'T discuss Plato, because that's discussing MEN! So the works of men are totally off-limits because MEN did them, and of course MEN are never allowed to be discussed by good female characters. Well, there goes most of history, science, philosophy, and hell, most of mythology too. I'm not saying its great that history is so centred on men, but sadly it IS, so saying they can't talk about men implies that a LOT of topics are off-limits.)

This "test" doesn't so much show that the director made positive or realistic, as that the director was able to have two ninnies blather about make-up for a minute before cutting back to the men, which is exactly what we should be AVOIDING. Not only that, but amazing works can easily fail this test, and terrible works can easily pass, its not a test on the merits of the storytelling, narrative, characters, or anything important, but whether the writer wrote in "Cut to Character A talking to Character B about her favourite brand of lipstick"

Some of my favourite movies:
Lawrence of Arabia: Fails
Toy Story: Fails
Back to the Future: Fails (I think, its been a while)
Clerks: Fails (I think, again, been a while)
Lord of the Rings Trilogy: Fails

EDIT: Forgot to mention, this isn't to say that there are enough good female characters in movies, just that this test is woefully ill-equipped to do... Anything at all to solve the problem.

 

[SonOfVoorhees]

That test sucks. Only test i need is whether i enjoyed the movie or not. Not because it fulfilled parameters. Its why films that are supposedly awesome i think are passable. Just watch what you enjoy and you will be fine.....fuck what everyone else thinks.

 

[Xerosch]

I don't think Princess Mononoke passes. It's been a long time since I've seen it so I might be forgetting something. But from what I remember in it, there are a lot of women in it who are depicted as strong and capable, but they mostly talk about how useless the men are.

Actually, it might pass! There is one scene in which San and Eboshi taunt each other and fight. And I'm pretty sure Eboshi talks to several women about her strategy and the guys living in the back shed.

For me it's...

99 Francs: I think there isn't even a scene with more than one woman.
Princess Mononoke: see above
Blade Runner: Nah
A life less ordinary: I think so. Cameron Diaz and Holly Hunter share some scenes
Ratatouille: There's only one female character (apart from the granny)

As for series... I'm pretty sure 'Game of Thrones' and 'Walking Dead' pass, though I'm not entirely certain about the new Doctor Who series.

 

[MetalMagpie]

This is precisely about science. Social science, but science nonetheless.

*crushes urge to make a joke at the expense of social "science"*

(Sorry. I did engineering at university. Old habits die hard.)

I'm getting the strong impression you're far better read on this area than me, so I'll just abandon conversation here if you don't mind.

Social science certainly gives people a lot of reasons to make fun of it. I'm especially critical of social science which fails to be scientific because of that. Sorry if I came off as being too harsh.

Are you a Social Sciences student/graduate yourself?

And no worries.

 

[Squilookle]

Porco Rosso: Pass, though offscreen.

Awesome idea. Although I'm going to be picky here and say that offscreen doesn't count.

Good show by Studio Ghibli!

Actually, I just realised- since the film goes out of it's way to introduce just about every woman that works on Porco's plane, literally everything they said to each other bags this one a Pass.