"Dykes to Watch Out For" was a damned funny strip sometimes.

LotR? Seriously? The books had almost no women in it and were more awesome than the sobbing elvish bullcrap that was introduced in the movies. For the sake of women.

bechdel test = useless

Comment hidden because you are ignoring dag.(show it anyway)

^I disagree. I'd never thought about it- but it's pretty damn weird now that it's been brought to my attention.

nice to see what an equivelent test for men would bring up.

or for example , film that has more than 2 men , but dosenot involve them talking about vilence lol

Wall-E is about a robot! Shawshank redemption ?!? Alien 3 definetely lacks a female protagonist....... the examples are just idiotic at times.

They could have wowed me with some non-action movies with actual female main protagonists in them, but in this case i still maintain that there´s a lot of fail in that compilation.

And passing the Bechdel Test does not constitute a feministic p.c. movie...

This video doesn't pass The Bechdel Test.

Her's are just a list of seemingly-relevant points that rely on their simplicity. Who's to say having a character name is always a good thing? So what if women don't talk to one another in a film? Why is that such a good thing? Why is that the measuring stick? And so what if women talk about a man in a film. Perhaps that's what the story is about.

The lines she's drawn are very arbitrary.

I get the point, but you can't seriously include movies like WALL-E that also don't have two or more men talking to each other about something other than women. I'd also be interested in seeing a list of movies that do pass the test just to see more accurately how one sided Hollywood might possibly be.

>> ^shuac:

Her's are just a list of seemingly-relevant points that rely on their simplicity. Who's to say having a character name is always a good thing? So what if women don't talk to one another in a film? Why is that such a good thing? Why is that the measuring stick? And so what if women talk about a man in a film. Perhaps that's what the story is about.
The lines she's drawn are very arbitrary.


Ugh, do you really need this explained?

What major/driving character is nameless in a film or novel?
In what society or reality do women not relate to one another?
In what society or reality do women only talk to one another about men?

The point is to make the public aware that an overwhelming amount of popular films either depict women as secondary, dependent superfluous characters or not at all.

I'll assume you're a white male.
Now imagine that every movie from your childhood, teenage years and current life have female asian protagonists.

Not just a few, not just a large amount, but every major movie is about a female jackie chan type main character.

All deuteragonists, tritagonists and extras are female too.

The only male characters you see are the worried desperate husband, the drunken hobo, the clueless nameless youth.
No male characters have major lines.
No two male characters talk anything other then their how they miss and need wives.
No males are depicted that aren't ripped half naked & constanly flexing to attract attention from the main female.

Now imagine all the little boys that would grow up without a Batman or Spiderman or Dr. Doom to day dream about.

Are you visualizing this world?
Because for little girls this [objectification, helpless ditzy stereotype, lack of confident/constructive behavior modeling]
is a persistent reality.

No, I don't need it explained. I stand by my comment. The rules she's imposing are arbitrary.

>> ^shuac:

No, I don't need it explained. I stand by my comment. The rules she's imposing are arbitrary.


Wow you're thick.
First, an arbitrary set of rules e.g.

1. Does the film show a women in a green shirt?
2. Are at least to women on unicycles?
3. Is at least one of the women a robotic mercenary who hunts hammer head sharks?

Those rules are arbitrary because they ask about women in films..
but they don't reveal any information about the frequency or quality of female characters in films.

Which is the whole point of the test and video. So standing by your comment just makes you sound like a bigot via ignorance.

Because it sounds as if you find it perfectly acceptable to treat 51% of the humans as if they're not as interesting/important enough to accurately acknowledge in a highly influential media such as films, tv, etc.

just sayin'..

Movies are in general made by men. Men don't know shit about women, hence not very many women in the movies.

>> ^GenjiKilpatrick:

>> ^shuac:
Her's are just a list of seemingly-relevant points that rely on their simplicity. Who's to say having a character name is always a good thing? So what if women don't talk to one another in a film? Why is that such a good thing? Why is that the measuring stick? And so what if women talk about a man in a film. Perhaps that's what the story is about.
The lines she's drawn are very arbitrary.

Ugh, do you really need this explained?
What major/driving character is nameless in a film or novel?
In what society or reality do women not relate to one another?
In what society or reality do women only talk to one another about men?
The point is to make the public aware that an overwhelming amount of popular films either depict women as secondary, dependent superfluous characters or not at all.
I'll assume you're a white male.
Now imagine that every movie from your childhood, teenage years and current life have female asian protagonists.
Not just a few, not just a large amount, but every major movie is about a female jackie chan type main character.
All deuteragonists, tritagonists and extras are female too.
The only male characters you see are the worried desperate husband, the drunken hobo, the clueless nameless youth.
No male characters have major lines.
No two male characters talk anything other then their how they miss and need wives.
No males are depicted that aren't ripped half naked & constanly flexing to attract attention from the main female.
Now imagine all the little boys that would grow up without a Batman or Spiderman or Dr. Doom to day dream about.
Are you visualizing this world?
Because for little girls this [objectification, helpless ditzy stereotype, lack of confident/constructive behavior modeling]
is a persistent reality.


Majority of the women I know would only watch movies as entertainment occasionally and don't really call themselves "movie buffs." If you think there is an untapped "movie buff" in the female world you would think the movie industry would attempt to tap into it? (Chick flicks?)

A lot of chick flicks would fail the Bechdel Test as well, btw...

This video goes towards confirming what I've felt in my gut about films for a few years now. More specifically, the lack of female role models in them. For example, try to think of the last kids film that had a female as the protagonist. The last I can think of is Labyrinth (though I'll concede there's probably also been a few since then).

Take this list of kids films for instance and try to count 'em out:
http://www.criticker.com/?fl&view=all&filter=gy10zp5x4x3x2zod

By the Bechdel test, many girl on girl porn passes. YAY!

the main character in Fight Club has no name. or the jet li movie "Hero", but that's kind of subverted since they start calling him "nameless." you could also argue reservoir dogs, but that's just splitting hairs.

>> ^GenjiKilpatrick:


What major/driving character is nameless in a film or novel?

The Thing (1984) Dir. John Carpenter

At first it would seem that this movie does not pass the test... HOWEVER, it really does pass it with flying colors if you think about one fact: the actual "thing" is a female! Therefore:

1. There are definitely more than 1 thing at different points in the movie.
2. There are definitely points in the movie where the things talk to each other.
3. They definitely talk to each other about the thing, which as we have determined, is femenine, thus meeting the criteria of this one as well.

The Thing, Feminist supermovie!

>> ^Tymbrwulf:
Majority of the women I know would only watch movies as entertainment occasionally and don't really call themselves "movie buffs." If you think there is an untapped "movie buff" in the female world you would think the movie industry would attempt to tap into it? (Chick flicks?)



Wow.. are you trollin' Tymbie? Or just thick?
Cause if you can't find the faults in that statement. I think you should immediately take some critical thinking classes.

Have you ever wondered why most women you know don't consider themselves "movie buffs"?

Female 1: "Hey the new Comic Book/Action/Eddie Murphy Comedy movie is out."
Female 2: "Fuck yes! I've been dyin' to see gratuitous explosions/shoot-outs/prosthetic fat all year!!"

And then, like some marketing executive from the 60s, you have gall to suggest that female movie enthusiasts truly crave to be spoon fed stereotypical bastardized depictions of themselves in films.

~~ written by @BoneyD - A lot of chick flicks would fail the Bechdel Test as well, btw...

Like real world women all are desperate love-obsessed delicate lilies that: need to reunite with their sisters and babble about romanticism. Or find a rich man so they can stop whoring themselves. Or reunite with their "mature" party slut friends and babble about sex.

I bet female movie goers find those films ultra empowering! =D

And on top of all that - deep breath - "chicks flicks" don't even begin to scratch even the bottom of any list or review of the most popular movies.

So what have we learned?

- Realistically relatable females aren't depicted in mainstream media.

- The niche genre for females depicts them as clueless whiny emo kids hoping some stronger, usually male, character saves them from their shitty situation/themselves.

- You find that's perfectly normal and don't see an reason why younger females shouldn't be raised to expect the same.

To her I say, get in there and write a movie then. As an actor and seeing the industry from the inside for the first time, I can say those parts/stories aren't going to write themselves. If she (and others) want more movies and roles like that, then quit bitching about the problem and become part of the solution. This goes for older female roles in movies as well.

I don't mean to come off terse, but if you want change, you have to make it yourself.

[redacted]

Every movie on that list has a male main character. Why would they want to have scenes with women talking to each other that don't relate to the main character or his story? If they did, those scenes would be off-topic.

This test does not determine if movies are catering to men or women, it simply determines whether the main character is male or female.

One of the movies on the list was Braveheart. The whole motivation of the main character in that movie was his wife. We are reminded of this several times throughout the movie:
- when he avenges her death by cutting the throat of the lord who killed her
- when he dreams of her
- when he tells the princess of england that she reminds him of her
- when he envisions her in the crowd at the end while being tortured
- when Robert the Bruce carries her rag with him in the battle in the very last scene in the movie before credits roll

To say that movie has no female presence is absolutely asinine.

It's not a conspiracy, people. Hollywood just doesn't want to bore people with stupid vagina monologues.

Women are boring, but then so are men. Where are my goddamn Robot movies??

I don't think a female main character should be forced. Not saying there shouldn't be one but that's not what is going to make me want to go to a movie.

I can't relate to a chick flick because I don't relate to the bad stereotypes of women (shoes, shopping, and getting your hair did) just the same as many men don't relate to the many stereotypes that are shown in some guy flicks (pushups, John Wayne, things that go vrooooooom)

An interesting movie doesn’t center around those stereotypes…so fuck you Sex in the City and Fast and the Furious...

>> ^Beefpile:

Every movie on that list has a male main character. Why would they want to have scenes with women talking to each other that don't relate to the main character or his story? If they did, those scenes would be off-topic.
This test does not determine if movies are catering to men or women, it simply determines whether the main character is male or female.


The issue isn't whether or not it caters to anyone, romantic comedies obviously cater to women but they still perpetuate that weak feminine stereotype. The issue is that women are rarely portrayed in movies as actual characters. Men usually (at least in good movies) have multiple defining characteristics while a woman's defining characteristic is her gender. They serve as motivation for men rather than being actual fleshed-out characters themselves. I'm willing to give Braveheart a pass even with the film's existing historical inaccuracies since it's not like women were all that free in the time period.

Also, it's really disingenuous to suggest that the solution to this is to go out and make your own movies. If I don't like the job that Obama's doing, should I go run for president then? If I don't like my car, should I go make my own? No, that obviously ridiculous just as I wouldn't want to go and remake The Dark Knight or something just with my own additions. This video is intended to raise awareness of the issue so that the people who DO make movies may pay attention and change something.

This criteria has nothing to do with the artistic merit or value of a film, just the presence of women.

As a man, I can see the allure of movies with women, but without all that yackin'.

I notice that her list has no foreign films in it. I've seen plenty of them that have two female main characters who don't spend the entire movie talking about men. And they're great movies.

Ironman 2 passes the test...test=fail

Agree with the problem, but not the cause. Films are story telling, and story telling always adopts the culture and beliefs and stereotypes of the Audience.

These tend to be mostly American/Hollywood movies. Ultimately the underlying American movie watching public still generally believe women are either housewives, raising kids without adventure in their lives or lonely overworked and unmarried.

But it's also because of just a general lack of talent!
- Weak writers rely on the old tired movie formulas. e.g. the hard cop, divorced, alcoholic but loves his kids.
- Weak actors can only act 'basic' parts: Violent men with one liners, Sassy women shopping and bitching about men.

It's really hard to find a male or female actor that has the chops to pull off a part where they carry the character and conflict of a real storyline for 2+ hours. Most of the best Female actors i can think of are in the UK.

Ghostbusters shouldn't be on that list.
Neither should Dead Mans Chest.
And most likely neither should At Worlds End.
X-men and X3 don't have females with names that talk to each other? I'm Sure Storm, Rogue, and Jean gray would have something to say about that.

And then there's things that shouldn't even really be on that list. Bruno? That's a documentary style movie.
Wall-E is about robots.
The Dark Knight is based on a comic book character.. specifically one aimed at boys, Same with Watchmen. (Although, it's arguable that both silk spectres talk to each other, and therefore shouldn't be on this list.)
The original transformers? I've seen it once, but one scene I remember is Shia LeBouf's mom comes in and is talking to Meagan Fox.

This seems kind of silly to me. Different movies cater to different tastes. What's the point of this test? What's the true goal? Women still enjoy seeing them (As far as I can tell).

And as for girls starved of things to daydream about? Guess again. I have 3 sisters, one older, two younger. The one older loves seeing movies and has never complained about anything mentioned here before, and the younger watches things like Buffy, and all sorts of other movies. Never a complaint.

Different things cater to different tastes.

As was semi-pointed out, putting Alien 3 on the list was a bit unfair... something pretty evident to anyone who knows the plot. Interesting otherwise.

It seems like alot of people are missing the point and equating female pressence in movies to feminism. Its just to show that the depiction of women in films is incredibly minor compared to how male dominated it is.
We can all find films that fail this test but what if you swapped men and women in the question
1. movie with more than 2 male charecters with names
2. they talk to each other
3. they talk to each other about somthing other than women

Now how many films fail this test? Compare that to the number that fail when the questions are about women.

>> ^BoneyD:

A lot of chick flicks would fail the Bechdel Test as well, btw...
This video goes towards confirming what I've felt in my gut about films for a few years now. More specifically, the lack of female role models in them. For example, try to think of the last kids film that had a female as the protagonist. The last I can think of is Labyrinth (though I'll concede there's probably also been a few since then).
Take this list of kids films for instance and try to count 'em out:
http://www.criticker.com/?fl&view=all&filter=gy10zp5x4x3x2zod



Alice in wonderland, Princess and the frog, Little Mermaid, Coraline, Hanna Montanna the movie, Bratz the movie, The Golden Compass, Nim's island, Nancy Drew, Mulan, Flicka, The Princess Diaries, then any disney movie princess sequel ect... Just to name a few.

I cant remember what I was watching the other day that stated that the Hollywood agenda was as simple as one thing...MONEY. More women will go see an action movie than there are men that will go see a chick flick.

If the feminist community wants to make an impact on what movies are made, they should stop going to action movies.

With a few exceptions, the movies brought up in the video are mostly "guy" movies (ie. action, comic book movies, thrillers). Show me a list of a bunch of chick flicks, and I'll bet most of them would fail a reverse Bechdel test.

She is eating the apple all wrong. How can you possibly take such a small bite out of an apple, even if its just for show? This makes everything else in the entire video absolutely irrelevant and annoying.

[edit] WTF is wrong with her. Is that how she eats everything? I bet it is. She's one of those obnoxious people who take the whole day to do one simple thing.

>> ^chtierna:

She is eating the apple all wrong. How can you possibly take such a small bite out of an apple, even if its just for show? This makes everything else in the entire video absolutely irrelevant and annoying.
[edit] WTF is wrong with her. Is that how she eats everything? I bet it is. She's one of those obnoxious people who take the whole day to do one simple thing.


She eats an apple later? I'm still stuck on her checking her sleeve watch at ~1:07.

I have nothing to add, other than to say that the movies she listed were awesome.

I think this is an interesting test. I wonder how often movies fail the inverse test -- two named male characters who talk to each other about something other than a female.

A great deal of the movies failing the Bechdel test are action movies which are legitimately male dominated, such as the Bourne Supremecy. Also, it's questionable whether that movie actually fails the test. Two significant female characters, Pamela Landy and Nicky Parsons, have a scene together and exchange dialogue. The dialogue pertains to a mission related to Jason Bourne, though, so maybe it could be considered "about a man" but that's a bit of a reach.

>> ^GenjiKilpatrick:

>> ^Tymbrwulf:
Majority of the women I know would only watch movies as entertainment occasionally and don't really call themselves "movie buffs." If you think there is an untapped "movie buff" in the female world you would think the movie industry would attempt to tap into it? (Chick flicks?)


Wow.. are you trollin' Tymbie? Or just thick?
Cause if you can't find the faults in that statement. I think you should immediately take some critical thinking classes.
Have you ever wondered why most women you know don't consider themselves "movie buffs"?
Female 1: "Hey the new Comic Book/Action/Eddie Murphy Comedy movie is out."
Female 2: "Fuck yes! I've been dyin' to see gratuitous explosions/shoot-outs/prosthetic fat all year!!"
And then, like some marketing executive from the 60s, you have gall to suggest that female movie enthusiasts truly crave to be spoon fed stereotypical bastardized depictions of themselves in films.
~~ written by @<a rel="nofollow" href="http://videosift.com/member/BoneyD" title="member since July 7th, 2006" class="profilelink">BoneyD - A lot of chick flicks would fail the Bechdel Test as well, btw...
Like real world women all are desperate love-obsessed delicate lilies that: need to reunite with their sisters and babble about romanticism. Or find a rich man so they can stop whoring themselves. Or reunite with their "mature" party slut friends and babble about sex.
I bet female movie goers find those films ultra empowering! =D
And on top of all that - deep breath - "chicks flicks" don't even begin to scratch even the bottom of any list or review of the most popular movies.
So what have we learned?
- Realistically relatable females aren't depicted in mainstream media.
- The niche genre for females depicts them as clueless whiny emo kids hoping some stronger, usually male, character saves them from their shitty situation/themselves.
- You find that's perfectly normal and don't see an reason why younger females shouldn't be raised to expect the same.


I agree in a number of ways with you regarding the way women are depicted in a majority of modern movies. However, the part that I think there are two big factors here that are being overlooked by you and by women who argue for more "realistic and substantive" roles for women in movies. First and foremost in my opinion at least is the fact that making movies is all about making money (again looking to the majority here, indie films are somewhat of an exception to this but then I think you'd agree that they are also largely an exception to this Bechdel Test). Since it's about making money, the unfortunate truth is that the majority of the target market for films these days is men, and what most of them want is the same mindless, formulaic story over and over again. If making films was primarily about telling a good, detailed and deeply thought provoking story, I think things would be very different. This just doesn't sell on a large scale and you'd have one hell of a time convincing the film studios of the world to begin shooting films for the artistic appeal and forget about the financial aspect.

On a bit of a side note to your point below,

"Like real world women all are desperate love-obsessed delicate lilies that: need to reunite with their sisters and babble about romanticism. Or find a rich man so they can stop whoring themselves. Or reunite with their "mature" party slut friends and babble about sex."

I agree that this is a very unrealistic depiction of real women. I would also contend that real men don't drive cars off ramps onto moving boats, or shoot anything that moves, or smoothly sweep any attractive woman off their feet with a few suave words. That is however, the image of men in the movies and I'd wager that it's not only the male population of moviegoers that enjoys seeing men depicted that way. And that's why it continues to sell...

My advice is... stick to indies.

I haven't seen it, but now I wonder. Does Yeardley pass the Bechdel test?

>> ^blankfist:

It's not a conspiracy, people. Hollywood just doesn't want to bore people with stupid vagina monologues.

I understand her point but this *is* Hollywood we're talking about. Comfortable, conservative, racist, sexist Hollywood.

And choose better examples to make your point - Shawshank Redemption? Really?

Anyway just off the top of my head I thought of a few films that passed (or I assume they do as I haven't seen them all - correction, I've not seen Charlie's Angels but have seen the rest)

Charlie's Angels
Ghostworld
Kill Bill 1 & 2
Monster (the one about Aileen Wuornos)
Thelma and Louise

So in the context I've described maybe things aren't as bad as you might be led to believe. I'd also imagine that some of her other examples (think I saw Jolie there as Lara Croft) would be seen as models of empowerment despite lacking dialogue with another woman.

Whatshisface in Fight Club is nameless I think and in one of the best films ever, Withnail and I, "I" played by Paul McGann has no name.
Then there are nameless narrators/protagonists in books as well though I can't think of an example right now.

>> ^GenjiKilpatrick:

>> ^shuac:
Her's are just a list of seemingly-relevant points that rely on their simplicity. Who's to say having a character name is always a good thing? So what if women don't talk to one another in a film? Why is that such a good thing? Why is that the measuring stick? And so what if women talk about a man in a film. Perhaps that's what the story is about.
The lines she's drawn are very arbitrary.

Ugh, do you really need this explained?
What major/driving character is nameless in a film or novel?

>> ^demon_ix:

I haven't seen it, but now I wonder. Does Yeardley pass the Bechdel test?
>> ^blankfist:
It's not a conspiracy, people. Hollywood just doesn't want to bore people with stupid vagina monologues.


Ha! There are three (almost four) females with prominent roles and with character names. However the story centers around a male protagonist so they had to be preoccupied with speaking of him otherwise there's no story. So the answer is no. Every scene they speak of him.

Still... vaginas. Snicker.

Things i noticed:

- Isn't it a bit sexist of her to assume that the robots in transformers weren't their equivalent of female?
- Ditto District 9, though we couldn't pronounce their names nor tell if they were conversing.
- I thought there was a bit in watchmen where older/younger silk spectre spoke about something other than a man - at least for a bit.
- The bourne supremacy has 2 named women talking to each other about old assassination missions and capturing a rogue assassin. As does the third one because it follows directly on from the second. Does this qualify as 'talking about a man'? If so, that is a very arbitrary line to be drawn.
- Isn't wall-e about robots?
- Austin Powers are films lampooning the objectifying of women/the wallflower stereotype.
- The wedding singer has the two named sisters talking about the degree of tongue acceptable at weddings. Again, i say that if you can bend the rules to say that is technically 'talking about a man', then you could equally bend them another way in this and other examples.
- ^ Such as X-men where there are many group conversations involving named women. I'm not an expert on those films so i can't say for sure if there's a clear conversation between 2 named women, but group convo's with multiple named women there are.
- Interview with a vampire has a conversation between the child vampire (who is of course a woman trapped in a child's body, this is a big point in the film) and the woman selected to be bitten to be her mother, both are named.

If you make a film based anywhere in history past 50-60 years ago, you're going to hit the culture factor. You can't just manufacture women into places where they wouldn't have been in a time where women were not considered equal. You may as well complain about racism in a film taking place when black people were used in slavery.
- Shawshank
- Pirates
- Gladiator

There are films with a very powerful and strong female protagonist battling against the odds and coming out on top. Some of these films don't even pass the test - how can this be when it's basically saying "Women can be better/stronger than men?"
- GI Jane (vs. GI Joe) - fights against all the odds and eventually shows people how wrong they were.
- Fifth element - she saves him, he saves her, she saves the planet?
- Alien 3
- Tomb Raider
- Arguably 'Wanted'

^ It almost feels like she's mocking her own theory/criticism by naming these films. "Hey look everyone, even films with a super-strong female character kicking everyone's ass and showing how women aren't wallflowers........................is perpetuating the stereotype that women are submissive wallflowers!"

It's almost like naming examples of where the theory fails to be true. Which ...renders the theory useless?

I do think there's a point to be made, but i don't think it's as bad as they want to believe it is, and i certainly don't think that this is demonstrated by the films listed. Show films like pulp fiction, se7en, etc. even fight club. Those convince me. The others make me think "I don't think these people will be happy until we make 2 versions of every film with the sexes mirror'd."

If they can't value the fifth element, alien and tomb raider as films that fight against a stereotype, when exactly are they going to be happy?

I also think it's rather small minded (from a feminist mind, who you'd think would be very open) to suggest that the films 'have a female presence' if they have 2 named women pop up and have a chat.

"Hey sara"
"Hey lucy"
"I bought some new lipstick"
"Cool"

-- That's the start of my new film, the rest is all about muscle bound men cracking wise and comparing muscles. Apparently it has the feminist stamp of approval.

(I hope i've made my point that there's more to "female presence" and fighting female stereotype than some stupid list of rules that can even count out films about female heroes)

I agree with several comments and demand to see a list of chick flicks that fail a gender-reversed bechdel test.

Also, I watched the finale of 24 last night (the only episode I've seen...don't make me explain) and my stepmom was crying at the end. It was the only episode she'd ever seen, and she didn't watch the entire thing either. The show was mostly action and talking about action, and one of her two questions to the person who was totally into the show involved love. Just saying...a LOT of women like having their heartstrings pulled and stories that involve women loving men accomplish this.

Interestingly, the episode of 24 passed the Bechdel test. In fact, two women who were both presidents of their respective countries, talked about "not men" for several minutes. Yet, this doesn't get some sort of "seal of approval" from feminists since a good chunk of their conversation involved the death of one woman's husband (which was the only reason she was president) and the repercussions from that (war/threats/violence)...which makes the test even more ridiculous. Yet, if you strip the genders from the characters, they could've been men...so that seems like a step forward if you ignore the ridiculousness that is 24.

I'm all for having more important female roles in mainstream film, but as for anything other than a conversation-starter, this is crap.

Good call on watchmen... there is definitely a short conversation between the silk specters about alcoholism.

Watchmen = pass!

I think any war movie or movie about prisons should just be excluded right away. That's just plain stupid. Of course there are few women in a pre-gulf war era movie, it just reflects the reality. Same goes for prison movies, Cool Hand Luke is one of the best movies ever and the only two women I can think of in the movie offhand are a tease who washes her car in a very sexy manner just to play mind games with the prisoners and Luke's mom. That doesn't make it a sexist movie.

Also, on the flip side, there ARE movies about women that don't pass the inverse test. Just face it, some movies are geared towards men, and some towards women. The only ones to be concerned about are those which are not obviously 'chick' or 'guy' flicks that show these problems.

>> ^gwiz665:
Women are boring, but then so are men. Where are my goddamn Robot movies??


I've got to agree here.

I have no interest in watching films where women sit around and relate to each other over the daily concerns that face women.

It's not because I don't want women to be empowered by film.

Because, I also have no wish to sit in a theater watching two men talk about the shit I talk about with my buddies. I don't want movies that tell the dramatic stories of the challenges men face in their daily lives. I just don't give a shit about any of the real life concerns or worries about anyone, male of female.

Films for me are entertainment.

I want explosions and sex and humor....in my films...because that's what I lack in my day to day life...which is why I go to movies to fill the gaping explosions/sex/humor hole in my soul.

The evidence presented in this video are pointless. I could easily scroll 10 minutes worth of film titles that DO pass the "Bechdel" test. And the qualifications for passing the test ARE arbitrary. This is nothing but an intentionally polarizing argument. It's a call to arms for people who feel victimized to stop and think, "hey yeah, I'm being vicitimized".

Can she improve any of the listed movies by including characters and scenes that would make those movies pass the test?

I dislike reading books where the author goes off on tangents that have no impact on the story, and I hate them even more when they seem like they were added to conveniently answer a plot hole and it comes out of the blue while introducing a new character who is forgotten 2 pages later.

If the women don't add anything to the story or the experience......why have them? If I were to sit down and write a story, I'm going to write what I think makes the better story. I am not going to go out of my way to include a few female characters that I had no plans to include so I could pass some test, or try to superficially include female readers. In fact I think it is more insulting to include overall meaningless characters, and cheapens the experience.

There are movies that are inherently male only, prison movies with a male lead, most war movies, popular sports figures specifically focusing on the sport and not their personal lives (it's either going to be all male or all female), specific professions (IT comes to mind as a dominant male profession [because it is not a cohesive job for females wanting to have children], but sex workers....how often do you hear about male prostitutes? They exist, why don't you hear about them?)

I'd prefer them to make decisions on entertainment that makes the story more interesting, and having a lesbian couple named Candy and Bambi talking about how hot each other is......might make the story more interesting.....and pass the test. Although I don't think that's what she was hoping for in this video.

instead of selectively finding a list of movies that fail, i would like to see a random selection or a specific selection of top movies (top rated, top money makers, AFI top 100, etc..). What's the pass / fail ratio?

if you go looking for guy movies about guys, then you can find them. If i went digging to try and prove movies mainly contained smart, strong women and stupid guys that leach off of them, i could also find a list.

Point is, there are a lot of movies and you can find all kinds of crazy patterns when you have that much data. SO, while it is interesting to note and sexism in Hollywood is a problem, this list really proves nothing.

also, LOTR passes because several women talked about their impending deaths at helms deep. There were also MANY named women.

>> ^daxgaz:

also, LOTR passes because several women talked about their impending deaths at helms deep. There were also MANY named women.


That's why it fails, they have to be named + women that are talking to each other. While there's the blonde chick in Rohan, she never directly talks to the elf chick, and neither of them ever talk to the witch.

While there ARE named women of importance, they never talk to each other, so they fail.

This is a silly, silly test.

Ferris Bueller? Why is that on the "Did not pass" list? Hello? The daughter and the mom talked to each other through like half the movie. That was a whole complete fucking subplot. I wonder how many other of those movies she showed that were blatant lies and do completely pass this "test."

Sounds like an angry man-hating dyke ragefit to me.

Dyke.

A lot of people get really upset with Hollywood about this, but it's completely not hollywoods fault, as some of you may be pissed off about.

I've seen the same arguments applied not just to women, but pretty much every single ethnic group there is gets on about hollywood and their movies and television shows. How many movies have you seen that feature a black male that isn't a mass murderer? What from hollywood have you seen that has a non-white female as the main character? How about indians? Anywhere in Asia? You can pick off a few, surely...but there aren't many at all. Hell, even some white males get pissed about it; I recall there's some society concerned with the portrayal of italians on hollywood movies.

But, remember the force that drives all business...it isn't rich black liquid evil...it's money. Hollywood has its target audience, and if its target audience wanted to see an intelligent, sophisticated asian woman influencing world politics in their movies, Hollywood would do it. If their target audience wanted to see an indian without an overplayed accent as an intelligent scientist trying to save the world, they would make it. If they could focus on a different target audience that would make more money, they would do it.

The problem isn't hollywood...the problem is that the people with money who pay to see movies want to see all the movies that were flashed up on screen in this video.

If you want different kinds of movies to come out with different kinds of plots and genre's, YOU have to convince as many ignorant assholes as possible that they would actually like to see movies that don't star white males blowing shit up.

>> ^draak13:
Hollywood has its target audience, and if its target audience wanted to see an intelligent, sophisticated asian woman influencing world politics in their movies, Hollywood would do it.

This is a standard market fallacy. Players in markets will only do what is in their best interest IF they know what is in their best interest. In the case of Hollywood I find that presupposition questionable, even more than in most hight stakes markets.

I would also like to point out that the Mo movie measure is not a test for a good film, or even a socially responsible film, it's a low water mark test for the inclusion of female perspective in a story. This test is a good one for three reasons:

1) It is easy to pass, so at first hearing it seems like it should be commonly passed.
2) The inverse test does usually pass, because the male perspective is present.
3) Movies rarely pass this test, because the female perspective is absent.

While Fight Club could be a reasonable outlier, just as The Devil Wears Prada is an outlier for the inverse test, the fact of the matter is that FC is not an outlier, but TDWP is, and that is the crux of the issue.

What dgandhi said ^ ^

Movies mostly portray (white) men. This is a fact. Just look at IMDB top 250 and it will be obvious to anyone.