Bechdel's Rule, also known as the Bechdel Test or the Bechdel-Wallace Test (or, inaccurately, as the
Mo Movie Measure), is a sort of litmus test for female presence in movies and TV. In order to pass, the film/show must meet the following critera:
- it includes at least two women,
- who have at least one conversation with each other
- about something other than a man.
Now, by limiting yourself to shows/movies that pass the test, you'd be cutting out a
lot of otherwise-worthy entertainment. You may even be cutting out a lot of works that have a feminist tone. But that's the point: too little fiction created today, particularly in TV and movies, has independent female characters. It's gotten better since the law was first formulated (the strip where it was originally suggested was written in 1985), but
Hollywood still needs to be prodded to put in someone other than
The Chick.
It's obviously easier for a TV series, especially one with an
Ensemble Cast, to follow this rule than a film, because there's far more time for the conversation to occur in. For example,
Stargate Atlantis is not an especially feminist show, but one episode features two female characters discussing a (female) alien that's attacking them, and in the fourth season the presence of a female commander, a female doctor, and a female warrior meant for a
lot of conversation about something other than dudes. To compensate for this, Bechdel's Rule-inspired analyses of television often look episode-by-episode, or compare the series' compliance with Bechdel's Rule with its compliance with a "reverse Bechdel rule" with the roles of men and women swapped.
Named for Alison Bechdel, creator of the comic strip
Dykes To Watch Out For, who made it famous with
this strip
. It's also called the Mo Movie Measure, after Mo, the main character of DTWOF, but Mo wasn't yet a character when the strip appeared; it's from the early days of the strip before it moved to a serial format with recurring characters.
Compare
The Smurfette Principle.
