All of the Twilight films pass the Bechdel Test, and Beasts Of The Southern Wild fails.
I think it is less that the point is going over peopleās heads and more that they are actively trying to avoid it.
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I sense a lot of sourness over the test. Way more than appropriate for what it is, and what itās a metric of. I hate to put it this way, but itās almost like it disturbs people to imagine women characters with their own storylines. It might even lead to- *gasp* movies that have no important male characters in them at all! Never mind that the reverse is not only common, but the pallid, yawnworthy, and inexcusable norm.
Itās not about deciding, once and for all and beyond all doubt, the entirely subjective and valueless question of: Is this a good movie? It merely helps answer the following question:
Whether among the multitude of people involved in the writing, production, and direction of a film- one person stopped to think about maybe adding a third dimension to female characters.
Thatās it. Nothing more. Nothing less. Whether that criteria makes sense for the subject of the film is another completely different question.
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The surest way to pass this test is for the main character to be a woman (if the movie is primarily about a character) and to ensure that two women have a conversation at some point.
I meanā¦hey, itās a ātestā that came from a comic. It bothers me a little that there are websites devoted to analyzing movies and other works of fiction to see whether they pass or not, but itās just a little.
As annoying as the test can beāsome really good movies fail the test, and some pretty terrible movies pass the testāitās more a datapoint to figure out whether women in a piece of fiction are doing something other than fawning over the men. Having just slogged through, of all things, a Star Trek novel series where the story passes the test, but the women (including established characters like Deanna Troi and Ezri Dax) might as well have been cardboard standups, Iād like to see someone come up with something better.
EDIT: Hereās an op-ed on The Guardian about it. I agree: the original ātestā is clearly tongue-in-cheek, and itās an awfully narrow metric to judge a work by. Stillā¦hey, hey Hollywood? Itās okay if you put teh wimminz in your movies, I swear.
Also when Judge Anderson meets the bad judge and shots her in the face.
ā¦ Oh that was factually challenged.
I mean reading the Guardian piece makes it sound as if
a) Bio Rio is NOT a small artsy movie-lounge.
b) films not getting an A will be banned.
Its a good idea I think but on the other hand, I hadnāt heard of it until now from BB and Iām from Sweden and live here. Its just a thing where movie theaters tries to point out that sexism in movies exists (just like the Bechdel test was ment to be used) and that its an issue.
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Also āSharknadoā passes, I hear. I didnāt see it.
Cegev
āthatās exactly what this story is about it being used for.ā
Itās not being used to rate the quality of these films, only if these films pass this one test. Itās not about quality, itās about representing gender perspectives. Just because Koyaanisqatsi fails the test doesnāt mean itās a good or bad film, it just means it doesnāt include diverse gender perspectives (which, well, yeah).
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My right arm would be, anyway.
The test is mainly to highlight the lack of those simple things. I explained it to my husband (who doesnāt internet) and asked him to think of all the movies heās seen on TV over the past year. He loves Westerns and action films, so duh. Most of them seem to have added one token female just to say they have a female. Sometimes there are two, but since they are attached to two different male ensemble characters, they never meet. Or occasionally, the two female characters may be attached to the same man, in which case any conversation between them would be about him. See, Iāve just described every Western and action film there is. Outliers like Alien and Gravity donāt really count as there arenāt enough characters for those factors to make any difference.
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So, films that meet the standard are rated XX?
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They should probably mention if a film fails the reverse test (two male characters having a conversation thatās not about a woman) as well. I canāt think of many that fail both tests (Gravity, Before Sunrise, Koyaanisqaatsi), but there a few other good shows that do. And it would be interesting to see what the trend is for general inclusiveness or balance.
Men and their stories are underrepresented in film?
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The only ones I can think of is the second Sex In the City movie, and perhaps Fried Green Tomatoes? I suppose any film that centers around lesbians has a higher chance, but thereās not a huge quantity of those.
Re-watch it and discover for yourself!
They obviously didnŹ»t see Strange Frame when it played in Sweden last month!
http://twitchfilm.com/2012/05/sci-fi-london-2012-strange-frame-review.html
Availiable on Netflix, iTunes, Amazon and virtually everywhere else - the worldŹ»s first animated sci-fi musical with lesbian heroes.
Films that fail the reverse Bechdel off the top of my head: Rachel Getting Married, The Ring, Spirited Away, Melancholia, Black Swan, Juno, The Descent, Steel Magnolias, WALL-E.
Iām just suspecting that the category of films that fail the reverse Bechdel is as broad in terms of quality and subject matter as films that fail the Bechdel testā¦
The Bechdel test says nothing about the quality of a film. If a film passes the test, it does not mean that the film is feminist. If a film fails the test, it does not mean that the film is misogynistic. A film can even be centered around a woman and fail the test. Also, no one is demanding that every film passes the test. The test is a commentary on the film industry in general.
The Bechdel Test Move List currently contains 4522 movies ( http://bechdeltest.com/ ). Of those, 55.7% pass all three points of the test while 10.2% pass none of them:
The test indicates that women and their stories are not being represented in film. It indicates a problem (although I am sure there are people who do not think it is important for women to be represented in movies). The āreverse Bechdel testā is not very useful because there is not a widespread problem of men not interacting with other men.
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I got that. Youāre a biologist?
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Thanks for the tip, Iāll look into it!
