Except for the fact that this test was NEVER meant to be a litmus test for sexism. Never. Not now, not in the past, and not in the future.VodkaKnight said:
It was simply to point out trends. That's it.
Movies Passing the Bechdel Test for Sexism Earned More in 2013
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It was simply to point out trends. That's it.
Um, no.
Lois Lane in Man of Steel should totally NOT have passed this test. Sure, she's kick-ass at first, but after she meets Superman she gets all lovey-dovey for him. I don't mean after getting to know him, I mean just after meeting him. Like in a Disney musical.
Lois Lane in Man of Steel should totally NOT have passed this test. Sure, she's kick-ass at first, but after she meets Superman she gets all lovey-dovey for him. I don't mean after getting to know him, I mean just after meeting him. Like in a Disney musical.
As pointed out over and over again in this thread, the test is about depictions of women in films in general. It's not about determining if an individual film portrays women well or not, and certainly not individual characters.TKretts3 said:
Then what is the image on the article supposed to be? It lists the films that have passed the criteria of the test. Yet, Man of Steel, which is listed as having passed, most certainly does NOT pass, according to the criteria of the test. I could understand if it were women in films in general, but the picture shown rather contradicts that notion.thaluikhain said:
Not having seen the movie, I can't say. However, the character of any individual character before or after she meets the hero has nothing to do with the test.TKretts3 said:
And...the Escapist has rather dubious standards of journalism.
Exactly this.Dragonbums said:
It's annoying how so many people are defending the results and making excuses for the results of this test. It is so ridiculous for your entire gender to be generally portrayed as nothing but "supports" whose only concern in life is a man. This is evidence that most writers in Hollywood (overwhelmingly male) deem females characters as have nothing significant to add to a story when they talk to other females. It doesn't apply in real life, but the creators of media are stuck in these assumptions.
It's a just another symptom of society's vicious cycle of sexism. The more women are represented as less significant/less able/less interesting, etc., the more this stereotype will live on to be fulfilled by future generations of girls, who are influenced from a young age to believe "males are protagonists and females are just extras" and "girls don't (i.e. shouldn't) really think about anything but men".
Yeah, they seem to be very set in their ways, lots of confirmation bias. When a female led action movie fails, it's cause it's female led. Nobody says that about male led ones.rhodo said:
Similarly, movies with PoC. Blade saved the comic book movie, if you recall.
Pacific Rim passes the Bechdel Test.
GlaDOS tells Mako (and Raleigh) that she's venting Gipsy Danger's coolant.
GlaDOS tells Mako (and Raleigh) that she's venting Gipsy Danger's coolant.
I know the escapist does not like short posts so is there a longer way for me to say who cares? The crazy application that people use for the Bechdel test gets me even more than the test itself. Its either "see this is evidence of how sexist our society is" or its "the test does not have anything to do with sexism" depending on who is speaking about it and what criticisms are being applied to the test. Its the perfect cherry picker. At the end of the day I don't really care what kind of representation a movie has. I'm watching a movie to be entertained and that is it.
Que everyone misunderstanding the test and writing
"LOLOL IM SO SMURT PORN PASSES THE VAGINA MONOLOGUES IS SEXIST THE TEST IS DUMB LEL"
Seriously? Seriously? Fucking. Seriously? No. Stop.
Eugh. Some people are so desperate to never have to think about gender in their movies they intentionally (or ignorantly) lie about the test to make it look bad. Or they are too lazy to bother to understand what it is for. Shameful and depressing to read. Credit to the user who is going through explaining it to EVERYONE who has ridiculous misconceptions about the test. It feels like explaining evolution to creationists.
"LOLOL IM SO SMURT PORN PASSES THE VAGINA MONOLOGUES IS SEXIST THE TEST IS DUMB LEL"
Seriously? Seriously? Fucking. Seriously? No. Stop.
Eugh. Some people are so desperate to never have to think about gender in their movies they intentionally (or ignorantly) lie about the test to make it look bad. Or they are too lazy to bother to understand what it is for. Shameful and depressing to read. Credit to the user who is going through explaining it to EVERYONE who has ridiculous misconceptions about the test. It feels like explaining evolution to creationists.
How about we take a few minutes to look at the movies that failed the Benchal Test, all of witch with the exception of 1 or 2 failed not because the female characters where portrayed poorly. They simply failed at either writing a story with engaging characters or simply failed at executing the story.An Ceannaire said:
In almost every case a decent story with interesting and engaging characters will portray both men and women better. An example is that 'Star Trek: Into Darkness' wasn't that good film but it made it on to the fail category because the few women in the film did not talk to each other? As mush as I dislike the film I don't feel that "women were portrayed badly". 'Now You See Me" has a two strong characters but niters of witch are portrayed badly, one IS portrayed vary sexy but she is an entertainer and it is appropriate in this case. Look at 'The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug' none of the female characters where portrayed badly in anyway but it failed because the women in the movie didn't get together to talk about shoes?
In the end the Benchal Test really is a joke from a comic strip from 1985, that some one thought made decent rules for a thumb-nail type litchis test. That in all honesty is just terrible at it what it is suppose to do.
Yeesh, it's astounding just how many people fail to understand what the Bechdel Test is meant to showcase. A single movie passing or failing the Bechdel Test is nothing that interesting. A fail on the Bechdel Test doesn't make your movie sexist nor does a pass make it a good movie. It's not meant to make a statement about how good or bad a movies is. The Bechdel Test is meant to take in a large amount of media at once in order to show a very simple trend, which you can then use to argue sexism in that particular area of entertainment. The fact that a movie fails in having a couple of girls that interact isn't that interesting. The fact that a large majority of movies fail to have girls interacting with each other is very interesting.
I mean just think if it were a reverse Bechdel test. I challenge someone to show me 10 movies within the past decade that fail at a Reverse Bechdel Test, having a movie that doesn't have at least 2 guys interacting with each other. You're going to have to dig pretty deep to bring me a list like that.
Bechdel Test just shows us one simple thing, women are for the most part not portrayed in media, and when the character usually hinges on a male character in some way. A handful of movies having this trend is not sexist, nor is it interesting. The majority of movies having this trend is very strange and quite interesting.
I mean just think if it were a reverse Bechdel test. I challenge someone to show me 10 movies within the past decade that fail at a Reverse Bechdel Test, having a movie that doesn't have at least 2 guys interacting with each other. You're going to have to dig pretty deep to bring me a list like that.
Bechdel Test just shows us one simple thing, women are for the most part not portrayed in media, and when the character usually hinges on a male character in some way. A handful of movies having this trend is not sexist, nor is it interesting. The majority of movies having this trend is very strange and quite interesting.
It's an interesting thing. It's not the gold standard for whether or not your movie is sexist, or some horrible harbinger of all your favourite movies being axed because they don't pass, it's just something to note, and the relevance and meaning of the test is different for different movies. In something like Gravity, the Bechdel test is more or less irrelevant, due to the constraints of the movie. But if you have, say, a movie where female characters speak to each other on multiple occasions that still fails the test, that might well be an indicator of bad writing.
In summary, the test is all well and good, but it needs context for us to understand exactly how relevant and important it is for a particular movie. It also serves a useful purpose by disproving the concept that movies about women or wherein women talk about something other than romance are destined to fail, which is still an influential concept even now.
In summary, the test is all well and good, but it needs context for us to understand exactly how relevant and important it is for a particular movie. It also serves a useful purpose by disproving the concept that movies about women or wherein women talk about something other than romance are destined to fail, which is still an influential concept even now.
The story is a good example how results are manipulated to support propagada messages. The number of movies having passed the Bechdel test is 24, the number of those who didn't is 23. Nevertheless we are told, that the list is a list of the "Top 50 Movies of 2013". The reason for that disparity is that one movie (Gravity) was not included for unknown reasons and 2 movies (Jackass Presents: Bad Grandpa, The Best Man Holiday) were not "Bechdeld" at all. If someone creates a list of criteria for assinging group members (Top 50 movies) to sub groups (Bechdel yes/Bechdel no) and the result is only "yes" or "no", there is no "in between", there is no room to exclude one member of the group (Gravity) in which the selection takes place (Top 50) from assignment to one group or another. Either the "Gravity" movie fulfills the Bechdel criteria or it doesn't. The same way all other movies could be discussed to be included in or excluded from the calculations of the received revenue. Presently the result is that from the list of the top 50 movies of 2013 24 passed the test, 23 didn't and in 3 movies it is undecided. Those 24 movies which had passed the test made more cash than the 23 others, which is easily understandable when two groups of uneven size are compared.