For a movie to pass The Bechdel Test, it must contain just one thing - a. Fox Searchlight Pictures. A lot of Hollywood films fail this test miserably and portray women in a sexist and unfair way. If you havent, then youre missing out on the creative genius that is Ilana Glazer and Abbi Jacobson. For a movie to pass The Bechdel Test, it must contain just one thing a scene in which two or more named female characters have a conversation (that is, back and forth dialogue) about anything at all besides men. Despite all the bitchy girl-on-girl crime that goes on though, at its heart this film is about female friendships and how complicated they can be. She-Ra and the Princesses of Power. 4. Rise Together is key to creating greater opportunity by providing you with the support, knowledge, and community to break through barriers. Finally, although we can guess what the result will be, I computed the male equivalent of the test: two male characters must talk about something other than a female character. The Bechdel Test (BT), which checks for a rudimentary level of female-centricity in media, has elsewhere been covered thoroughly for movies, with a crowd-sourced manual approach, but not, to my knowledge, for television, except at a high level or in very selected cases. The film follows three different possible outcomes for her actions and explores her relationships and interactions with the people and the world aroundher. A hobbit gets caught up in a huge war when he has to take a magic ring right to the bad guys front door. Heres an excerpt on research conducted on film and gender in 2021: After reaching historic highs in 2020, the percentages of women directing top grossing films declined in 2021. Most of the cast is female. Dead To MeJen and Judy are complicated. Whats not to love? Don't get too bogged down in the requirements of the Bechdel Test test though because even if you're not sure what it means, every film on this list is a great movie in its own right, so you won't be disappointed. They confront him, defeat him, age weirdly, and everyone lives happily everafter. Friends, Will and Grace, and Married With Children had more conversations between different gender characters than same gender. Director and Producer James Cameron first wrote the script in 1994 and it took a whole 15 years before the film was made and released. The women definitely rule the show and its no surprise that women are also behind the scenes as well here. Content copyright Journal Media Ltd. 2023 Registered in Dublin, registration number: Shes got a bit of a grudge. 3. for more than one minute of screen time. As with previous Ghostbusters movies, the busters are tracking down some ghosts who are wreaking havoc in New York. The WitcherAnd our second fantasy series is The Witcher, which, despite a lot of male energy (wayy more um, cleavage, in this one), does indeed pass the Bechdel test a few times Yennefer and Tissaias complicated relationship, as well as Ciri and Eithns short time together, and honestly probably more but were still working our way through this story (hey, we still have pandemic time to watch!). Here are our favorites! I assume Yeoman Rand and Sulu dont count. How to use Bechdel Test in a sentence. Another rule, that is sometimes included, is . How it passes: Both the main characters are named women, who talk to each other a lot about football, their families, and yes, occasionally boys. Scared her people will turn on her, she runs away and loses emotional control plunging the Kingdom into an eternal winter. The actresses, who play characters of the same first names, started the show as a web series that was later picked up by Comedy Central. Cinderella. The movie: The 2016 Ghostbusters (opens in new tab) film is technically the third film in the franchise, but actually serves as a reboot, replacing the four main male characters with female alternatives - played by Melissa McCarthy, Kristen Wiig, Kate McKinnon, and Leslie Jones. Yes, please. The Flight AttendantWe arent Big Bang Theory people, so we didnt have much of a frame of reference for Kaley Cuoco, but wow does she and her castmates do a spectacular job. But what makes this show pass the Bechdel test so handily is her relationship with her manager played by the brilliant Alex Borstein (she is everything). Land acknowledgements are a way for us to reflect upon the duality of our work while we work within our team, our community, and our client organizations to promote greater inclusivity and abolish inequities, we ourselves still perpetuate and contribute to various forms of historical and present oppression. There are braces, acne, and lots of humiliating moments. Summit Entertainment Its a good thing that she has good friends to help her do it. The show takes place in the beautiful town of Monterey, California, and follows three moms: Madeline, Celeste, and Jane. GamesRadar+ is part of Future plc, an international media group and leading digital publisher. Irish sport images provided by Inpho Photography Enter search term: Or, you can show the list for one or more years: It could have been so easy to write just ONE more female into the story. Having acquired hundreds of sitcom episode transcripts, I can apply the test programmatically to each episode of these . Miramax Films In one installment of her comic strip Dykes to Watch Out For, one character informs the other that she will only go to see films in theaters that have adequate female representation. Some Western animated shows would fail a reverse. She works closely with Abbey Whalen (Darby Stanchfield), and has numerous confrontations with First Lady (Bellamy Young). Okay, so, right, Atomic Blonde stars Theron as an MI6 agent who travels to Berlin as the wall is about to fall in order to retrieve a priceless dossier to take down an espionage ring. It also crushed the Golden Globes in 2017. Despite being a children's animation company, only 25% of the characters in it are female, only 4 out of 14 Pixar films pass the Bechdel test, and Brave is the only movie to have a female protagonist. Kristine Kochanski was a major character in seasons 7 and 8, but Holly had changed back to a male appearance by that point so I dont think Kochanski ever spoke to the female-looking version of Holly. Rise Together is key to creating greater opportunity by providing you with the support, knowledge, and community to break through barriers. There must be two female characters in the scene. Hidden FiguresThis top box office earner deserves every bit of its acclaim, and easily passes the Bechdel test. To identify female characters, I manually selected names from the list of all speaking characters in the dataset, including both major and minor characters, but excluding unnamed characters like Waitress. In three films, none of them says a word to each other. Fox Searchlight Pictures On June 30th, 2008, Jennifer Kesler . The model also addressed men profiting off her body. The Bechdel test is one of the most common ways that a movie or TV show's female representation can be judged. And you know when else Insecure passes the Bechdel test? To pass the Test, the movie must include at least two women, who have names in the film, and that have a conversation with each other about something other than a man. Probably because, well, just have a look at this article to see who sits behind the camera. "Glitch" is a drama that has earned its rightful place in any discussion about feminist science-fiction. Kee talks to revolutionary leader Julian and her midwife Miriam at many points throughout the movie, and its almost never about a man. These 11 iconic films, including "To All the Boys I've Loved Before" and "Mean Girls," pass with flying colors. TV shows tend to run far longer than movies and thus, most of them end up passing the Bechdel Test. Like Harry Potter, there are a few brief moments where female characters say a single line at each other, but they dont actually hold a conversationexcept in one scene, where Neytiri and her mother have a drawn out discussion. If there were ever a female landing party member and a love interest for Kirk in the same episodethey usually just glared at each other. The TV shows that have captivated audiences in lockdown include Unorthodox, Normal People, Killing Eve and I May Destroy You. They discuss many different topics through the film, including the trajectory of their lives after graduating high school, but rarely men. In a film about violence and mafiosos, Karen ( Lorraine Bracco) and Rosie ( Illeana Douglas) manage to squeeze in a Bechdel Test pass with a conversation about Florida. Heres how the test works a piece of fiction has to satisfy three requirements: Thats it. Growing up, TV was mostly used as a way to entertain oneself. del test/n. Beyond the central relationship between those two women, any time theres a moment between women features the show at its best. Registered office: 3rd floor, Latin Hall, Golden Lane, Dublin 8. Journal Media does not control and is not responsible Washington Post, many films and TV shows fail the Bechdel Test (Rosenberg, 2015). Grace and Frankie Over the years, there has been an increasing number of movies that pass the Bechdel test. Then again, its possible that the nurses exchanged at least a few lines complaining about their living conditions, talking about the war, etc., and a conversation about treating a patient who happens to be a man is arguably not really a conversation about a man. Fail. Besides Friends, Will and Grace, and Married With Children, the other shows have a lopsided number of male characters, so are unlikely to be left without a male-male storyline. Bilko, and those already mentioned, have a good chance of failing. There arent enough shows that embrace female insecurities. Plus, its not as though failing the Bechdel Test means a movie is automatically terrible or sexist. Heres how it works. Pixar's record in general is pretty poor. Its not always pretty, but its a true representation of female relationships. Theyre the kind of friends you can share all your embarrassing moments with because theyve seen (and done) it all. Even shows that are deemed feminist sometimes dont pass the testand, frankly, its frustrating. The test has three criteria: 1. the movie must have at least two female characters, 2. who talk to each other about something other than a man, and. It gets uncomfortable at times, but their stellar performances keep us glued. Plus, the entire film is about a young woman and her pregnancy (which could save the world), and the fact that the main character is a man is more incidental than anything else. The movie: Annies best friend is getting married so naturally shes Maid of Honor. There's a third named female character, Agent Maria Hill (Colbie Smulders), but she only directs orders to her staff and there's no dialogue. You will have a very real assessment of how much screen time this element has. I remember Skyler and Marie in early seasons arguing about Maries shop lifting. Does she have an interesting relationship with McAvoy? US cartoonist Alison Bechdel came up with the test in a 1985 comic strip: to pass, a film must have two female characters who speak about something other than a man. When they do interact its usually to talk about their place in society with regards to the men and their plans. More. And so are five other '90s tattoo styles. Easily passing the Bechdel test, Dead to Me brings together two women with completely different ways of being in the world together to deal with some wild bananas weird stuff. Thankfully, by Toy Story 3 Pixar had included a conversation between female . Users are reminded that they are fully responsible for their own While there are two female characters, Snow White and the Evil Queen, the latter is not given a name in the film. although I'm pretty sure Megillat Esther does not pass the Bechdel Test), the . All rights reserved. Data scientist and former climate physicist, with special interest in politics and sports analytics, Having acquired hundreds of sitcom episode transcripts. Powered by Discourse, best viewed with JavaScript enabled. Big Little Lies was produced by Reese Witherspoon and Nicole Kidman, two women who were sick of seeing women portrayed in a one-dimensional way. top of page. Sam Loveridge. #ForeverAlone. 6. Finally, the mother/daughter scenes have nothing to do with Bill and everything to do with The Bride realising that the reason for her revenge - her dead child - has actually been alive all this time. REVIEWS. The Bechdel Test, if you're not familiar with it, is a benchmark for movies developed by Alison Bechdel in 1985. For a movie or TV show to pass the test, it has to feature at least two women talking to each other about a topic other than a man. When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission. Here's 10 from the past 25 year that may surprise you. And this is despite the fact that Cate Blanchett is Liv Tyler's grandmother in the film, so it would have been completely possible for them to schedule some sort of visit together to say goodbye in case Middle Earth went down in flames! The Bechdel Test is a simple test which names the following three criteria: (1) it has to have at least two women in it, who (2) who talk to each other, about (3) something besides a man. It covers domestic violence, marriage hardships, and the misconception of perfection. In order to pass, the film or show must meet the following criteria: It includes at least two women, note who have at least one conversation, note about something other than a man or men. Her character, Cassie, is a fun-loving flight attendant who gets into a huge problem. By role, women accounted for 17% of writers (even with 17% in 2020), 26% of executive producers (up from 21% in 2020), 32% of producers (up from 30% in 2020), 22% of editors (even with 22% in 2020), and 6% of cinematographers (even with 6% in 2020).. Harry and his friends (several of whom are female) begin making their final moves to take down Lord Voldemort. and RollingNews.ie unless otherwise stated. 1. Lauren OCallaghan. Then it might be kinda shocking to find out that out of 2,500 movies, only about half pass the test. While Im pretty sure their husbands/boyfriends back home, and the 4077s doctors did come up, it was mostly about Margaret. Next up, consideration of film beyond this basic test. You can obtain a copy of the In 1985, American cartoonist Alison Bechdel. Theres a 99% chance youve seen at least one episode of Broad City. To pass the Bechdel Test, two female characters who have names must have a conversation with each other about something other than a man. Disney Movies That Don't Pass the Bechdel Test Pinnochio Dumbo Bambi Lady and the Tramp The Sword in the Stone The Jungle Book The Fox and the Hound The Great Mouse Detective Oliver & Company Aladdin The Lion King A Goofy Movie The Hunchback of Notre Dame This Canadian-made comedy about friends navigating motherhood will have you laughing out loud. Mrs. Maisel is about a woman who is getting a divorce from her husband who cheated on her and finds her voice as a comic in the 1950s/60s and to be clear, she is definitely seen as a female comic. Next on the list is the 2010 biographical drama movie The Social Network which also doesn't pass the Bechdel test. Theyre flawed, complicated, and sometimes make horrible decisions. The Bechdel Test is a measure of gender bias in movies. Land acknowledgements are a way for us to reflect upon the duality of our work while we work within our team, our community, and our client organizations to promote greater inclusivity and abolish inequities, we ourselves still perpetuate and contribute to various forms of historical and present oppression. Often, the two women must be named, prominent characters to meet the criteria. The rise in the overall number is due to increases in the percentages of women working as executive producers and producers. I think it's a show that has great female characters. Whether related to law, business, or politics, Diane, Lucca, Marissa, and Liz in particular had stunning moments of grace, confidence, and jaw dropping cool that we simply loved watching. Marvel Studios Her pregnancy is discussed with the surprisingly sympathetic assassin Karen Kim, plus her last talk with O-Ren Ishii in the snow in particular is touching as they gradually admit their respect for each other. A lot of episodes do pass, but not as many as youd think, and only barely. YAS! Cue epic action sequences, horrendously troublesome gameplay tactics, and even a little bit of romance. New Line Cinema The movie: Following the careers of the human computers Katherine Goble, Mary Jackson, and Dorothy Vaughn, Hidden Figures explores the rampant racism (and sexism) the three figureheads endured during their time working at NASA during the space race. Oh and hey, Meryl Streep is going to be in Season 2. Toy Story 1 & 2. But seriously, I cant remember two female characters even talking to each other. The test and its rules were first mentioned in Bechdel's 1985 comic strip Dykes to Watch Out For and has three (and later added four) simple rules: Shes not like those other girls because shes basically one of the guys. All Posts; The Rundown; Entertainment News . Kate McKinnon was everything. She joined GamesRadar+ in 2017, revitalizing the news coverage and building new processes and strategies for the US team. The data Im using are the same as introduced in this previous post: episodes transcripts for most episodes of seven major sitcoms from the last 30 years. With Kristen Wiig and Rose Byrne going head-to-head in this hilarious bridesmaid-off, expect a lot of laughs and plenty of super awkward moments. Theres maybe 3.5 major female characters (Skyler, Marie, Lydia who came in late, arguably Andrea) and they rarely talk to each other. GLOWThis Netflix series on its second season features a fictionalized account of how GLOW (Gorgeous Ladies of Wrestling) came to be a cultural phenomenon in the 1980s. At the time, hardly any films could pass it, and many forms of media still struggle to pass it today. Why? Tangled (rated PG): Rapunzel and Mother Gothel have enough interaction to help Tangled easily pass the test. 5. The dramedy follows Issa, her best friend Molly, and their other girlfriends as they navigate life in Los Angeles. While they both grapple with these feelings, we get to see how gorgeously complicated the human experience is through the lens of this intense and beautifully acted series. The movie: In this particular post-apocalyptic world, children are sent to battle to the death on TV. Its about a group of young gay men in San Francisco and the only named female character is Doris. CONTACT. In 1985, American cartoonist Alison Bechdel included the idea for the Bechdel test (also known as the BechdelWallace test) in a comic strip called The Rule. The Bechdel Test, if youre not familiar with it, is a benchmark for movies developed by Alison Bechdel in 1985. In fact, the example Bechdel gave as a film that passed the test was Alien, simply because Ripley and Lambert have a brief conversation about the alien. Lola must figure out how to come up with 100,000 Deutsche Marks in twenty minutes or her boyfriend will be killed. In 1985, American cartoonist Alison Bechdel. They exchange quips a few times, such as when Mrs. Weasley utters the iconic line of "Not my daughter, you bitch" to Bellatix as she protects Ginny. TV Show Recaps; TV Reviews; TV Lists; TV News & Trailers; TV Features; The L Word; The L Word: Generation Q; . Mary Berry Cooks / Headline Publishing Group The Bechdel Test (BT), which checks for a rudimentary level of female-centricity in media, has elsewhere been covered thoroughly for movies, with a crowd-sourced manual approach, but not, to my knowledge, for television, except at a high level or in very selected cases. Euphoria doesnt shy away from topics that would never have been included in a teen show ten years ago. Because representation matters, and many of the people writing, directing, and producing are still majority men.