History MediaNotes / TheBechdelTest

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* {{Lampshaded}} by She-Hulk in ''{{JLA/Avengers}}'': "Yo, Star-shorts! I figured that you'd be getting bored so I thought I'd hang with you. We can talk girl-talk. Y'know, butt-kicking, name-taking, like that."

* {{Lampshaded}} by She-Hulk in ''JLAAvengers'': "Yo, Star-shorts! I figured that you'd be getting bored so I thought I'd hang with you. We can talk girl-talk. Y'know, butt-kicking, name-taking, like that."

* {{Lampshaded}} by She-Hulk in ''JLAvsAvengers'': "Yo, Star-shorts! I figured that you'd be getting bored so I thought I'd hang with you. We can talk girl-talk. Y'know, butt-kicking, name-taking, like that."

This is because '''the Bechdel Test is ''not'' meant to give a scorecard of a work's overall level of feminism'''. It is entirely possible for a film to pass without having overt feminist themes -- in fact, the original example of a movie that passes is ''{{Alien}}'', which, while it has feminist subtexts, is mostly just a sci-fi/action/horror flick. A movie can easily pass the Bechdel Test and still be incredibly misogynistic. Conversely, it's also possible for a story to fail the test and still be strongly feminist in other ways, and there's nothing necessarily wrong with that. What's a problem is that it becomes a pattern -- when ''so many'' movies fail the test, while very few show male characters whose lives seem to revolve around women, that says uncomfortable things about the way Hollywood handles gender.

The Bechdel Test, Bechdel-Wallace Test, or the Mo Movie Measure[[hottip:*:named after Mo, the main character of ''DTWOF'', even though it was introduced in a one-off strip before Mo was introduced]], is a sort of litmus test for female presence in movies and TV. The test is named for Alison Bechdel, creator of the comic strip ''DykesToWatchOutFor'', who made it known to the world with [[http://www.flickr.com/photos/zizyphus/34585797/ this strip]].

# ''It includes at least two women'',[[hottip:*: (some make the addendum that the women must be ''named'' characters)]]

# ''about something other than a man or men''.[[hottip:*: The exact interpretation of this can vary; some feel that it's okay to mention a man or men so long as they're not the primary subject of the conversation, while others will demand a conversation where men aren't mentioned '''at all'''.]]

* Feminist Frequency discusses the test again [[http://www.feministfrequency.com/2012/02/the-2012-oscars-and-the-bechdel-test/ here]]. She proposes that the test be modified so that the scene in question must last at least sixty seconds to pass, since if it's only a few seconds of non-man-related dialogue between women, it's clear that it doesn't play a large role in the story anyway. She also describes a variant of the test for people of color, where at least two named non-white characters discuss something other than a white person.

* Feminist Frequency discusses the test again [[http://www.feministfrequency.com/2012/02/the-2012-oscars-and-the-bechdel-test/ here]]. She proposes that the test be modified so that the scene in question must last at least sixty seconds to pass, since if it's only a few seconds of non-man-related dialogue between women, it's clear that it doesn't play a large role in the story anyway. She also describes a variant of the test for people of color, where at least two named characters discuss something other than a white person.

* Feminist Frequency discusses the test again [[http://www.feministfrequency.com/2012/02/the-2012-oscars-and-the-bechdel-test/ here]]. She proposes that the test be modified so that the scene in question must last at least sixty seconds to pass, as arguing about whether a brief moment counts as a "pass" misses the point about the absence of women's stories in Hollywood films. She also describes a variant of the test for people of color, where at least two named characters discuss something other than a white person.

* Feminist Frequency discusses the test again [[http://www.feministfrequency.com/2012/02/the-2012-oscars-and-the-bechdel-test/ here]]. She proposes that the test be modified so that the scene in question must last at least sixty seconds to pass, as arguing about whether a brief moment counts as a "pass" misses the point that the test is about the larger absence of women's stories in film, not evaluating how feminist specific works are. She also describes a variant of the test for people of color, where at least two named characters discuss something other than a white person.

* Feminist Frequency discusses the test again [[http://www.feministfrequency.com/2012/02/the-2012-oscars-and-the-bechdel-test/ here]]. She proposes that the test be modified so that the scene in question must last at least sixty seconds to pass. She also describes a variant of the test for people of color.

Now, by limiting yourself to shows/movies that pass the test, you'd be cutting out a ''lot'' of otherwise-worthy entertainment; indeed, a fair number of top-notch works have legitimate reasons for including no women (e.g. ones set in [[TheShawshankRedemption a men's prison]] or on [[DasBoot a WWII military submarine]] or [[TwelveAngryMen back when only men were on juries]]), or [[TheTripletsOfBelleville with no conversations at all]], or having only [[SwimmingToCambodia one]] or [[MyDinnerWithAndre two characters]]. You may even be cutting out a lot of works that have feminist themes. But that's the point: the majority of fiction created today, for whatever reason, seems to think women aren't worth portraying except in relation to men. Things have changed since the test was first formulated (the strip in which it was originally suggested was written in 1985), but [[MostWritersAreMale Hollywood]] still needs to be prodded to put in someone other than TheChick.

* ''DumbingOfAge'' named a strip after the trope and uses it to do a lot of ConversationalTroping about it.

# ''It includes at least two women,''[[hottip:* :(some make the addendum that the women must be ''named'' characters)]]
# ''who have at least one conversation,''
# ''about something other than a man or men.''[[hottip:*: The exact interpretation of this can vary; some feel that it's okay to mention a man or men so long as they're not the primary subject of the conversation, while others will demand a conversation where men aren't mentioned '''at all'''.]]

Compare TheSmurfettePrinciple -- works that follow TheSmurfettePrinciple include a female character strictly for demographic appeal but make no real attempt to treat her as an interesting character in her own right, outside of her relationships with the male characters. See also NeverASelfMadeWoman, which shows that even a well rounded female character with her own goals is most often only relevant to the story by her relationship to a man. Finally, see TokenRomance and RomanticPlotTumor for the effects of Hollywood's belief that both male and female audiences are generally uninterested in female characters except in the context of romance with a male character.

%%

* Discussed starting in [[http://www.dumbingofage.com/2011/comic/book-1/04-the-bechdel-test/thehangover/ this]] ''{{Dumbing of Age}}'' strip. Also played with -- as pointed out in the last panel, most [[GirlOnGirlIsHot lesbian porn]] will automatically pass the Bechdel Test. It further elaborates on the flaws of the test not necessarily indicating feminism, and later one male character implies that his own life would not pass the reverse Bechdel Test.

--> '''[[DeadpanSnarker Subtitles]]''': Did they just pass the Bechdel Test?

* Talked about in the ''ExtraCredits'' video on diversity [[http://penny-arcade.com/patv/episode/diversity here]].

* [[http://www.buzzfeed.com/leefalhead/the-bechdel-test-1dq8 A Feminist Frequency video]] shows a disturbingly large number of popular movies that fail the test. In a running joke, the commentator yawns, wanders away, comes back with an apple, and eats it, while the movie posters are still blinking steadily along in the background.

* Name Dropped in ''[=~AH Dot Com: The Creepy Teen Years~=]'' episode 2x19. It's noted as being the first time the series actually passed the test. The two women are discussing vacation plans.
* [[WebOriginal/AtopTheFourthWall Linkara]] brings up the importance of the third point during his review of ''Sultry Teenage Super Foxes''. Yes, the cast is almost uniformly female but they never talk about anything but men. Unless you count the villains, that is.

* ''LeftoverSoup'': [[http://www.leftoversoup.com/archive.php?num=50 "Bechdel Test passed, bitches."]]

* [[WebOriginal/AtopTheFourthWall Linkara]] brings up the importance of the third point during his review of ''Sultry Teenage Super Foxes''. Yes, the cast is almost uniformly female but they never talk about anything but men.
** Unless you count the villains, that is.

** Feminist Frequency discusses the test again [[http://www.feministfrequency.com/2012/02/the-2012-oscars-and-the-bechdel-test/ here]]. She proposes that the test be modified so that the scene in question must last at least sixty seconds to pass. She also describes a variant of the test for people of color.

'''[[ExampleSectionectomy No examples on this page, please]]''': it leads to people [[EntryPimp pimping]] works on the implications of the test, rather than the objective parameters. Works which pass or refer to the Bechdel Test ''can'' have it noted on their own pages.

The Bechdel Test, Bechdel-Wallace Test, or the Mo Movie Measure[[hottip:*:named after Mo, the main character of ''DTWOF'', even though it was introduced in a one-off strip before Mo was introduced]], is a sort of litmus test for female presence in movies and TV. The test is named for Alison Bechdel, creator of the comic strip ''DykesToWatchOutFor'', who made it known to the world with [[http://dykestowatchoutfor.com/the-rule this strip]]. (If the image can't be viewed in the blog post, you can view the image in Bechdel's Flickr stream [[http://www.flickr.com/photos/zizyphus/34585797/ here]].)

* ''DumbingOfAge'' named a strip after the trope and uses it to do a lot of ConversionalTroping about it.