The Bechdel Test for Women in Movies

"Chick flicks" are no better at passing this test though. Basically the movies that the Not a Teen movie satire franchise is built on...

Movies like "Now and Then," The Sisterhood of the Travelling Pants," "Bend it Like Beckam" or "Devine Secrets of the YaYa Sisterhood" where the men are not necessarily the primary characters who drive the plot, is what the Bechdel test sorts.

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i don't think i've ever seen a "chick flick", never dated a girl that liked them, thank god

I think this says more about the job prospects for female actors than anything else....

Even the folks commenting on http://bechdeltest.com/ admit that the test isn't an indicator of whether the movie is misogynistic or pro-women.

Well I think this test is bunk. If it's a chick flick, naturally the conversation will be about men. Duh.

If it's an action, naturally there will be more male interaction.

This whole thing is a stretch.

http://bechdeltest.com/statistics/


I think the video made it seem like it's really hard to find movies that pass.

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Quentin Tarantino usually has a variety of inspirations behind each film. A major inspiration for Kill Bill was the 1968 film, The Bride Wore Black. I saw this film with a group of college students in 1969 who cheered the boldness of Jeanne Moreau's character. She does not let anything get in her way to accomplish her mission. I highly recommend this movie.

My favorite film passes the muster if the test doesn't strictly define women simply by their age:
Spirited Away

But I really can't see this as a problem. The issue should be about strong female leads in movies. But if they chose to frame the debate in this light then their situation wouldn't appear so immediately dire.

Why not stack the decks in their favor have a test on whether a film has two or more wheelchair bound females? And when they're together, do they talk about astrophysics?

I love movies and I love films with strong female lead characters but I can't see the point of this alleged problem. To be fair, I am aware of my gender bias. And in this age of technology and accessibility to digital film equipment, those persons spending time complaining can if they chose produce movies more tailored to their liking. Or they can support those movies that do pass the test and give influence to the studios that these types of films are viable and worthwhile creative and financial exercises.

By the way? Does Aliens pass the test?
Two women: Ellen Ripley talks to the Queen Alien and not about men.

You're forgetting Newt.

Edit: There was a female marine, too, but I don't recall if they ever had any dialogue.

Re-edit: The Bechdel site says the movie passes the test.

The alphabetized list of titles to date is here. A 'smiley' icon indicates it passed the test:

http://bechdeltest.com/sort/title

I listed several on the previous page that I thought should have passed. Only one is listed, though...Girl, Interrupted.

I didn't forget Newt as I think our beloved social scientist would denounce that she technically wasn't a woman. If you take children into account then that would allow a greater amount of movies to pass the test and their idea in presenting this test is to claim: Whoa is us!! We are such an underrepresented population in films.

8 femmes
Beetle Juice
Contact;
Coraline;
Howl's Moving Castle;
Jurassic Park;
Parent Trap;
Persepolis;
Etc....

If she's complaining about the failure of big budgeted Hollywood films then she has the case. But I believe her thesis stated a film studio system wide failure (including independent and foreign films).

On matters of positively promoting female stories, I think some movies will pass that do the opposite.


It passes all three tests, but only on a technicality: Not EVERY conversation is about a man.

I doubt that the Bechdel test will parade this example around as being a great show of women's stories, and yet some stories which don't pass the test probably should be paraded around.

It would be interesting to see tests on films and domestic abuse depictions.

Does the film have a incident of domestic violence?
Is the aggressor a male or female?
Is the victim/survivor a male or female?

If the goal is having a larger presence of women in film roles, certainly that would extend to playing villains and bad-guys too right?

A good film to capture just about everything I'm talking about: The Virgin Suicides. In the film, there are several named female speaking roles who talk to each other and discuss things other than just boys. The main antagonist of the film is also female: Their mother.



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Cr0ssr0ads?!

MY EYES BURN!! AUGGHHH!!
Thinking about that God AWFUL film, my ears are starting to bleed out!!

Me, too, but it is an obvious choice, as are Fried Green Tomatoes and Nine to Five.

One of the movies in that file was How Harry Met Sally.

Although I happen to be a bit obsessed with Fringe, the female character Olivia is the moral center. While her relationships with others are limited by her character being an FBI agent investigating weird events, she has a relationship with a junior agent, with her sister and her niece. In fact, JJ Abrams and his crew wanted to make a genre series which was character driven.

I've thought long and hard & it is extremely difficult, boomerang.
Even in one of my all time favourites, All About Eve, with two women (Bette Davis, Anne Baxter) in prominent roles & other women (Marlyn Munroe, etc, in good supporting roles) the main focus is: who gets the man?

I've all but given up trying to find a film that fills the bill! Too hard!

1. how many women in debbie does dallas?
2. do they have names?
3. oh wait!

http://www.buzzfeed.com/adamdavis/the-nerdiest-jokes-of-2013

When i first saw Doris Day's Calamity Jane as a kid in the 1950's she blew my
socks off because it showed me that not all women were neurotic wimpy
crinoline-and-lace airheads, but could also be like us men..

My 29 y/o son love Mariska Hargitay. As he said, "She's beautiful but not in a conventional way and she seems to become more attractive with age."