The Bechdel test is a minimum, not a award. To pass the Bechdel test means your film has done the absolute minimum to show women as people and not just props. To my mind the character has to be someone important to the plot. So Margo Robbie talking to someone in a ticket booth doesn't count. And none of your "surprise fails" surprised me in the slightest.
I think it is a more useful tool when applied to larger bodies of work than focusing on one film at a time. How many films among "Director X"'s entire filmography pass it? Or a studio/brand (like Disney Animation, vs Pixar, vs Dreamworks). An entire list of Oscar Nominated films of a given year (or decade), or all major box office hits of a given period. We may then start seeing percentages, patterns and flows, rather than technical passes or fails, which may indicate evolution, regression, or ideological inclinations behind a certain person's or institution's general output.
I think that’s an excellent point! I suppose all data is relatively useless when the sample is small but it highlights patterns on a larger scale. Great suggestion.
Please try to spare some time to read comments under your videos. You should watch the video by Critical Drinker about "defeminizing female superheros" and his other reviews about the new thor, she hulk, rings of power, captain marvel. Then reply me if you understood why these movies sucked.
The Bechdel Test is a bit of a red herring. I learned of it in the Feminist Frequency video about 15 years ago and then for a time watched out for it in movies I saw. I quickly concluded that what it really measures is what the gender of the protagonist is. Most movies are shown from one protagonists view and that protagonist does most of the talking. So you end up it being more or less rare to have to people who don't share that property with the protagonist talk in isolation. So for example, quickly after I learned of the test I saw Juno (the quirky teen movie) where Juno is in almost all scenes and does almost all talking. There's a boyfriend and fathers and teachers etc, but there's almost no men talking with one another, because it's rare to have a scene without the protagonist and, in that movie, scenes with a lot of people. There's one scene over 80 minutes in where Micheal Cera jogs on a school track and learns Juno is bearing the child - in this scene he chats 2 sentences with another boy at school and that's the only scene where two men are talking in the movie. Similarly, if you watch a movie with a male protagonist, you might quickly end up with no scene with two women talking.
I agree. Though the Bechdel Test had some relevance as a meme and a fair point, especially of its time, it's not something worth putting into practice alone. Though it is a great starting point to start considering how to properly write women in media. Having a diverse cast of women is important, having these women show diverse relationships, and allowing women to have agency. There are times women are presented as super strong or wise or something but they still have their ability to actually influence the plot limited and almost serve the surrounding male character's arcs and purposes more than their own. Also, if a woman can only have agency if she takes it from a man, that's still operating under this guise a woman's world is highly encapsulated by men. It doesn't show feminism as it's own movement, that women can operate as themselves and can stand on equal ground with men (like we don't have to have one gender dominate the other). There is also the question "what makes someone a woman" or "what really is femininity" which can have several different answers beyond the biological answer. Gender as a social construct means these answers are diverse, so your cast of women should reflect this too. Anyone interested in feminism and media, schnee's video "How ARCANE Writes Women" does an excellent breakdown. He brings up agency, the various relationships women have (with love interests- male and female and mother-daughter and sisters, etc.), and how stereotypes get neutralized. Jeffery Brown's "Gender and the Action Heroine: Hardbodies and the Point of No Return" is a great scholarly article on the subject as well.
Bro. Is this what you want to do with your finite time on this planet? Think about it... the people who you're signalling to with this video won't respect you for it, they'll pigeon hole you as another conformist adding nothing challenging to the conversation. If a villain is a women write her as the most loathsome creature your audience could bear, not as a misunderstood anti-hero. If she is an anti-hero, she must still suffer for her flaws. If she is a hero, she must suffer through all that is loathsome including herself. Then you will have made the truest feminist movie, a movie that neither demonizes nor deifies, holds in contempt nor idolizes - because that's what a woman is, human just like the audience. If you can get that right, even talking about men the whole movie will succeed.
That's the interesting thing about the Bechdel test, although it may indicate how feminine a text is it doesn't really indicate if the creator intended to incorporate feminine themes into the movie. For example, with LOTR, Eowyn in the clip the media insider provided is shown to be scared for this ethereal being in front of her (The Witch King of Angmar) and is supposedly saved by Merry (a man). However, if you actually watch the Two Towers and Return of the King, you would KNOW that throughout the series Eowyn's story revolves around her trying to escape the captive hold of societal normalities and gender roles and her arc is complete in that very scene that The Media Insider shows a clip from, but doesn't actually show the relevant scene in which she tells the Witch Queen that she is no man and stabs him in the face (killing him) and shows that women can protect humanity just as well as a man with her uncle King Théoden being struck down by the Witch King.
There are also movies without characters or human characters. I'm thinking of films like Microcosmos, The Image Book or The Battleship Potemkin that don't pass the test. And there are movies like Twilight how purposely added a line of dialogue between 2 female characters to pass the test.
Let us keep the Bechdel test in perspective but not use it to judge the quality of any piece of art.
Agreed! It’s more of an interesting measure of gender equality
The Bechdel test is a minimum, not a award. To pass the Bechdel test means your film has done the absolute minimum to show women as people and not just props.
To my mind the character has to be someone important to the plot. So Margo Robbie talking to someone in a ticket booth doesn't count.
And none of your "surprise fails" surprised me in the slightest.
I think it is a more useful tool when applied to larger bodies of work than focusing on one film at a time. How many films among "Director X"'s entire filmography pass it? Or a studio/brand (like Disney Animation, vs Pixar, vs Dreamworks). An entire list of Oscar Nominated films of a given year (or decade), or all major box office hits of a given period. We may then start seeing percentages, patterns and flows, rather than technical passes or fails, which may indicate evolution, regression, or ideological inclinations behind a certain person's or institution's general output.
I think that’s an excellent point! I suppose all data is relatively useless when the sample is small but it highlights patterns on a larger scale. Great suggestion.
@@TheMediaInsider I'm glad you like my suggestion! Thanks again for all the content, professor!
Well hey if you think about it Baby Got Back by Sir Mix A Lot passes it
Once Upon a Time in Hollywood is probably the best modern example of metamodernism, and intentionally so.
Hi sir
So 'Silence of The Lamb' is NOT a feminist film?
Please try to spare some time to read comments under your videos. You should watch the video by Critical Drinker about "defeminizing female superheros" and his other reviews about the new thor, she hulk, rings of power, captain marvel. Then reply me if you understood why these movies sucked.
exactly mate, he MUST REALLY do a video on this
Did he actually watch Once Upon in Hollywood? Margot Robbie's character was fundamental to that story without her, there would have been no story.
I’m confused. Is this video an ironic joke on people who care about feminism? Or do people actually care about this?
Personally I think a movie can pass the Bechdel test and still be good sometimes
The Bechdel Test is a bit of a red herring. I learned of it in the Feminist Frequency video about 15 years ago and then for a time watched out for it in movies I saw. I quickly concluded that what it really measures is what the gender of the protagonist is. Most movies are shown from one protagonists view and that protagonist does most of the talking. So you end up it being more or less rare to have to people who don't share that property with the protagonist talk in isolation. So for example, quickly after I learned of the test I saw Juno (the quirky teen movie) where Juno is in almost all scenes and does almost all talking. There's a boyfriend and fathers and teachers etc, but there's almost no men talking with one another, because it's rare to have a scene without the protagonist and, in that movie, scenes with a lot of people. There's one scene over 80 minutes in where Micheal Cera jogs on a school track and learns Juno is bearing the child - in this scene he chats 2 sentences with another boy at school and that's the only scene where two men are talking in the movie. Similarly, if you watch a movie with a male protagonist, you might quickly end up with no scene with two women talking.
Ive seen some people adapt this test to two *named* female characters which I think works more
I agree. Though the Bechdel Test had some relevance as a meme and a fair point, especially of its time, it's not something worth putting into practice alone. Though it is a great starting point to start considering how to properly write women in media. Having a diverse cast of women is important, having these women show diverse relationships, and allowing women to have agency. There are times women are presented as super strong or wise or something but they still have their ability to actually influence the plot limited and almost serve the surrounding male character's arcs and purposes more than their own. Also, if a woman can only have agency if she takes it from a man, that's still operating under this guise a woman's world is highly encapsulated by men. It doesn't show feminism as it's own movement, that women can operate as themselves and can stand on equal ground with men (like we don't have to have one gender dominate the other). There is also the question "what makes someone a woman" or "what really is femininity" which can have several different answers beyond the biological answer. Gender as a social construct means these answers are diverse, so your cast of women should reflect this too. Anyone interested in feminism and media, schnee's video "How ARCANE Writes Women" does an excellent breakdown. He brings up agency, the various relationships women have (with love interests- male and female and mother-daughter and sisters, etc.), and how stereotypes get neutralized. Jeffery Brown's "Gender and the Action Heroine: Hardbodies and the Point of No Return" is a great scholarly article on the subject as well.
I think the (new) Joker doesn't pass aswell 😅
Bro. Is this what you want to do with your finite time on this planet? Think about it... the people who you're signalling to with this video won't respect you for it, they'll pigeon hole you as another conformist adding nothing challenging to the conversation. If a villain is a women write her as the most loathsome creature your audience could bear, not as a misunderstood anti-hero. If she is an anti-hero, she must still suffer for her flaws. If she is a hero, she must suffer through all that is loathsome including herself. Then you will have made the truest feminist movie, a movie that neither demonizes nor deifies, holds in contempt nor idolizes - because that's what a woman is, human just like the audience. If you can get that right, even talking about men the whole movie will succeed.
I’m surprised that lord of the rings doesn’t pass
That's the interesting thing about the Bechdel test, although it may indicate how feminine a text is it doesn't really indicate if the creator intended to incorporate feminine themes into the movie. For example, with LOTR, Eowyn in the clip the media insider provided is shown to be scared for this ethereal being in front of her (The Witch King of Angmar) and is supposedly saved by Merry (a man). However, if you actually watch the Two Towers and Return of the King, you would KNOW that throughout the series Eowyn's story revolves around her trying to escape the captive hold of societal normalities and gender roles and her arc is complete in that very scene that The Media Insider shows a clip from, but doesn't actually show the relevant scene in which she tells the Witch Queen that she is no man and stabs him in the face (killing him) and shows that women can protect humanity just as well as a man with her uncle King Théoden being struck down by the Witch King.
There are also movies without characters or human characters. I'm thinking of films like Microcosmos, The Image Book or The Battleship Potemkin that don't pass the test.
And there are movies like Twilight how purposely added a line of dialogue between 2 female characters to pass the test.