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Articles
The Bechdel Test
Written by Emmanuelle Erny-Newton, Media Education Specialist
with the Media Awareness Network
Next time you are watching a movie, ask yourself this easy three-part question:
1. Are there at least two female characters…
2. …who talk to each other about…
3. …subjects other than men?
This test is called the Bechdel Test, named after its creator, Alison Bechdel. It originated from her comic Dykes to Watch Out For in a 1985 strip called “The Rule” . The series, which debuted in 1983, was one of the first to show lesbians in popular culture.
At first glance, the test may make you smile: how could a movie not meet these three easy rules? Look back at the most recent movies you have watched: in my case, Angels and Demons and Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time. These movies don’t even have enough female characters to get past the first part of the question. Perhaps Sherlock Holmes? This movie passes the first part of the question, but then none of the female characters interact with each other. What about Avatar? Two of its central characters are female, but when ever they talk to each other it’s always about the men in the film.
Jennifer Kesler recounts that when she was a film student at UCLA, she was encouraged by her professors to apply certain rules to her screenplays. “I had to understand that the audience only wanted white, straight, male leads. (…) I could still offer groundbreaking characters of other descriptions (fascinating, significant women, men of color, etc.) – as long as they didn’t distract the audience from the white men they really paid their money to see.”
After multiple attempts at screenplays using that style (conventional heroes and interesting, atypical supporting characters), there was still something wrong: “My scripts had multiple women with names. Talking to each other. About something other than men.” Why would this be a problem? She was told “audiences weren’t interested in women talking about whatever it is women talk about.”
So the reason we get the same movies over and over is because of us, the audience. The strange thing is, there are plenty of movies featuring female leads that aren’t box office flops: Alien, Terminator, and Silence of the Lambs are just three examples. As for the “white hero” prerequisite, Will Smith and Eddie Murphy, as the third and fourth highest paid actors in Hollywood in 2009, surely don’t fit that mould.
So why would movie makers want to go against their own financial interests? According to Kesler, this reaction is similar to American restaurant owners who refused to serve black clients: they were willing to hurt their businesses in order to protect their belief system. The difference is that Hollywood has a much bigger cultural influence, which means that the beliefs held by people within the movie industry – even if they’re mistaken – are perpetuated.
This is where the Bechdel test becomes a particularly interesting educational study of current media: it’s short and sweet and more palatable than a long (dis)course about sexual stereotypes. Think of it as a media literacy lesson made up of just three lines, so easy to explain that it can become automatic when watching movies and so fun that it can spread virally.
The other day, my 9-year-old daughter wanted to watch Amélie, which she hadn’t yet seen. The story is magnificent and particularly poignant for a young girl her age. At the end of the movie, I asked her if she had liked it. Her response: “Very much so! And at least this one passed the Bechdel test!”
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