McAnally's (The Community Pub) > Author Craft
Bechdel test observations
Quantus:
--- Quote from: OZ on July 02, 2012, 04:06:19 PM ---My comment was not to try to pretend that there is an issue of men not having meaningful roles in films. I was simply wondering how much the gender of the protagonist and antagonist in the film have to do with whether there is any meaningful interaction between two members of the opposite gender (from the protagonist or antagonist) that don't have something to do with either the protagonist or the antagonist. I would think that this would be rare.
I would think that the sixty second rule that the woman in the You tube clip was proposing would be very problematic. Any action films that are light on lengthy dialogue would be almost automatically eliminated.
I found it funny that Wall E was listed as having failed.
--- End quote ---
Thats what I am thinking. The test in itself is biased. The Protagonist (and Antagonist as you point out) are in a position to have many more interactions of all kinds, whereas the supporting roles are far more limited, due to their literary roles.
And, I dont see how it makes a work any better or worse if a female character asks some random lady the price of rice in china, or fails to do so.
the neurovore of Zur-En-Aargh:
--- Quote from: Quantus on July 02, 2012, 04:21:40 PM ---And, I dont see how it makes a work any better or worse if a female character asks some random lady the price of rice in china, or fails to do so.
--- End quote ---
It indicates that the author is aware that women exist other than as love interests or adjuncts to male characters. This strikes me as a non-trivial plus.
knnn:
--- Quote from: the neurovore of Zur-En-Aargh on July 02, 2012, 06:13:54 PM ---It indicates that the author is aware that women exist other than as love interests or adjuncts to male characters. This strikes me as a non-trivial plus.
--- End quote ---
On the flip-side, I'd bet that over 90% of lesbian porn movies pass the test...
Quantus:
--- Quote from: the neurovore of Zur-En-Aargh on July 02, 2012, 06:13:54 PM ---It indicates that the author is aware that women exist other than as love interests or adjuncts to male characters. This strikes me as a non-trivial plus.
--- End quote ---
Gender equality is certainly a good thing, and so is having properly written, rounded characters. Im just saying that this particular test, without the addition of some normalizing elements at the very least, strikes me as a remarkably arbitrary way to rate such a thing.
In 99% of stories the MC will have to be either a Man or a Woman, and in either case the test is dramatically scewed towards that gender choice. As mentioned above Wall-e doesnt pass, but thats mostly because there are only three characters with real gender (5 if you count the pair of robots with 2 word vocabularies) and many of them never interact. But if you randomly say Auto is female (which would make sense since Ships are traditionally female) then it passes with flying colors. But that doesnt in any way affect the quality of the work, or the relative gender equality demonstrated. Knnn's observation about Lesbian Porn seems relevant to this point as well. Hell, you could write a story that passes with flying colors, that is nothing but a couple of women mudwrestling over a pair of shoes. You could also write one that fails simply because the two female protagonists are focused on taking down the male villain, and so dont stray to other topics (granted it would probably have to be short).
To be clear, Im not saying that there isnt bias in Fiction (though Id like to think its a little less so in Literature than in Hollywood), or that Female characters arent trivialized at times. Im not entire convinced that there isnt a similar number of flat, useless male characters out there that are relegated to base tropes, but Ill fully admit that I dont usually take much note of that sort of thing, so i may just be uninformed.
Now, if you remove any POV characters from the equation, and evaluate it as a ratio of the conversations between two women that do and do not center around a man, Id think you have a more representative metric. :)
LizW65:
--- Quote from: Quantus on July 03, 2012, 02:03:50 PM ---(snip) ...You could also write one that fails simply because the two female protagonists are focused on taking down the male villain, and so dont stray to other topics (granted it would probably have to be short).
(snip)
...Now, if you remove any POV characters from the equation, and evaluate it as a ratio of the conversations between two women that do and do not center around a man, Id think you have a more representative metric. :)
--- End quote ---
That was why I mentioned in an earlier post that it's almost necessary to eliminate plot-relevant dialogue from such a test; in, for example, a police procedural/crime thriller, much of the dialogue will be discussion of the various suspects, some of whom will almost certainly be male. I don't believe anyone would consider it sexist for detectives Carol and Alice to discuss the probability of Bob's guilt rather than Mary's.
(Of course, that brings up the question of whether all non-plot-essential dialogue should be edited out anyway...one can make a pretty good case either way.)
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