The Bechdel Test
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Thats not what i do at all.Casual Shinji said:
Art explores a theme or a point or a thought. It takes an idea and shows you something related to it to make you think about it differently or in an interesting way. It can be joy from explosions. It can psychologically freak you out. It can make you think. It can make you cry. It can make you think about death or life or love.
The point of the bechdel test, in my eyes is to say "The great thing about art is that you can explore ANYTHING from ANY perspective under ANY circumstance to take a new experience from it... look how much we are missing by almost totally excluding a meaningful perspective from 50% of our population". I want to explore the meaning of violence from the perspective of grizzled men. I want to explore the meaning of isolation, love and power from the perspective of men and as suck ill enjoy many movies that fail the test. But the fact that as of now you just CANT go and enjoy a piece of art to explore any of this from the perspective of, or even the passing commentary of, a woman is silly.
Its not about changing movies to insert female characters. Its about making NEW movies as WELL as the old ones that explore a wider perspective with a little more variation. Its not even niche. Its such a glaringly HUGE amount of ground thats so obvious and in your face its incredibly odd so few people are using it to make good art.
I always use the reverse bechdel in my observations (same rules with men):
How many pass the bechdel in the last year?
How many pass the reverse bechdel in the last year?
Does the art benefit from cutting off that way of exploring ideas? Why is one so heavily favored? Is it objectively better as art?
See when people imagine a world with the bechdel tests "goal" in mind they imagine every movie with the same "PC" cast over and over when in fact thats what its trying to avoid entirely. The real goal is to diversity the cast BETWEEN movies. Its fine to have a movies where its all men with guns in a secret mission. But at the same time why avoid a movie where its all women doing gunship pilot tours in Afghanistan? Rather than have 100 of the former and 0 of the latter why not have a larger mix of movie themes. Its ok for an individual piece of art to explore one theme from one perspective because thats what most art does and thats fine. Would you look at a nice picture of an ocean? Sure why not. Would you go to an art gallery where its 4 hours of viewing different pictures of the same ocean from the same angle at the same time of day with like 1 or 2 pictures of mountains and fields maybe? No. Are pictures of the ocean inherently bad? Do we need to make sure each one includes a mountain? Of course not. But that gallery is going to be boring and repetitive if it does nothing else.
Thats what the bechdel test is for. Judging the GALLERY. Not the paintings. A shitty gallery can be full of good paintings. If they are all pretty much identical its a shitty gallery despite the quality of each painting being high.
The problem I have with it is that it subconsciously makes a creator think "What should I create that also includes women?" instead of "What should I create?" Stories should never be made by way of a checklist.BiscuitTrouser said:
Now I'm not going to say there isn't a problem with the portrayel of women in many movies and games, but one thing I dislike even more is some set of unwritten rules to reign it in. Because a lot of all the shallow portrayels of women in games and movies is due to a checklist. "Gotta have boobs for all them males out there."
Make something free from what society deems appropriate, whether this includes men, women, or donkeys.
And the Bechdel test is there for pointing out what society deems appropriate.Casual Shinji said:
on movie that passed the test recently is zombieland, which I think is pretty funny.
I don't know what to feel about the test in general. Main reason being that even if the main character is a woman, and a strong deep and diverse one. But the other main character is male, would that movie really become better by implementation of a 5 minute conversation with random coworker #2.
And most movies are in a large part about relationships anyway. Really in the majority of movies, how many conversations not about some kind of love interest are there, at all?
I don't know what to feel about the test in general. Main reason being that even if the main character is a woman, and a strong deep and diverse one. But the other main character is male, would that movie really become better by implementation of a 5 minute conversation with random coworker #2.
And most movies are in a large part about relationships anyway. Really in the majority of movies, how many conversations not about some kind of love interest are there, at all?
See, you complain about uselessness, but that was a useless response. There is a largely agreed upon interpretation. The fact that people have tried to change it after the fact, or disagree after the fact, has no actual bearing on it.Father Time said:
How true. How unfortunate, then, that this is fairly routine for you.
Now now, don't complain about strawmen if you're going to use them.
Something caused you to make up the condescension claim. I inferred offense. That's not a strawman, even if incorrect. Sorry, bro.
See, again, word confusion. You're using that other version of "roles" again, that had no impact on what I or the video is saying.
Please rectify that if you actually want to have a conversation. If you're being dishonest intentionally, then fair play. I just won't be a part of it.
Never heard of this before, but it's true that if I look at the types of movies I want to see, and not some chick flick the girlfriend drags me too, I can't think of any that pass the test. But then I think of TV shows I watch and hae a hard time thinking of one that doesn't pass the test. I think that says something there.
Hollywood is one industry that's discriminatory by nature. Movies due to their short duration need to be too the point, a lot of what gets filmed will get cut on the editors floor. The type of movies that sell best tend to be action orientated, and no disrespect to women but action tends to be a man's world. There are some women of course that do well here too, but the touch chick is usually a token character so most of the other roles will be dominated by men. It's not meant to be discriminatory, for Hollywood that's just what sells.
Hollywood is one industry that's discriminatory by nature. Movies due to their short duration need to be too the point, a lot of what gets filmed will get cut on the editors floor. The type of movies that sell best tend to be action orientated, and no disrespect to women but action tends to be a man's world. There are some women of course that do well here too, but the touch chick is usually a token character so most of the other roles will be dominated by men. It's not meant to be discriminatory, for Hollywood that's just what sells.
Like i said, people who use the test on individual movies to judge them are incorrect and so are creators who do so. The test is applied to individual movies to give an impression of the industry. In the same way "Does this next picture contain an ocean? Oh yes it does. What a surprise. And this one. And this one. And this one" is a test for the "Gallery" but done by analysing each individual piece of art.. You are correct that a checklist is bad but at the same time lets say youre going to start a painting for the gallery i mentioned above. Its already got like 10'000 pictures of oceans. If you apply the "Ocean test":Casual Shinji said:
1. Has the pacific ocean.
2. From this vantage point.
3. At dawn.
and 10'000 paintings in the gallery pass and so does YOURS maybe you should reconsider your painting. Unless the call of the pacific ocean from the same vantage point at dawn CALLS TO YOUR VERY SOUL its a fairly good idea to think "Well gee maybe as an artist i should consider doing something, ANYTHING else apart from oceans if i can?". The test points out to me that artists, at least SOME of them since i doubt they ALL want to make movies about men ALL the time, are abandoning artistic integrity for popularity. Unless men are just THAT much more interesting than women on an objective basis. The test is to reveal another question:
"Heres something artists could be making and it seems pretty obvious and easy for them to make. But they dont as the test shows us. Why?"
If we figure out the why we can start removing the social or financial blocks that prevent artists from exploring a more diverse range of topics and themes. Which i cant see as being a bad thing. It goes with what you said about making movies about whatever.
But at this stage i think both of us are missing the point. Most movies are not "art" in the traditional sense, created to vent or explore ideas properly for the sake of expressing the artists inner thoughts. They are made to sell. They are a product. I think the "I wish i could make movies about women but i cant" directors are few and far between anyway because cinema as an industry now has a HUGE production value.
Nothing, as the test is for determining trends in groups of movies.faefrost said:
Now, if you said that all the movie currently playing at your local cinema did, or did not pass this (or for that matter, the gender swapped one), that would say something.
Heh, at least my favorite film, Spirited Away, passes this test. Multiple times too. In fact, most Miyazaki films would pass the test with flying colours.
If the purpose of the test is to demonstrate the bias for male leads in films, then it's pretty needless as that has already been well-established.
The real question at this stage is "What do we do from here?"
(And that stumbles head first into a whole new briar patch.)
The real question at this stage is "What do we do from here?"
(And that stumbles head first into a whole new briar patch.)
You'd think so, but somehow it manages to remain a controversial point. On top of that, because there's been this strong bias for such a long time, it's become normalised, something obvious only after it's been noticed.Atmos Duality said:
It's not supposed to be an indicator of female inclusion. It was originally created as a joke, and its only use in serious discussion is to measure female exclusion from movies and the extreme limitation of subject matter they're generally allowed to cover in their roles.Genocidicles said: