The Mako Mori Test - Worth Having It's Own Page?

Okay, by now I'm sure there are several of you on these boards that have at least heard of Pacific Rim, if not seen it. Likewise, by now I'm sure that damn near everyone knows what The Bechdel Test is.

Pacific Rim does not pass the Bechdel Test. Despite this, it still' has gotten quite a bit of praise from feminists for the handling of one of the main characters, Mako Mori. Citing this, and using the justification that the Bechdel Test can't be the only'' metric used to judge films on feminist content, a Tumblr user suggested the "Mako Mori Test". It is as follows.

For a work to pass the Mako Mori Test:

• a): It must have at least one female character
• b): That female character gets her own narrative arc
• c): Her story arc is not about supporting a man’s story.

A comprehensive article on the movie and the ideas behind the test can be found on The Daily Dot.

Now, I know we already have a brief entry on the Pacific Rim page, but here's the question (in case the thread title didn't give it away): do you guys think it's worth giving the Mako Mori Test it's own entry? It's not a bad metric to judge things by and it seems suited for the Useful Notes section of the site.

On a lesser note, do you think it's wort shortening it to "The Mako Test" or "The Mori Test", or should the name stay as-is?

I can launch the page as soon as we reach something halfway resembling a consensus.

~V

It's not a trope, any more than The Bechdel Test is a trope. It's trivia. With that in mind, we could create an article for it, but it seems a bit premature unless the idea picks up a lot of traction outside of our site.

I don't think it needs its own page. A section for it can be made on The Bechdel Test.

Something along the lines of a "Notable Variations" section, maybe?

I see no reason to shoehorn it into the page on the Bechdel Test. They're only tangentially related.

But I also agree with Fighteer that like the Bechdel test, it's trivia at best.

However, I don't see any reason to hold off on making a page for it until we see if it takes off anywhere else.

The only reason I offer for waiting is that we are supposed to be descriptive, not prescriptive. Obscure academic terms and trending fandom memes seldom make for good articles unless they take a firm hold in the culture.

edited 11th Sep '13 12:56:16 PM by Fighteer

I'll second this. The original proposal doesn't cite any evidence that this is an existing "thing", and seems to misunderstand the significance of The Bechdel Test to boot.

I vote no. The Mako Mori Test just describes the path that almost any main character takes, it just highlights how rarely that happens to a female character, which is something that everybody already knows. In fact, I would argue that Mako Mori herself doesn't even pass her own test, but that's not really relevant to whether the test is worth its own page.

The Bechdel Test works because it defines very simple criteria that take no effort to meet, and that's the point. The Mako Mori Test began as a way to give Pacific Rim a mark of feminist approval without having to admit that it fails the Bechdel Test.

I would be more interested in seeing what types of works pass one but not both of these tests rather than what works pass or fail both...

These types of tests (a bit like Tropes in Aggregate) are pretty meaningless without analysis. That being said, if some of us can provide some meaningful analysis about this test, I see no reason why it shouldn't be given its own Trivia page like Bechdel Test has, or why they shouldn't share a more generally named Gender Chauvinism Litmus Test type of Trivia page.

tl;dr: let's keep it and Bechdel Test (and if you get rid of this, then please get rid of BT too)

edited 12th Dec '13 10:24:14 AM by peccantis

But there's been no evidence offered that this is an independently-existing test in the first place. People on tumblr suggest a lot of things. The Bechdel Test, on the other hand, does exist beyond this site.

While I know that Google searches aren't exactly a reliable source, there does seem to be some spread of this "test".

Going by the Google searches, it left Tumblr a long time ago. And The Bechdel test has almost thirty years on it.