The Bechdel Test: Difference between revisions

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Now, by limiting yourself to Bechdel-positive shows/movies, 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 (such as ones set in [[The Shawshank Redemption|a men's prison]] or on [[Das Boot|a WWII military submarine]] or [[12 Angry Men|back when only men were on juries]]), or [[The Triplets of Belleville|with no conversations at all]], or having only [[Swimming To Cambodia|one]] or [[My Dinner with Andre|two characters]]. You may even be cutting out a lot of works that have feminist themes. ThusBut the testthat's stupidity,the andpoint: whythe anymajority rationalof personfiction doescreated nottoday, givefor itwhatever any validity whatsoever. A highly feminist work would likely not passreason, becauseseems it wouldto involvethink women discussingaren't theworth problemsportraying thatexcept they'vein hadrelation withto men;. meanwhileThings ahave workchanged thatsince portrayed1985 women as vapid and shallow, discussing that math is hard and how great shopping was, would pass. Some proponents of applyingwhen the test thuswas attemptfirst to argue the "spirit" of the testformulated, ignoringbut the[[Most factWriters thatAre theMale|Hollywood]] teststill itselfneeds isto abe technicality,prodded andto thusput hasin nosomeone spirit,other asthan noted[[The belowChick]].

The test is often misunderstood. The requirements are just what they say they are -- it doesn't make any difference if, for instance, the male characters the women talk about are their fathers, sons, brothers, platonic friends or mortal enemies rather than romantic partners. Conversely, if a work seems to pass, it doesn't matter if male characters are present when the female characters talk, nor does it matter if the women only talk about stereotypically girly topics like shoe shopping -- or even relationships, as long as it's not relationships ''with men''. Neither was the test ever meant to be taken seriously as a benchmark for determining a work's degree of feminism, let along considered more than a joke.

This is because '''the Bechdel Test is ''not'' meant to give a scorecard of a work's overall level of feminism'''. The test was designed as a joke. It is entirely possible for a Bechdel-positive film not to have 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 clearly Bechdel-positive movie can still be incredibly misogynistic. Conversely, a Bechdel-negative story can still be strongly feminist in other ways, and there's nothing necessarily wrong with that. There is still an attempt to keep the test relevant by pointing out the number of works that do not pass it, but again generally all that means is that there is a plot relevant male in the work (leaving one to wonder if the demand isn't simply for more works set entirely in a [[Lady Land]] where men are simply not acknowledged as ever having existed)

* The 2016 [[Gender Flip]]ped [[Continuity Reboot]] of ''[[Ghostbusters (2016 film)|Ghostbusters]]'' passes bigtime, with a team of four [[Badass]] women who talk science, the supernatural and money, and have to deal with a male [[Dumb Blonde]] receptionist. Possibly the most extreme example of proving that a movie passing the Bechdel Test does not mean it is worth watching.