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I consider the Bechdel Test to almost be like a baby step into the feminist narrative around fiction, or most popularly the film industry. The test was coined by cartoonist Alison Bechdel in 1985 with her famous comic strip D*kes to Watch Out For, and it challenged writers to see if their piece of fiction featured two female characters (both named) who spend at least one scene speaking to each other without the mention of a male in the conversation.
I first discovered this statistic when I was 18, near the end of high school/beginning of college. Intrigued and curious, I was relieved a lot of my favorite movies seemed to pass the test. ‘Girl power’ themed flicks like Peyton Reed’s Bring It On (2000) or McG’s Charlie’s Angels (2000) were no surprise, as were classic films like George Cukor’s The Women (1939) and Joseph L. Mankiewicz’s All About Eve (1950). But even some testosterone-heavy movies like Martin Scorsese’s GoodFellas (1990) or Quentin Tarantino’s Pulp Fiction (1994) qualified. Christopher Nolan is constantly given a hard time for typically ‘fridging’ (i.e. killing off) love interests in his male-heavy movies. Yet his Batman masterpiece, The Dark Knight (2008), still ended up having a scene with two women passing the test.
The “Bechdel Test” first appeared in a comic called “The Rule”, which was published in 1985.
So where did the idea come from? pic.twitter.com/dGpAVYf9Vt
— Openly 🏳️🌈 (@Openly) February 23, 2021
So the question is, how much emphasis should feminism and story narrative put on this statistic if it’s so easy to pass? Orson Welles’ landmark Citizen Kane (1941) still influences filmmakers today, yet breaks Bechdel’s rules. A movie that passes the test can also manage to still be sexist in theme or portrayal, such as Peter Sollett’s Nick & Norah’s Infinite Playlist (2008). That film’s screenwriter, Lorene Scafaria, seemed to bizarrely struggle with penning female characters who didn’t come off as ‘Mary-Sues’ or ‘manic pixie dream girls’ before finally landing a home run with her own directed Hustlers (2019)—which passes the test on top of that.
Personally, I don’t think the Bechdel Test should be a huge measure of how good or feminist a film is in the long run. It would be silly to suddenly disregard the technical accomplishments and impact of David Lean’s Lawrence of Arabia (1962) because of the lack of women on screen. (Though believe me, I’ll still be the first to point out how the film is an over three-hour sausage fest.) But at the same time, the Bechdel Test can be an interesting and productive challenge as a beginner in writing fiction, or maybe if you need a refresher on making sure your story has variety.
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When I recently clicked on the test’s official website, I was pleasantly surprised to find that many more films in recent years have passed the test than not. Of course it makes sense with hit releases such as Greta Gerwig’s Little Women (2019), Autumn de Wilde’s Emma (2020), Céline Sciamma’s Portrait of a Lady on Fire (2019), Cathy Yan’s Birds of Prey (2020) and Leigh Wannell’s The Invisible Man (2020). Especially with the source material of the first two and 4/5 of the filmmakers being women. So maybe variety really is the spice of life. I don’t have the stats on me other than memory, but it sure felt like Hollywood had a Bechdel problem a decade ago. Even though we still have a way to go with casual misogyny in art, maybe we’ve gone from ‘baby steps’ to ‘school kid steps’ now.
What do you think of our list of movies that pass the Bechdel test? Do you think the test is important to storytelling? Let us know in the comments!
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