The Bechdel Test, Female Presence in Film, and Buffy’s Abortion
Anita Sarkeesian of Feminist Frequency revisits the Bechdel Test, a simple gauge of female presence in film. For a film to pass the test, it must have at least two named female characters who talk to each other about something other than a man. You might think feature films of the supposedly progressive film industry would overwhelmingly pass the test, but you’d be wrong. In the video below, Sarkeesian looks at this year’s Oscar nominees for Best Picture, putting each to the test. I’ll let you watch the video to see how they do.
The Bechdel Test isn’t a measure of a film’s quality, of course. A truly great film can fail the test. Conceivably even a film with a predominantly female presence could fail it. As Sarkessian notes, the test is a useful tool for bringing to light a widespread problem: the failure of the film industry to tell women’s stories. Hollywood is male-centric, whether we’re talking about its testosterone flicks or its Oscar contenders. Only now, for example, are we getting a Pixar movie with a female lead.
Speaking of women’s stories, Joss Whedon, a writer known to take women’s issues very seriously in his work, has his famous heroine Buffy the Vampire Slayer getting an abortion. Catholic blogger Mark Shea is appalled, saying that Whedon has made “his act of obeisance to the iron and immutable pieties of his class by prostrating himself to Moloch and giving us Buffy the Baby Slayer.” According to Shea, abortion is the one sacred thing to the “Pelvic Left.”
I’m sorry, I have moral objections to abortion too, but this is plainly absurd. Women have abortions. No figurative libations are poured before an ancient Ammonite god because a pro-choice writer has a fictional character procure one. Sheesh. And if abortion is so sacred to the Left, why is Buffy’s decision to have an abortion actually rare for women in recent popular fiction? In the films Juno, Knocked Up, and Blue Valentine, for example, the choices are made against abortion.
Women choose abortion, whether legal or no, and they do so for a variety of reasons and in a variety of circumstances. Some regret the decision. Some are happy with it. Some stand by their decision but wish the choice could have been otherwise. If fiction, as Flannery O’Connor said, ought to give an honest representation of life, then abortion is a worthwhile subject for the fiction writer’s craft, whether that writer is pro-life or pro-choice.
The fiction writer may be concerned with truth, but the truth of fiction is not the truth of argument or proposition; it’s the truth that emerges from disclosure. I don’t look to fiction for an affirmation of my worldview; I look to it for an honest incarnation of the human condition.
A fun question to ask one’s wife when one’s wife is coming home from an evening out with “the girls”.
“Did your evening pass the Bechdel test?”
Wait. Fun may not be the word.
You’re totally asking for something snarky there.
(I’d favor something involving strip poker, myself)
You let me know about that one, Jaybird.
The only way out is through.
“Dear, I’m not saying that your dinner wouldn’t have made a good movie anyway.”
I double dog dare you.
Off hand, anyone know if Bridesmaids passed? The first ten minutes I lasted before bailing for Transformers didn’t get it done.
I refuse to entertain the idea that there are worse moviegoing experiences than Transformers.
Bridesmaidsis certainly a better movie, but on that particular day I just wasn’t up to it (I was there with my sister, mom, and gf, with my sister enthusiastically seeing it a second time; I felt put-upon to laugh. Also, the early-going sex scene was a rough go for me in that viewing party. I just needed some explosions.). I enjoyed the part of Trasnformers (3) I saw that day. But then, I liked the first TFs. I just think Shia LeBoeuf’s energy works onscreen, and whatever else you might want to say about him, Michael Bay can construct an image. And I’m not sure anyone does more with CGI right now than him, though others certainly use it more creatively.)
Haven’t seen it yet.
Does Sex and the City pass the Bechdel Test?
Serious question.
Yes. In the vid, Sarkeesian actually uses it as an example of a movie (along with Catwoman and Sucker Punch) as movies that pass the Bechdel test but are still bad. (She uses Moon & WallE as two that don’t but are great.)
It seems unfair to apply this test to movies with (in the case of WallE) non-human main characters and (in the case of Moon) a guy on a moonbase by himself.
Interesting that S&C passes, though.
It’s perhaps illustrative to recall that the “Bechdel Test” was invented by a lesbian character in a comic strip. In other words, it was invented with the assumption that women are primarily interested in women’s interactions with each other rather than women’s interactions with men.
So for instance, the most overwhelmingly female genre is romance. It’s a genre which is overwhelmingly written and read by women, and yet the basic romance formula centers entirely on the interaction between a woman and a man. According to the theory of this video-maker, this would mean that it’s a male dominated genre which ignores the concerns of women. But in fact, it’s a female dominated genre which panders to the interest of women.
What she seems to be missing is that most women are not lesbian comic strip characters, and are not necessarily most interested primarily in the interactions between women with no references to men.
So this comment made me wonder about Thelma and Louise. Clearly not a male-dominated movie, but off the top of my head at least I can’t be sure it would pass the test.
Of course another line of feminist critique could be that such a movie demonstrates the power of the dominant masculinity of our culture–that the female characters aren’t actually “acting” independently, but only “reacting” to masculine dominance, thus demonstrating how hard it is even for feminist-themed storylines to break out of the dominant cultural paradigm.
Thelma and Louise does indeed pass the test.
As the vidblogger takes pains to point out – this is not about a single movie, many of which may have all sorts of redeemable qualities (including romance literature), but about the general dearth of women-outside-of-men’s-existence existence as portrayed in film… something she hammers home at the end when she’s talking about movies with people of color.
It’s a very general measure, but I don’t think it utterly lacks merit. One would think, if women were given representative presence in film*, that there would be more instances of women talking about women (or two women scientists talking about science, or two women doctors talking about health, or two women anything talking about a professional topic. Instead those scenes are hugely dominated by two men or one man and the Token Female talking about the subject. Pop quiz: in Jurassic Park, how many characters were women?)
* I don’t expect all film to do this; most film is commercial, and aimed at a market, and most merchandizing/high value tie-in film market targets are young men, so that’s to be expected. Still, it is interesting that in the art house category or in the Oscar “best pictures” category, there’s still an underrepresentation of women characters even as “Lab Scientist 1” or “Congressman interviewed by Reporter”.
Well stated, Patrick.
“One would think, if women were given representative presence in film*, that there would be more instances of women talking about women (or two women scientists talking about science, or two women doctors talking about health, or two women anything talking about a professional topic. ”
“Rizzolli and Isles” (which I don’t watch so can’t evaluate the quality) and “Body of Proof” (which may be cancelled soon, alas) both fit this criteria. The pairing on R&I is cop / coroner, and on BoP is coroner / boss.
According to the theory of this video-maker, this would mean that it’s a male dominated genre which ignores the concerns of women. But in fact, it’s a female dominated genre which panders to the interest of women.
Having never read a romance novel, I can’t testify to the degree to which entries in the genre would pass the test, but as to your comment, the two are not mutually exclusive. A romance novel could have more female characters than male characters, and yet frame the meaning, interests, and concerns of the female characters in terms of the less “present” male characters.
In any case, the Bachdel test isn’t a comprehensive analysis of the presence of women in fiction; it doesn’t tell us everything, but when applied to a set of stories, it tells us something. That a movie featuring one woman character who is also the only character in the story–a film with 100% female representation–would fail the Bechdel test isn’t evidence against it. It shows it limits, but these are limits the test acknowledges.
I haven’t read a whole lot of romance novels, but the books I’ve read by Catherine Cookson and Diana Gabaldon pass the Bechdel test, as does a lot of female-oriented television like Gilmore Girls or Judging Amy, and classical novels like Jane Eyre.
Most women have friends, jobs, children, interests – all sorts of things to talk about in addition to men. The Bechdel test doesn’t state that the women can’t EVER talk about men. Just that they have to talk about something else AS WELL, which most women do pretty much daily.
“…it was invented with the assumption that women are primarily interested in women’s interactions with each other rather than women’s interactions with men.” Uh, no. It simply questions the idea that a woman will always talk with another woman about her relationship to males.
True: “…the most overwhelmingly female genre is romance.” But, that doesn’t mean that women don’t read or are not interested in mysteries, tales of horror, historical fiction, fantasy, science fiction, or even non-fiction books on philosophy, religion. So, why isn’t this depicted in films?
“What she seems to be missing is that most women are not lesbian comic strip characters, and are not necessarily most interested primarily in the interactions between women with no references to men.” One, you seem to assume that if women are not talking about their relationships with men, they must be talking about their relationships with other women. This may come as a surprise: although, as a general rule, women are more focused on human relationships than men are, women are also doctors, secretaries, politicians, directors of non-profits, cops, investment bankers, H.R. Directors, and accountants. Therefore, from time to time, they have to speak with their female colleagues about issues on the job or within their profession. Why isn’t this depicted in films?
Two, there has never been the assumption in the Bechdel test that women are “primarily interested in women’s interactions with each other.” Where did you get that from? Simply because its author is a lesbian?
Having never read a romance novel, I can’t testify to the degree to which entries in the genre would pass the test, but as to your comment, the two are not mutually exclusive. A romance novel could have more female characters than male characters, and yet frame the meaning, interests, and concerns of the female characters in terms of the less “present” male characters.
I did read a stack of Georgette Heyer romances once — but since I had a high fever at the time, my memories are a little vague. What brought that to mind, however, was an essay in a collection of “writers on writing” pieces that my wife was reading a couple months ago. This essay was on “Crafting the Genre Romance” and it was written by a female romance author and for (one assumes female) aspiring romance writers. Since my wife despises romance novels she ended up reading a lot of the essay aloud to me for amusement. One of the major points the author focused on was that the genre romance much trim out all elements which do not relate directly to the male love interest[s] of the female main character. She advocated that some plot device be put in place such that the two characters are together for the entire novel, but if they should be separate for any scenes, she insisted that any scene which did not directly relate to the developing romance itself be cut.
Now, this sounds to me like a recipe for a really tiresome book. (No surprise: I don’t read romance novels.) But I think it underlines one of the several problems that underline how stupid the “Bechdel test” is. It assumes that women and men form separate, closed, and competing worlds, and that if women are talking about or interacting with men, rather than with each other, then somehow men’s interests are being served rather than women’s. Maybe this makes sense if its crafted from the point of view of a lesbian comic strip character — comic strip characters not being known for having deep tastes of any sort, especially literary ones — but it makes little sense when applied to a lot of real people.
If one takes romance novels, “chick flicks”, etc. as evidence, most women have more than a passing interest in stories about relationships between women and men. This isn’t because the stories “frame the meaning, interests, and concerns of the female characters in terms of the less “present” male characters” but rather because the women readers and authors are interested in relationships between women and men.
The Bechdel test, however, assumes that women are not interested in anything relating to men, and that if women talk to men or talk about men, that somehow men are “winning”.
Yeah. of course. But the bechdel test is about two things:
1) Are the characters seen as anything more than wish fulfillment, cardboard cutouts?
2) Is there an A Plot? Any A Plot at All???
FWIW, having read a couple of romance novels (sci-fi, mostly) — most of them pass. It’s kinda hard to have a grand “gotta save the world!” with a female protagonist, and to have them Not Encounter Another Woman.
But the bechdel test is about two things:
1) Are the characters seen as anything more than wish fulfillment, cardboard cutouts?
2) Is there an A Plot? Any A Plot at All???
That seems odd, because whether a movie meets its criteria does not provide a definitive answer to either of those questions.
I have to side with Darwin hear. The Bechdel test does not speak to these issues.
But I think it underlines one of the several problems that underline how stupid the “Bechdel test” is. It assumes that women and men form separate, closed, and competing worlds, and that if women are talking about or interacting with men, rather than with each other, then somehow men’s interests are being served rather than women’s.
If some critic uses the test in this way, then you have a basis to call this use stupid, but the test itself is a limited tool. You’re dismissing the test, and perhaps the conclusions one can draw from it, by treating it as something that it’s not: an exhaustive, comprehensive analysis. It’s an insufficient but useful gauge of the extent to which women in fiction are autonomous characters. There’s nothing stupid about it, even if there are stupid ways of using it. I fear you’re approaching the test in basically the same way as someone who thinks it says all that needs to be said about women’s presence in fiction.
This.
Yeah, I think Kyle and I are on the same page about this.
A litmus test is a litmus test. It’s supposed to tell you if the thing you’re testing is acidic or basic. You don’t use a litmus test and then say, “Hey, this thing rates a 2, that’s a sucky number!” Let’s say we have a litmus test that just tests for sweetness and sourness.
If you have a banquet table and you test all of the dishes on the table and they all come in under 6, it’s perfectly legitimate to say, “This entire banquet table trends towards the tart, a better balanced banquet would have a few more sweet dishes. Especially since half of the dishes that are in this cuisine are known for being sweet.”
Maybe each one of the individual dishes is a great representation of the dish; that’s not the point. The blogger isn’t saying that a tart lemon sorbet isn’t as good as a sweet lemon sorbet. She’s just pointing out that there ain’t much sweet at the table. It’s about the table, not the dishes.
It’s an insufficient but useful gauge of the extent to which women in fiction are autonomous characters.
As with Kimmi’s explanation, I don’t see how it does this. You could very well have autonomous woman characters who nonetheless don’t fulfill all the test’s criteria, and you could most certainly have non-autonomous characters who fulfill it. (Throw two named woman characters in and have them discuss a pair of shoes and presto, the movie passes. That would be a great feminist moment, eh?)
Now, I guess the argument would be that it’s useful despite producing a lot of false negatives and false positives, but I guess that’s where my bias against litmus tests of all kinds kicks in. I don’t like simplistic tests that don’t actually measure what they purport to.
Again, you’re asking more of the test than it purports to give. It’s not an assessment of female character autonomy in fiction, but a basic minimal standard of what one might expect to see across fiction with strong female representation. The insights of the test emerge when looking at the large set of films that fail to meet the criteria. It doesn’t really tell us much on a case by case basis. As Patrick says, it’s about the table, not the individual dishes.
What I think a lot of people are trying to get at–and you’re missing in your comment above–is that the test is more useful as a tool when evaluating a large number of films. If any one movie fails the test, that doesn’t necessarily tell you anything. But if 80% of all films fail the test–including the biggest classics, arthouse films, etc–then that tells you something valuable.
Serious mode, kinda:
The main thing I noted was the implication that the year’s biggest grossing films overwhelmingly didn’t pass the Bechdel test (the Oscar films were counted, not the top grossers) and my main response to that is to say that folks need to vote with their dollars.
If the main thing you want is movies that do X well, then pour your dollars into those movies. See them in the theater, tell your friends to see it, make a movie night for the group to see it. When the movie comes out, buy it new on DVD or Blu-Ray and buy a second copy and give it as a gift (and tell your friends who are aware to do the same).
The only language Hollywood understands is money and if they make a movie that does this sort of thing and it bombs, then they’ll be twice shy. If they make a movie that makes bank, they’ll make another.
“The only language Hollywood understands is money and if they make a movie that does this sort of thing and it bombs, then they’ll be twice shy.”
I’ve got to disagree with you on that. General Electric’s CEO didn’t purchase Universal Studios because it would make the billion dollar corporation a lot of money: he bought it because it would bring him celebrity and the chance to hang around young starlets the rest of the world lusts after. Holocaust movies are not made because they’re more likely to make a lot of money, but because there are many Jewish people, who are more likely to be affected by their messages, in positions of power in the movie industry. The documentary, “Bully,” is certainly not guaranteed to make a lot of money, but its producers, the Weinsteins, feel passionately about its theme, and, therefore, spent a lot of time and effort promoting it.
Of course, money is a primary consideration in whether a movie is made or a studio is bought, but it is not the only consideration. Male vanity, people’s history, a trending social issue can also be powerful motivators.
I’m very disappointed with the whole thing myself. Society as a whole needs to respect human life in all its stages and stop treating human beings like throwaway trash. There’s no need to kill when a child can be put up for adoption. And it’s stupid that no one ever seems to think of adoption. I still don’t think we know the final outcome, unless that last comic did go all the way through, but if it ends up that way, it’s quite possibly enough to make me say goodbye to the fandom.
I’m glad Whedon dealt with the abortion theme. I haven’t read the comic, but knowing Whedon, I’m sure he handled the topic sensitively.
“Society as a whole needs to respect human life in all its stages.” Except not all human beings believe that zygotes’, embryos’, or even fetuses’ right to exist trumps the right of a woman to autonomy over her own body. Some people believe that the fully-developed human being providing the life support system and risking her health, and, in very rare instances, even her life so that zygotes, embryos, and fetuses may live has the final decision.
For myself, I believe that, although human, fetuses don’t become human beings until they’re viable outside the womb (at about 24 weeks). Zygotes, embryos, fetuses may have human DNA, the blueprints for a human being, but without those 24 weeks of nourishment and support in their mothers’ wombs, they have not attained “human being” status. Until 24 weeks the decision to abort should be left up entirely to the woman and her doctor. After 24 weeks, abortion should be limited to those cases in which a doctor decides that a woman’s life or long-term health is seriously at risk; a judge decrees that incest or rape has ocurred; or, a doctor decides that the fetus is severely deformed, genetically diseased, or not viable.
That is not to say that zygotes, embryos, or fetuses before 24 weeks don’t have value; they do. Society should work to keep abortions legal, safe, as early in pregnancy as possible, and as rare as possible. How?
1) By funding sex education training flexible enough to accommodate a wide variety of religious beliefs or background. The training should be web-based, designed for parents, and allow them to impart their values to their children during the process. The training should be broken down into separate modules that parents can pick and choose which to use. The modules should include lesson plans on the following:
A) Starting the conversation about sex with your children. Continuing/maintaining the conversation.
B) The Basics of Sex: the mechanics of the male and female reproductive systems.
C) Girls’ Unit: more in-depth information targeting girls.
D) Boys’ Unit: more in-depth information targeting boys.
E) The Risks of Sex: Sexually Transmitted Diseases; pregnancy and its health risks, especially for young teens; potential emotional trauma; long-term financial risks; and risks to social status among different types of communities.
F) Abstinence Only Training (Sex is Permitted Only in Marriage).
G) Abstinence First Training, but includes contraception (Sex is inappropriate for teenagers, and should only be conducted in committed, loving relationships between mature adults).
H) Sex is Natural (No abstinence training), but includes contraception.
I) The varieties of Sexual Experience, including heterosexuality, homosexuality, anal sex, oral sex, fetishes, and S & M.
2) By funding pregnant girls’/womens’ homes, supporting adoption services, providing nice tax-breaks to those who adopt unwanted children.
3) By funding OPTIONAL counseling services and/or web-based training at Planned Parenthood and other health clinics for women about to have abortion that provide information about other options: The counseling services and/or web-based training would be module-based, and women could pick and choose from the following options:
A) Images and descriptions of zygotes, embryos, and fetuses shown at various stages of development throughout pregnancy.
B) Images and descriptions of various methods of abortion throughout the stages of pregnancy.
C) Health risks of pregnancy vs. health risks of abortion
D) Information on community resources that provide options other than abortion: pregnant girls’/womens’ group homes; adoptions; and church groups and non-profits willing to help girls and women continue their pregnancies.
E) Referrals to ongoing counseling and services should the woman decide to forgo the abortion.
Abortion is a morally neutral act? To treat it as such is already to make a moral assertion. Buffy might as well have blown her nose or taken a dump.
In which case, her abortion is as dramatically compelling as a yeast infection. Now that’s entertainment!