The Problem with the Bechdel Test

The thing about changes in media that come to reflect changing ideas about political correctness is that there isn’t really any way to measure their “political correctness” or offensiveness, or what have you. This is why we’ve got condescending movies that are supposed to be about “race relations” like, say, “Crash” or “Driving Miss Daisy.” There’s no real way to say “this is or isn’t condescending.” On the flipside of that, look at something like “Sweet Sweetback’s Badassss Song.” That bad boys appears to be  extraordinarily blacksploitation. But it was directed by a Black man and was even shown to the likes of the Black Panthers.

            That’s why the Bechdel—or Bechdel-Wallace—test is used so much by media critics as a sort of short hand for judging how “feminist” a book/movie/comic book/what have you is. This is in spite the problems with the concept itself.

For those of you who don’t know, the Bechdel test is named after a certain Ms. Alison Bechdel who first introduced the world to the test in her comic strip “Dykes to Watch Out For”. The test goes that in order for a book/movie/comic book/what have you to be considered “feminist,” it has to fulfill three criteria: one, there has to be more than one female character; two they have to talk at some point; and three, it has to be about something other than guys. Some have added the caviat that they also can’t be talking aobut stereotypically “female” things like shoes, make-up or gossip, and while I’m writing this, I feel a second caviat should be that they aren’t obviously flirting, but you get the general idea.

Now this seems like a fairly easy test to pass, but just see how many movies or books or videogames can actually boast having passed just by rattling them off in your head. Not many come to mind, do they?

Hell apparently there’s even a sort of “race” Bechdel test where it has to be two non-white characters discussing something other than white characters.

This all seems pretty straight forward until you give it a bit more thought. How many of those movies, books or videogames you were counting off in your head were not only genuinely good but also had definite feminist themes under the hood. Movies like Mulan, for example, or even Return of the King, just because they have the one single female character amongst dozens of men. Terminator 2, whose has Sarah Connor, one of the more popular female action stars among feminists, doesn’t pass.

Not only that, but there are definitely very misogynistic movies out there that would pass, or, to use a better word, break, the Bechdel Test. Showgirls for example, a movie which could best be summarized as “The Room” but with strippers, passes/breaks, if only because of the following exchange between two characters whose names I’m way to lazy to look up.

“I like nice tits. Do you like nice tits?”

“I like having nice tits.”

Try telling me that any movie which has those two lines could possibly, in any way, shape or form be called feminist.

Not only that but both My Immortal, a fan fic which makes the Star Wars prequel trilogy look like Godfather two by comparison, and fucking Twilight(technically) of all things passes/break the Bechdel test. And if feminists can agree on anything it’s that the most important thing in life is having a boyfriend, especially one whose a century old and watches you while you sleep.

This doesn’t even begin to go into detail about how most lesbian porn (not the kind directed at lesbians) makes the Bechdel test cave in on itself.

To be fair, in the original comic she lampshades these inherent flaws by the character who suggests the concept saying that the last movie she saw that passed the test was “Alien,” and while it certainly has feminist themes—not as many as “Aliens,” though, but that’s just me—it’s not exactly what comes to mind when someone thinks of “feminist cinema.” Needless this little tidbit goes unmentioned in videos like this

Let me be clear here. I am not trying to discount the Bechdel test. All I’m saying is that the Bechdel test is a bit of blunt object when it comes to literary analysis. It gets the job done, but in the end, literary analysis is an exact science, and trying to rely too heavily on the Bechdel test is like using a leatherman knife to do an autopsy. I suppose you can try, but instead of trying to twist to be exactly what you want, why not just use an actual knife.