WHAT IS THE BECHDEL TEST?
The Bechdel Test is a simple test of female representation in a film that was originally drawn from a comic strip by Allison Bechdel from her series "Dykes to Watch Out For." Bechdel claims that a friend of hers, Liz Wallace, actually came up with the test, however the test has become commonly attributed to Bechdel. (1) The rules of the test are simple. In order for a film to pass the test:
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"a greater share of films are passing today compared to 1970, but...the level has plateaued in the past two decades. " |
Why isn't the pass rate higher?
Well, according to the men in charge of choosing which films to finance, audiences both domestic and international "just don’t like films with strong female characters." These men in power keep insisting that films with strong female leads don't make as much money at the box office. In fact, the industry even goes as far as encouraging young aspiring screenwriters not to write films that pass the Bechdel test. According to blogger and UCLA film student Jennifer Kesler, when she demanded her professor to explain what was wrong with the scripts she was writing (which all passed the Bechdel test), she got the following response: "The audience doesn’t want to listen to a bunch of women talking about whatever it is women talk about.” (3)
The truth is...
Keep in mind! The Bechdel test is not a test of how feminist a movie is. Some movies that feature a single strong female character, like Gravity, fail only because she spent most of the movie alone, and therefore did not talk to any other women. In addition, some movies pass for conversations between women about things like makeup and beauty (pretty stereotypical). For more extensive tests you can apply to determine the quality of female representation in a film, see the "Watch and Learn" page!
Footnotes: (1) http://thehathorlegacy.com/why-film-schools-teach-screenwriters-not-to-pass-the-bechdel-test/ (2) http://bechdeltest.com/statistics/ (3) http://thehathorlegacy.com/why-film-schools-teach-screenwriters-not-to-pass-the-bechdel-test/ (4) http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/the-dollar-and-cents-case-against-hollywoods-exclusion-of-women/