Useful Notes / The Bechdel Test

The Bechdel Test, Bechdel-Wallace Test, or the Mo Movie Measure^note  named after Mo, the main character of DTWOF, even though it was introduced in a one-off strip before Mo was introduced, is a litmus test for female presence in fictional media. The test is named for Alison Bechdel, creator of the comic strip Dykes to Watch Out For, who made it known to the world with this strip.

In order to pass, the film or show must meet the following criteria:

1. It includes at least two women,^note  Some make the addendum that the women must be named characters
2. who have at least one conversation,^note  Because of quibbles regarding what length of time makes a valid conversation, some have proposed the addendum that it last at least 60 seconds.
3. about something other than a man or men.^note  An addendum some claim is that marriage, babies, or romance are indirectly about men and therefore also fail, whereas some relax the rule based on the following criteria; the relationship is (1) someone else's and (2) purely a subject of professional interest (e.g. the women are family lawyers and the marriage is that of a client, or the women are medical professionals and the baby is a patient). Proponents of both point out there is a big difference between "Isn't married life hard/wonderful!" & "Babies are so cute, I wish I had one!" on the one hand, and "OK, so I think this is how we should go about the Madison property settlement" & "Don't give that medicine to the baby, it'll kill him!" on the other.

If that sounds to you like a pretty easy standard to meet, it is. That's the point! Yet, try applying the test to the media you consume for a while. There's a good chance you'll be surprised; mainstream media that passes is far less common than you might think.

The test is often misunderstood. The requirements are just what they say they are; it doesn't make any difference if, for instance, the male characters the women talk about are their fathers, sons, brothers, platonic friends, mortal enemies, patients they're trying to save or murderers they're trying to catch, rather than romantic partners. Conversely, if a work seems to pass, it doesn't matter if male characters are present when the female characters talk, nor does it matter if the women only talk about stereotypically girly topics like shoe shopping or even relationships, as long as it is not relationships with men.

This is because the Bechdel Test is not meant as a moral or ethical judgement on the strength or depth of female characters in a work. It is entirely possible for a film to pass without having pro-feminist themes, or even characterizing females positively. For instance, "Manos" The Hands of Fate, The Bikini Carwash Company and Showgirls, films whose treatment of women range from incredibly squicky to tasteless fanservice, have passed the test. In fact, the original example of a movie that passes is Alien, which, while it has feminist subtexts, is mostly just a sci-fi/action/horror flick. And believe it or not, the video for Sir-Mix-a-Lot's rather sexist ode to the female ass, "Baby Got Back", also passes the Bechdel Test.^note At the start of the video, two young women are incredulously discussing another woman's ass: 'Oh my god, Becky, look at her butt! It is so big.'

There's nothing necessarily wrong with any film flunking the Bechdel Test. Indeed, there are films with female protagonists that fail it, such as the 2013 movie Gravity, a movie about a female astronaut attempting to survive a disaster in space. A fair number of top-notch works have legitimate reasons for including no women. What's a problem is that so many movies fail the test, creating a pattern which says uncomfortable things about the way Hollywood handles gender.

There are also lesser-known variations of the test, such as Deggans' Rule (aka Race Bechdel Test), in which two characters of color talk about anything other than the white leads, and the Reverse Bechdel Test, with the roles of men and women swapped.^note An estimated 90% of works pass the Reverse Bechdel Test, according to this link, which, in comparison to the Bechdel Test, highlights the gender disparity problems. The film Mad Max: Fury Road has inspired the "Furiosa Test" (Do any misogynists ban this work?) and Pacific Rim inspired the "Mako Mori Test" (Does a female lead get a Character Arc that doesn't revolve around male characters?).

It's obviously easier for a TV series, especially one with an Ensemble Cast, to pass this test than a film, because there's far more time for the conversation to occur in. To compensate for this, Bechdel-inspired analyses of television often look episode-by-episode, giving an final average (such as 7/13 if seven episodes pass in a 13 episode season,) or compare the series' passing Bechdel's Test with its passing a "reverse Bechdel test".

For other tropes regarding the representation of gender in media, see The Smurfette Principle (one female character included strictly for demographic appeal in a work with many male characters, making it impossible to pass rule 1), Never a Self-Made Woman (a female character is only relevant to the story by her relationship to a man), Gender-Equal Ensemble (an Ensemble Cast has nearly 50-50 ratio of genders), and Chromosome Casting (works featuring only male characters or only female, but not both). The prevalence of Token Romance and Romantic Plot Tumor contribute to works failing rule 3 of the test. On the other hand, works in the Pink Bishōjo Ghetto will usually pass, if only for the dearth of male characters.

And for those curious about the pronunciation, according to The Other Wiki it's like "BEK-dal" (/ˈbɛkdəl/), but Bechdel herself has said it rhymes with "rectal".^note Cue all the jokes about it being so because to adhere to it is a pain in the ass. Well, they're almost the same, anyhow.

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Works that reference the Bechdel Test (named or not):

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