Ghost of V

Re: Bechdel test
« Reply #20 on: December 19, 2014, 06:25:41 AM »
Dating is not a man.  Babysitting is not a man.  Therefore, it passes the test.  There are some variants to the test, like adding that the two characters have to be named, or that the conversation needs to last a certain length of time, but I don't like those.  The main reason why the test works so well in highlighting gender bias is its incredible simplicity, the fact that it's setting the bar very, very low - and yet so many films fail it anyway.  By throwing on little qualifiers and making it more complex, the test becomes less incredibly easy, and so the impact of failing such a test is lessened somewhat.

What about movies where the setting prevents the use of women or other similar situations. Are those movies exempt from the Bechdel test?

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Offline Ghost Spaghetti

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Re: Bechdel test
« Reply #21 on: December 19, 2014, 09:06:21 AM »
The Bechdel Test was invented as a mostly humorous way to highlight the lack of meaningful female main characters in films by blogger Julie (I think?) Beschdel. As a bar to leap over, having two female named characters discuss something other than boys isn't a particularly high one.

Obviously it isn't a hard and fast rule as Alien and Gravity would fail but quite a few porn films would pass. Some people do ttake it too seriouslybut most feminists realise that it was just a crude tool for pointing out a general problem, rather than a clinical tool to examine the feminist credentials of a film.