The Bechdel Test: What do Harry, Frodo and Han Solo have in Common?
Media is pretty screwed and it's affecting how we perceive things. With an ever increasing middle class and thriving local market for Hollywood, we can't afford to ignore the pitfalls of global entertainment much longer.
The Bechdel test is one of the numerous tools used to test inherent biases of Hollywood. It was designed to gauge the extent of minimum female representation in works of art. In its primary form, a movie has to have three things to pass the Bechdel test.
1.Two named women
2.Who talk to each other
3.Who talk to each other about something other than men
Pretty simple, eh? Hollywood doesn't think so. It's been nearly three decades since Alison Bechdel introduced the idea and yet, of the nine movies nominated for Oscar best picture in 2011, only two passed the Bechdel test. In recent years, only 30 percent of women spoke in movies, let alone spoke to each other. Evidently, something is really wrong.
From the onset, let's concede that the Bechdel test doesn't point to how good or bad a movie is or whether there is female focus on the movie as even female centred and highly acclaimed films such as “Gravity” don't pass the test, while a short scene in “American Hustle” where Lawrence talks about her nail-polish makes it pass. Movies like “Avatar” and “The Lord of the Rings” trilogy don't pass the test. So it's not about how good or how non-sexist a movie is.
The test, if taken, needs to be taken across the board on a large number of popular movies to show female representation in Hollywood at its simplest level. Its job is not to discredit individual movies but to signal important institutional biases that affect people's day to day perception. Media continually bombards you with images of the roles in society, whether it is of the family, the government, the norms or law. What we know of the outside world is heavily influenced by the entertainment we consume. Close your eyes and picture New York City, without resorting to any media. If you don't visualise superhero throw-downs, Godzilla and King Kong then you're either living in NYC or don't have access to a TV.
A common argument against the Bechdel test is that sometimes a woman to woman conversation about something other than a man isn't relevant to the plot. But at the end it doesn't matter that one movie couldn't accommodate two people representing half the world, it's that most movies apparently can't. This indicates that Hollywood's stories, like its directors, screenwriters, producers and editors are male-dominated and male-centric and women, more often than not, aren't important to these stories other than in roles that serve only to provide a backdrop to the men's stories.
Another excuse seems to be that women's stories don't sell and media's social responsibilities just need to take a backseat to money-making. But that is also not the case as recent studies show that movies that pass the Bechdel test tend to earn more at the cinemas. Half of the viewership is female and there's a very good reason why “Hunger Games”, “Divergent” and “Twilight” did so well, no matter how good they were in absolute terms.
The test is branching off into new territories as well. Racial Bechdel test replaces 'women' with 'coloured people' in the three questions to gauge coloured representation and as suspected, most movies fail miserably. What do
“The Help”, “Game of Thrones” and “Hachi: A Dog's Tale” have in common? None of them pass the test.
Try the Bechdel test next time you're watching the summer movies and run the three questions through every time a new movie releases. If the number of movies that pass the test is on the increase, we are going in the right direction. If not, well, we'll just have to lop women and non-white people into another group that the media can afford to ignore.
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