Why the Bechdel Test is Problematic.

The Bechdel Test was created by Alison Bechdel in her comic strip entitled Dykes to Watch Out For. The test is mostly for films, though it can relate to other media. To pass the Bechdel Test:

1. It has to have at least two [named] women in it

2. Who talk to each other

3. About something besides a man

It’s a very simple concept, but it’s a test that most films don’t pass. You need all three elements to pass the test, so if you have a conversation between two women, but neither are named, it doesn’t pass. If you have a female lead, but she doesn’t talk to another woman, it doesn’t pass. When the test was devised in 1985 films weren’t as diverse, and if they were female-centric, a love story was always a major factor in the plot. I’m not saying that films today are revolutionary in that they include women who aren’t drooling over the opposite sex, but I am saying that there are strong female characters in some films today. Whether they are fighting alongside the rest of the Avengers, or escaping a roboticist’s island compound, female characters are seen and heard from, at a much higher rate.

The Bechdel Test is anything but a bad thing for films. Realizing that a film does not pass this test is important in understanding filmmaking in 2015. Sadly, the test has not been reworked in the past thirty years, and therein lays an important and complex problem.

There are many films that feature rich, brilliant female characters that don’t pass the criteria of the Bechdel Test. The recently released film “Ex Machina” features an AI female who is experiencing the entire world around her for the first time. She is cunning, calculated, innocent, and ambitious, qualities that don’t often merge onscreen. Because she is the only female character in the film, “Ex Machina” does not pass the test. There are many other historically woman driven films that do not pass the limitations of the Bechdel Test including: “Fill the Void,” “Gravity,” “The Silence of the Lambs,” “Labyrinth,” and “Run Lola Run.”

In this vein there are many films that are full of hollow stereotypes of women, but pass the test by a very close margin. Most romantic comedies, though featuring women, often just barely pass the test based on short, concise conversations between characters that only exist to add some kind of character to broad stereotypes. Women helmed films often face this kind of ridiculousness, because most of the films that get made about women revolve around a relationship with a man. Films that pass the test includes: “Crazy, Stupid, Love,” “She’s the Man,” “The Hottie and the Nottie,” and “Sex and the City.” Yes, they feature some character building conversations, but if you had to describe the film, you would say it was a romantic comedy, featuring themes of love and relationships above all else, instead of a film about women, period.

In short, there’s nothing wrong with the test in theory. It gives awareness to a trend in filmmaking that keeps up a disparity between minority and female voices in conjunction with male ones. In this day and age, we need something more definitive than a test that says whether a film is good or bad based on lacking criteria. Alternatives to the Bechel Test have emerged in recent years. Spurred by the film “Pacific Rim,” a film that does not pass the Bechdel Test as there is only one strong female character, a Tumblr user named chaila proposed a separate test to live alongside Bechdel’s. Named after the character of Mako Mori, an Asian American female character with a strong arc and feminist leanings, the Mako Mori test is as follows:

While this does limit the voices of women, as it puts emphasis on any strong female character rather than many, it does address the need to revision when it comes to the original test. Another proposal comes from Linnea Gregg at Thought Catalogue, who uses the Gregg Test, which is a point based system that is utilized if the film includes these as positives:

There are two or more female characters,
with names,
who interact and converse
About something other than a man.
The movie doesn’t revolve around a man,
A wedding,
Or children.
The main character is a person of color.
The main character is homosexual.
The movie is a comedy.

While, again, these aren’t perfect alternatives to the Bechdel Test, which is simple, concise, and nothing close to archaic, it is important to question the test’s validity. Bechdel’s test still draws attention to films that don’t pass, especially films that I personally love. It pains me that the original Star Wars films don’t pass the test. That “Avatar” doesn’t, the last Harry Potter film, or “The Social Network.” The Bechdel Test, in this day and age, is more of a building block than a be-all, say-all in the film community. Maybe if more films passed this problematic test, it wouldn’t need to exist in the first place.