Because it's Friday: Women in Movies and the Bechdel Test

A movie is said to satisfy the Bechdel Test if it satisfies the following three criteria:

1. The movie has at least two named female characters
2. ... who have a conversation with each other
3. ... about something other than a man

Sounds pretty simple, right? For example, the movie Aliens passes the test because Ripley and Newt talk to each other about the "monsters". As it happens, about half of all movies fail the test, including (surprisingly) some movies with female lead characters. In 2012, only four of the top 10 grossing movies passed the test (via Andrew Sullivan):

 

I confess to being surprised about this. If the tables were turned, and we were looking for movies with two men having conversations about something other than women, I'm pretty sure most of them with qualify. (I couldn't find much research into the Reverse Bechdel test except for this, which only covers a few, mostly fantasy movies.) It just goes to show that we need more movies with female protagonists (via Jennifer Borgioli), so that the other characters have something else to talk about.

If you're out to watch a movie this weekend, why not keep track of whether it passes the Bechtel test? Whatever you're doing, have a good one -- we'll be back on Monday.

Comments

[anon]

It seems that your conclusion is wrong. Unless you know the same data about the opposite gender (which you say you don't), and then normalize it, you wouldn't be comparing apples to apples. Even then the test would off because this test is for something non-zero. But if you have a ton of men in movies having a ton of conversations with each other, they seem to be more likely to have outliers.

Perhaps it would also be more interesting, in the reverse case, to remove conversations about violence, physical danger or crimes. Since most movies with men seem to be "action" movies (ie about violence and crime), this might be interesting.

Additionally, the conclusion that we need more movies with female protagonists seems flawed for another reason. Perhaps we have the canonical number of movies with female leads right now. Perhaps the market is delivering exactly what people want to purchase. If this is indeed the case, what would be wrong with that?

As an analytics company I expect more rigor from you when jumping into heated social issues such as gender. I mean, if you're going to jump into the area, why not do it right?