The representation of women in film, though it has improved in recent years, still has a long way to go. Women, particularly non-White women, are often underrepresented in film and TV, and when they do show up, sometimes their portrayal is less than ideal. This has led to a lot of scholars and audiences using certain metrics to judge the feminist elements of a piece of media to determine whether or not it is progressive, and where it could be improved upon if not.
The Bechdel test is one of the most common ways that a movie or TV show’s female representation can be judged. This test, put forth by cartoonist Alison Bechdel in a comic strip from 1985, posits that a piece of media passes if it fulfills three basic requirements: that it has at least two named female characters, they talk to each other, and at some point they talk to each other about something other than a man. For a long time, this was used as one of the main metrics to judgehow feminist a piece of media is, but a recent controversy online has people questioning whether or not it should be the be-all-end-all way to judge a film progressiveness.
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The controversy in question came about when writer Hanna Rosintweeted her criticismsabout the new Hulu movieFire Islandthat is essentially a queer, modern take onPride and Prejudicecentering around two gay Asian men. In Rosin’s tweet, she said, “#FireIslandMovie gets an F- on the Bechdel test in a whole new way. Do we just ignore the drab lesbian stereotypes bc cute gay Asian boys? Is this revenge for all those years of the gay boy best friend?”.
This was met with pretty immediate backlash online, with many pointing out that the movie is still progressive as it’s about the veryunderrepresented demographicof queer Asian men, and that the Bechdel Test doesn’t necessarily need to apply here. The tweet (which has now been deleted after Rosin issued an apology for her words) even prompted Alison Bechdel to offer her own response on Twitter: “Okay, I just added a corollary to the Bechdel test: Two men talking to each other about the female protagonist of an Alice Munro story in a screenplay structured on a Jane Austen novel = pass”.
A lot of modern feminist takes on media will employ the Bechdel Test, despite the fact that it didn’t come from any sort of academic research. It was just an observation that Bechdel made in one of her comic strips, and acts as an interesting thought experiment or a bit of social commentary more than anything else. It’s one way to look at film and TV, as it gives a basic framework for how that piece of media treats itsfemale characters(if there are any at all). It’s easy to say that it should be the bare minimum for a story that includes more than one female character to pass the Test, but that take doesn’t leave a lot of room for nuance.
The Bechdel Test can’t apply to every situation, as this whole Fire Island debacle has shown. It doesn’t make sense to criticize a movie for its lack of female representation when its focus is ona different marginalized groupand is giving them some much-needed exposure instead. Sometimes progressiveness isn’t just about female representation, although that’s usually one of the aspects that is most often talked about. The use of the Bechdel Test feels especially pedantic when used against these films and shows that are heavy on queer or non-White representation, and aren’t necessarily telling a female story.
The reason the Test works better as just a thought experiment is because it doesn’t take certain nuances into account. Take, for example,theLord of the Ringsmovies. There are less than a handful of female characters in those movies, and they are overall very male-focused. The films certainly don’t pass the Bechdel Test, but only looking at them in that way ignores the feminist elements that are present. The female characters inLOTRare powerful in their own ways, and Eowyn’s iconic “I am no man” line is one of the more feminist moments in film history. Rating the story on the Bechdel Test alone wouldn’t account for these elements.
So while the Bechdel Test is a good jumping-off point for the discussion around female representation in movies, it shouldn’t be the only thing that defines a film, especially because it originated as a simple thought experiment in a comic strip. It only accounts for female representation, and while that’s still a much-needed element in the entertainment industry, only looking at media through that lens ignores the need forqueer and non-White representation, of both men and also those who don’t fall into the gender binary. Feminism isn’t truly feminism if it isn’t intersectional and considerate of factors like race, class, or sexuality in conjunction with gender, and the Bechdel Test simply isn’t nuanced enough to take all of those factors into account.
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