'''Bechdels Law''' launched as BechdelsRule: [[http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/discussion.php?id=4a1moyyypagp8ia6swls3gv4&trope=BechdelsRule From YKTTW]]

{{DomaDoma}}: Lessee... that rules out Lord of the Rings, Braveheart, Finding Nemo, the Harry Potter movies, Phantom of the Opera (all versions, unless you count the ballet gossips in the original)... Thus far in my reading, Song of Ice and Fire only passes on account of the spats between Arya and Sansa, which don't say nearly as much about any feminist ethic as Catelyn, Arya, Cersei, Dany, Brienne, etc. do by their actions and not some fool thing about who they're speaking to and about what.

{{Burai}}: Hmm. That seems to rule out the ''Cadfael'' episodes I've been watching. Shame.

MorganWick: Actually it seems to rule out a HUGE chunk of TV. I would modify it to "a movie or TV series is only worth watching ''by women'' if it contains..." because that sounds like the LAST thing men want to watch. At least if you believe in the ViewersAreMorons {{LCD}} doctrine executives believe.

{{YYZ}}: It also rules out MissionImpossible, MysteryScienceTheater3000, ThePrisoner, StarWars, just about every episode of every incarnation of StarTrek, almost every series of DoctorWho... I'm not sure even ''women'' would want to cut this much material out of their viewing diet; my wife probably wouldn't.

{{FireWalk}}: Heck, while I'm no fan of the show, and I admit I'm only going on stereotype, I could believe this rules out Sex & the City, and maybe others of that ilk.
But then, I think this rule is more about combatting TheSmurfettePrinciple, being that women shouldn't be there to do nothing but be motives for men. Older shows can do nothing about it, but newer shows should look at this as a way to see if they are being overly male oriented.

does it count if the show doesn't even have more than one woman? (gravitation, hehe). in defense of star trek, i think janeway and b'lonna (i think that's how you spell it) once had a conversation about how the warpcore has a possibility of overloading (or something like that)

RuthieA: I think StarTrekDeepSpaceNine would also be watchable as, if I remember correctly, Kira and Dax have had several conversations about something other than men... As for this rule, I don't think I could follow it. I'm way too much of a {{nerd}} to stop watching most guy-oriented movies (because, unfortunately, most nerd-oriented movies are also guy-oriented, as if there are no female nerds.) Although, as it is an interesting thought, I might challenge myself to try and find a movie like this the next time I go to the video rental store.

BeingX: here is a rule that i came up with "if a movie has keanu reeves in it, there's a %50 chance that it's not worth watching"

{{Seth}}: Bill and Ted, Point Break and Matrix. All pretty good if you ask me. At least by this rule, Buffy is safe. [[BuffyIsTheCenterOfTheMetaverse Ah the trope tastic buffy]]

{{osh}}: IIRC the actual application of this trope is mostly used for movies and shows that have obvious hooks there to catch a female audience, anything from chick flicks to action movies with tacked on romance subplots.

BeingX: the matrix was good, but what about the sequels? bill and ted was good; point break was entertaining, but not really worth watching IMNSHO

BeingX: i'm starting to think that this rule (bechdel's, i mean) isn't a very good one

{{Seth}}: It just needs a qualifier that states to which audiences this criteria would make a film watch able. But since its origin seems a one shot gag in a webcomic it might be better to wipe it.

{{Ununnilium}}: I've heard it used in other places. Lemme see if I can expand on this.

thank you

{{Seth}}: Very nicely done.

{{Hi}}: Eh, this rule rules out any fiction done strictly from a male point of view. For example, in the reverse, Jane Austen (almost) never wrote a scene that contained a conversation between male characters without a female character at least present, and usually contributing to the conversation.

DaibhidC: In an ''Arthur King of Time And Space'' strip, Guenevere tells her friend Eglante about the rule. Eglante replies "Bechdel can prise my ''Muppet Movie'' DVD from my cold, dead fingers".

{{Shazzbaa}}: I think the ''point'' is that it's overly strict, but makes a good point. The fact that three simple requirements suddenly rule out most quality entertainment (and quite a lot of non-quality entertainment, too) is meant to open people's eyes to just how few female characters out there have independent personalities, rather than just being TheChick stuck on to a male lead. It doesn't necessarily seem to be a rule that's supposed to be followed, though I've seen it offered as advice on writing female characters.

{{alliterator}}: NPR recently praised ''TheMiddleman'' for adhering to the Bechdel Rule so well, they even named another rule for Natalie Morales, the Morales Rule: 1. No one calls anyone "papi" 2. No one dances to salsa music and 3. No gratuitous Spanish.

{{zenfrodo}}: It's very, very sad that there's no examples of films for this rule on the page. That speaks for itself.

* The first {{Pirates of the Caribbean}} movie just about scrapes through; Elizabeth and Anamaria have a very brief exchange about the ship.

{{Duralict}}: Anyone have objections to including some examples of things that don't pass and a master list of things that ''do'' on the page? I'm wondering if there's a reason it doesn't have those already.


{{arromdee}}: The problem with the rule is that most characters, period, spend most of their time talking about themselves or other people. So it becomes a counting question: does the show have at least three important women in it (or two women who talk about each other a lot). That's why all the classic series above fail--it doesn't matter if anything else is wrong with them, not fitting the count automatically makes them fail.

And while "there aren't three prominent women in this series" is a legitimate complaint, the rule is usually taken to imply a ''lot'' more than just that.

(Like there being no female characters with "independent personalities"--characters with independent personalites still talk about other people and still fail the test if there aren't three of them).

{{Twitch}}: Where did "minimum '''three prominent''' women" come from? All I see is minimum '''two''' women who have a conversation about a non-male subject. It could be two women who first appear to discuss the Sony-Godzilla. And then show up later to discuss men and monster trucks. :P

There's two ways I look at this: judicious application of BellisariosMaxim, and barring that, go [[ThereIsNoKillLikeOverkill all the way]] in analysis. It says as much about the nature of TV and film - while a sizeable chunk of novels, plays, comics, etc still fail the test, the percentage is likely lower, as TV and film require more money and logistics, which opens up more opportunities for ViewersAreMorons and general ExecutiveMeddling to torpedo a less male-centric work before it even reaches the screen.

Furthermore, invert the Rule, and see how many works fail for lacking at least two men discussing something other than a female. DoubleStandard?

{{arromdee}}: If there are two women discussing monster trucks, it should count, but nobody who promotes Bechdel's Rule will count it. They'll say things like "technically, it just scrapes through" and "only passes on account of" (like they do here), implying that it doesn't really count since they're not talking enough. And characters of either sex usually talk about things involving other characters, not monster trucks (unless you're watching [[SeinfeldianConversation Seinfeld]]). So it boils down to there being three prominent women (two who talk a lot and another for them to talk about).

Also, most conversations in a work are going to be main-character/antagonist-centric. So almost nothing with a male main character or villain will pass, and almost nothing with a female main character but which is about relationships will pass. Yet most Bechdel's Rule complaints are not just "we need fewer romances and more works with female main characters".

And the rule is almost never used to just literally mean "there are two women who talk to each other about something other than men". That's why we're seeing comments about how it shows there are few women with "independent personalities".

{{dkellis}}: I assume that most of the shows listed under PinkBishoujoGhetto don't count, despite fitting all the listed criteria.

{{DomaDoma}}: And, since I wrote the top comment, I've seen an otherwise brilliant TV series that really ''does'' have a dearth of independent female characters, but it still passes because of the scene where two female characters discuss ChekhovsGun and how they came to cross paths, and let's just say said ChekhovsGun does not speak well to either's good judge of [[CrouchingSupportHiddenBatshit chara]][[ManipulativeBastard cter]] or in[[DrivenToSuicide depen]][[XanatosSucker dent]] personality.

This rule has good intentions, but its use is mainly as a platform for the Allectos (ask a ''{{Firefly}}'' fan) of the world.

{{Twitch}}: @{{DomaDoma}}: Point well taken, my gripe is that most of the complaints here are actually about FanDumb and not the Rule itself. @{{arromdee}} Bechdel's original comic mentions the movie {{Alien}} as passing because two female characters have a conversation about the monster. I just picked monster trucks as an example that's treated as something that's treated as a stereotypically male topic (and [[TopTen Jack Phantom]] popped into my head, who's a lesbian that's into monster trucks. :P) Plus ''I'm'' promoting Bechdel's Rule and I count it. I suppose I have something of a feminist agenda, but I enjoy Bechdel's work for much the same reason I'm a [[YaoiFangirl Yaoi Fanboy]] - I get tired of reading the same old stuff from the same old POV.
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{{Mercy}}: I just snipped this paragraph, because I think it's factually-dubious special pleading:

''"Of course, keep in mind that nearly ''all'' conversations in film that don't involve the lead directly involve him or her as a subject (or they wouldn't be shown), so this eliminates nearly any film with a male lead, however strong or independent the female characters. Still, the number of films with ''female'' leads that break this rule (not to mention the disproportion of male leads in the first place)..."''

I'm ready to be persuaded, but the assertion in the first sentence seems false to me. It's probably true of things like James Bond or Rambo films, but isn't that precisely the point of BechdelsRule? Even in a sausage-fest like "Live Free or Die Hard", for example, there are plenty of scenes in which John McLane is not present and the characters are talking about the situation rather than him.

{{arromdee}}: That may technically be true, but the problem is that Bechdel's Rule is used as a way to bootstrap "I don't like this movie" into an accusation of sexism. If your major complaint about a James Bond movie was that everyone talks about James Bond, nobody would listen to you. But if you phrase it as "women don't talk to each other, except about James Bond", suddenly it's an insightful observation about how womyn are marginalized, even though it's just a subset of the original complaint.

{{Mercy}}: I'm not quite sure what point you're trying to make. Is it that sexism in a film is somehow not a legitimate reason for disliking it? Or that the only reason someone might criticise a film for sexism is in order to sound "insightful" to other people?

{{arromdee}}: It's fundamentally a non-sexist complaint to say that the main character takes over the movie, even though the main character happens to be a particular sex. It's like saying that a movie is sexist for not having fully realized female characters (when your actual complaint is that it doesn't have any fully realized characters) or that the movie's DVD is too expensive for working mothers to buy (when it's actually just expensive, period). The complaint isn't ''false'', but it's misleading.

{{Mercy}}: Ah! I see what you mean. However, I don't think a film somehow ''escapes'' being sexist just because it is not ''only'' women who are reduced to undeveloped and restricted roles. On the contrary, it just means that the film is sexist ''in addition to'' exhibiting other characteristics. I don't buy the idea that it is not legitimate to base a personal yardstick such as Bechdel's Rule on a subset of a film's flaws.

{{arromdee}}:You've just defined sexism so broadly that equal treatment of everyone can be sexist.

{{Mercy}}: I have not ''defined'' sexism at all. And no film treats all its characters equally. Differences in importance to the story, number of lines spoken, depth of characterisation, character gender, character race etc. flow through the writing, casting, directing and pretty much every other part of the process. Equal treatment of everyone is simply not within the realm of possibility, in film or anywhere else.

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NickBensema: Suppose we renamed the page to BechdelCompliant. That way, we're treating this trope not like some mandate from lesbian cartoonists of the 1980s, but rather a proper trope. That'll take the sting out of this discussion. But, to make of that, I think the page should be made into an index of the films that comply, as a nice subtle banner ad at the bottom of those films' pages.

Unlike Dogma 95, making your film Bechdel-compliant is easy. Staple on one SeinfeldianConversation about monster trucks and you're in.

MatthewTheRaven: Bechdel's Rule is the actual term used for this idea throughout the internet. If the "rule" part offends people, too bad. They're going to get defensive whenever a feminist opens her mouth anyway.