Taking a critical lens to this famous film criticism

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I think when anybody starts to study feminism and film one of the first names to come up on their radar is Alison Bechdel. Derived from her 1985 comic strip titled The Rule; where two women discussing films comment on the lack of good representation of female characters, The Bechdel Test was originally meant as a bit of a joke and more of a comment on the alienation of queer women in cinema [1]. Since its conception, the test has been used to categorise a film’s feminist qualities. With many films at the time failing the test, it drew much-needed attention to the sexism present within the stories most films were telling.

The requirements of the Test for those who may not be aware; direct from Bechdeltest.com [2] (and yes that is a real site) are that the film, or piece of fiction work must:

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

2. Who talk to each other

3. About something besides a man

These seem like fairly simple requirements, yet it often surprises people how many films fail the test. The Bechdel Test site has an extensive list of films and whether or not they pass the test. Everything from modern releases to films from 1985 when the test was conceptualised, all the way back to the start of cinema in the 1800s. There is a clear majority of red crosses (doesn’t pass) to green ticks (does pass) the further into the past you go, but the closer you get to 2020 the green ticks slowly start to increase which indicates that having something like the Bechdel Test was instrumental in improving women’s representation in films moving into the 21st century.

However, the Bechdel Test is such a generalised lens through which to view a film that I wonder if we should really be using it in the modern age of feminism.

One of the biggest criticisms of the Bechdel Test is that it is limiting and reductive. To have one set of criteria with which to mark a film’s feministic qualities fails to acknowledge the nuances of storytelling. While it can call out films that are obviously using women simply as eye candy or damsels in distress it cannot dive deep within a film and see how well a character was written, what the context of their conversations was, or how the characters were framed or costumed. For example; the 2013 film Gravity is arguably a brilliant story with a female lead however it fails the Bechdel Test for being a film with only two cast members the second of which is male. Conversely, the 2001 film American Pie 2 passes the test because two female characters discuss clothes for a bit.

The test cannot tell you whether a film is good or bad either. There are plenty of quality films with majority male casts that fail the Bechdel Test and just because we need better female representation doesn’t mean that these films should disappear off the face of the earth or be labelled as sexist. This mainly occurs in regard to historical films that are recreating a time when women faced far more oppression than they do today (The Imitation Game, Gladiator) or taking place somewhere women were not likely to be seen such as on the battlefield during war (1917, Fury). But its over-generalisation has actually left some confused about what dictates a pass or a fail in the first place.

On Bechdel test.com members of the public actually decide if a film passes or not, and that is how it receives its rating. In the 2016 film 10 Cloverfield Lane directed by Dan Trachtenberg an all-out debate occurred in the comments [3]. Now I thought the film was good. It had great suspense moments and the small three-person cast all gave great performances. Only one character was played by a woman (Mary Elisabeth-Winstead) but what got the comments riled up (SPOILERS for 10 Cloverfield Lane) was the scene with another woman outside the bunker where the film takes place.

User Carlos said:

This highlights for me the limitations of the Bechdel Tests rules in determining a good representation of a female character.

User Alexandre disagreed with the rating and said:

Without being able to agree on what a “conversation” means when it comes to the test if only a few words are exchanged or as they say screamed at each other how many more films now fail the test with seemingly well-rounded female leads?

The user SamBeringer had this to add:

Which begs the question; what is the Bechdel Test really for anymore? I think for a lot of the internet the test has become a way of judging a film’s feminist values. Audience members that call themselves feminists may walk away from something like 10 Cloverfield Lane thinking it was a great film with a strong female lead only to find it didn’t pass the Bechdel test and feel guilty in some way for liking it.

And that’s the other thing about the Bechdel Test; it turns every film into a statement about sexism. Here on the blog, I talk a lot about women’s representation behind the camera and the mountain of work that needs to be done to have more diverse voices seen and heard across the industry. However, I don’t think all films need to be a political statement. In fact the increase of seemingly ham-fisted inclusions of social justice within certain films that don’t need it is negatively affecting people's perceptions of feminism and other important rights movements. I think characters should just be able to exist and I think sexism should be included in films where the context calls for it. Looking into past film productions and casting our 2023 lens over them to uncover all the problematic inclusions is a reductive practice that fails to acknowledge the time the film was made and how much progress society has made since that film’s release. I think the Bechdel Test is equivalently doing the same thing. It’s taking a lens from a time when things were worse than they are now and applying it to films in a way that makes them seem worse than they really are.

Feminism has evolved quite significantly since the 1980s as has the representation of women in film. Women are getting better roles more often these days. We could just look at the Marvel movies since Iron Man to know how far female representation has come. But whilst there are some gender equality issues that carry on to this day the way we talk about these issues has evolved and I think that’s what I’m getting at here. We need to leave dated arguments in the past. It would be utter negligence to ignore the progress that has occurred for female characters within film since 1985. In my opinion, it’s a ratio issue now. We have well-written female characters these days but we need more of them across the board. And of course we cannot discount the lack of representation of trans and non-binary characters which is still abysmally low.

But then, there is always this argument:

When it was first developed the Bechdel Test was a fun tool to bring awareness to a clear issue present within cinema; the lack of realistic non-sexist representation of women within films. However, we have seen plenty of growth since then and whilst it’s not perfect something as simplistic and generalised as The Bechdel Test is really not relevant to analysing modern cinema. Many organisations (eg. Geena Davis Institute, Centre for the Study of Women in Film and TV) now research heavily into female representation on screen and their reports are insightful and full of facts that are much better evidence to use when it comes to talking about this issue in the industry.

So let’s not forget that the Test was designed as a bit of a joke and in the spirit of this I wanted to end off with some Passes and Fails that made me chuckle.