Not a movie, but we’ve been watching both Orange is the New Black (last season) and She-Ra, both of which pass bechdel with ease.
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In She-Ra, I can barely think of a conversation between female characters that is about a man, except a couple of times when Adora and Glimmer were worried about Bow, and maybe Catra ranting about Hordak.
Oh, and Mermista dissing Sea Hawk, obvs.
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The whole destruction of Etheria is immaterial? Because that was the key to the most recent season… Catra talked about the princesses, Scorpia talked about Catra, Glimmer talked about Adora and Bow, Entrapta talked about first ones tech…
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Um … no? I was agreeing you. The female characters by and large don’t talk about men, mostly because they have more important things to talk about (and perhaps also because the number of actual or hinted at hetero relationships or attractions is significantly outweighed by the number of same-sex ones).
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Seems more on point lately.- though a Bechdelgram of comments here might be interesting. Which guys can only talk to guys?
Edit:
“ While searching for investors, Nagy and Berwin learned that the homosexuality of the characters was not as much of an obstacle as was that they were women. “Having two women leads was the issue”, Nagy noted.[6]”
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What’s the point of pointing this out?
You keep coming up with strategies to just “technically” pass the test, like you’re theorising token representation to satisfy a call for diversity in the shallowest way possible, as if that’s the goal. The point of the test is not to pass the test “technically” in a shadow sexist way, it’s to give more actors more options on screen than a singular “some guy’s support”.
There are countless ways it can be solved, because there are already countless examples of men having conversations without it being only about a woman. You don’t need to think of byzantine ways to satisfy a test that just asks for women to have more lines and conversations similar to what men currently and historically have.
It’s not something to treat as if it’s a technical impossibility, or an unfeasible paradox, or even slightly complicated.
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Yep. Gay porn does not pass the bechdel test.
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Not true! They talked about the nature of art (sense and sensibility) for example. But more importantly the narrative voice in Austen always let you know how much each person “was worth”, what their inheritance was etc. and how they were screwed by the laws of inheritance and therefore had to find a rich man.
Plus big chunks of the talking are actually letters back and forth to relatives in Bath rather than actually talking.
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We just watched the crown and GLOW. I’m pretty sure they had no difficulty passing either.
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one of my favorites from classic literature which would easily qualify under the bechdel test would be jane eyre. not only are thee numerous named female characters who converse about many things other than men, the character of jane eyre herself seems remarkably modern and independent of spirit.
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This is a very underrated film. The dark humor is awesome in it.
I wish my two favorite movies passed (The Fifth Element and The Birdcage). Sadly even if you counted effeminate male/gay characters as women they still fail. Thanks Val!!
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It’s one of my favorite horror films. Damn good choice!
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Imagine yourself a screenwriter. Someone contracts you to adapt a best selling technothhriller, with very few female characters. You will be judged on the faithfulness of your adaptation. There is a bonus if you can manage to make the screenplay pass the Bechdel test (as judged by http://bechdeltest.com), as some theater chain in Norway insists upon it.
No, the resulting product won’t be up to the standards of Virginia Woolf.
Has that happened?
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No.
But in Sweden:
But they’re not refusing to show films that don’t meet the test; they’re just indicating which films do. And it’s only four cinemas, by the sound of things independent art-house ones.
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Ah, but you said to imagine that I’m writing it, so it would be.
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I suppose so. I wouldn’t want to underestimate Hollywood cynicism.
There is a great deal of value to gender equity in Hollywood, and “two women talking about things other than men” might have been a good proxy for agency – and thus beefier roles, but now that the subjects know that they’re being tested-- does the test still hold?
Someone with this degree of imagination shouldn’t have any difficulty coming up with realistic, meaningful dialog for women characters. Unless they have some sort of focused writers block that only applies to some subjects.
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