http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/UsefulNotes/TheBechdelTest

Hans Kieslowski, Seven Psychopaths "Your women characters are awful. None of them have anything to say for themselves, and most of them either get shot or stabbed to death within five minutes... and the ones that don't probably will later on."

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The Bechdel Testnote AKA Bechdel-Wallace Test, or the Mo Movie Measure named after Mo, the main character of Dykes to Watch Out For, even though it was introduced in a one-off strip before Mo was introduced is a litmus test for female presence in fictional media. The test is named for Alison Bechdel, creator of the comic strip Dykes to Watch Out For, who made it known to the world with this strip. ◊

In order to pass, the film or show must meet the following criteria:

It includes at least two women, note Some make the addendum that the women must be named characters who have at least one conversation, note Because of quibbles regarding what length of time makes a valid conversation, some have proposed the addendum that it last at least 60 seconds. about something other than a man or men. note An addendum some claim is that marriage, babies, or romance are indirectly about men and therefore also fail, whereas some point out there is a big difference between "Isn't married life hard/wonderful!" & "Babies are so cute, I wish I had one!" on the one hand, and "OK, so I think this is how we should go about the Madison property settlement" & "Don't give that medicine to the baby, it'll kill her!" on the other. There is also the problem with politics, and whether talking about a male politician counts or not.

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If that sounds to you like a pretty easy standard to meet, it is. That's the point! Yet, try applying the test to the media you consume for a while. There's a good chance you'll be surprised; mainstream media that passes is far less common than you might think.

The test is often misunderstood. The requirements are just what they say they are; it doesn't make any difference if, for instance, the male characters the women talk about are their fathers, sons, brothers, platonic friends, mortal enemies, patients they're trying to save or murderers they're trying to catch, rather than romantic partners. Conversely, if a work seems to pass, it doesn't matter if male characters are present when the female characters talk, nor does it matter if the women only talk about stereotypically girly topics like shoe shopping or even relationships, as long as it is not relationships with men.

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This is because the Bechdel Test is not meant as a moral or ethical judgment on the quality of female characters in a work. Nor is it designed as a judgment on the artistic quality of the work - good movies can fail the Bechdel Test, and bad movies can pass. It is entirely possible for a film to pass without having pro-feminist themes, or even characterizing women positively. For instance, Manos: The Hands of Fate (Manos's wives discuss whether or not to spare the female protagonists so they can also be wives), The Bikini Carwash Company and Showgirls, films whose treatment of women range from incredibly squicky to tasteless fanservice, have passed the test. In fact, the original example of a movie that passes is Alien, which, while it has feminist subtexts, is mostly just a sci-fi/action/horror flick.

There's nothing necessarily wrong with any film flunking the Bechdel Test. Indeed, there are films with female protagonists that fail it, such as the 2013 movie Gravity, a movie about a female astronaut attempting to survive a disaster in space, in which there are only two major characters, one female and one male. Disney's Mulan shows that a film can even fail the test for the same reasons why it has strong feminist themes: the movie discusses sexism (and overcoming it), and thus is set in a world too sexist for it to pass the test. The protagonist starts out in an environment where women are valued only for their ability to get a man and produce babies, and then moves into an environment where there are no other women at all because it's not allowed. A fair number of top-notch works have legitimate reasons for including no women, such as being set in a warzone. What's a problem is that so many movies fail the test, creating a pattern which says uncomfortable things about the way Hollywood handles gender.

Part of Bechdel's original point was about how lesbian women specifically feel isolated from popular media; when there are so many examples that fail, and female characters often spend all their time talking about the men in their lives, women who aren't attracted to men can feel justifiably underrepresented. This concept can also be applied to other forms of marginalization such as race, disability, mental illness, and other issues, and remains one of the major reasons that calls for more inclusive media have been echoing for decades.

There are lesser-known variations of the test:

It's easier for a TV series, especially one with an Ensemble Cast, to pass this test than a film, because there's far more time for the conversation to occur in. To compensate for this, Bechdel-inspired analyses of television often substitute the pass/fail binary with a Bechdel score, looking at the show episode-by-episode, giving a final average (such as 7/13 if seven episodes pass in a 13 episode season,) or compare the series' Bechdel score with its reverse Bechdel score.

For other tropes regarding the representation of gender in media, see:

Curious about the pronunciation of Bechdel? According to The Other Wiki it's like "BEK-dal" (/ˈbɛkdəl/), but Bechdel herself has said it rhymes with "rectal" .note Cue all the jokes about it being so because to adhere to it is a pain in the ass. Well, they're almost the same, anyhow.

Has nothing to do with the global infrastructure firm Bechtel Corporation.

Works that reference the Bechdel Test (named or not):

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Anime & Manga

In the manga of All You Need is Kill, Shasta makes a reference to running some "Bechdel tests" on Rita's Jacket while making an excuse.

Comic Books

Lampshaded by She Hulk in JLA/Avengers: "Yo, Star-shorts! I figured that you'd be getting bored so I thought I'd hang with you. We can talk girl-talk. Y'know, butt-kicking, name-taking, like that."

Superior Foes of Spider-Man references the test openly with Beetle complaining about how her life is failing the test since she hangs out with a bunch of guys. "My life is failing the Bechdel test."

Druid City: One character, who is a strident feminist, was added to the story so that the first volume of the series would pass the test. The same character, Carla Cortez, has gone on to be an Author Avatar in sociopolitical discussions that take place in the series.

Fan Works

Films — Live-Action

Jokes

From this post on Tumblr: So this girl walks up to another girl and says "Hey, have you heard of the Bechdel Test?"

And the other girl says, "Yeah, my boyfriend was telling me about it the other day!"

on Tumblr: And another Tumblr gem: Guy: What do girls do at sleepovers? Me: Pass the Bechdel test.

Literature

The Descendants references the test in one conversation that has been 100% about dating and boys. The conversation ends by a character mentioning that she's probably going to fail the test she's studying for, administered by a Professor Bechdel.

The Doctor Who fandom book Chicks Dig Time Lords includes an essay about companion Nyssa of Traken. The author points out that many of Nyssa's episodes pass the Bechdel test, and includes a brief explanation of what the test is.

The Laundry Files: The Apocalypse Codex has protagonist Mo O'Brien (demonslayer) meet up with Ramona Random (mermaid, of a sort, who spent a week destiny-entangled with Mo's then-boyfriend, now-husband Bob Howard back in The Jennifer Morgue) at a diplomatic summit between Her Majesty's British Government and the Deep Ones. Ramona is saddened to learn Mo's marriage is having problems, to which she responds: "We are so not going to fail the Bechdel test at a diplomatic reception, dear. That would be embarrassing."

The Postmodern Adventures Of Kill Team One: Godless Murder Machine has a scene in which two women talk about Bechdel tests.

Live-Action TV

Radio

Video Games

In Nefarious, Princess Mayapple discusses with Princess Apoidea about how to smooth over relationships between their nations. Crow, who had been overhearing it, derogatorily calls the conversation a Bechdel Test and demands they talk about him.

Web Animation

Talked about in Extra Credits in the episode "Diversity ".

". In Red vs. Blue, as Dylan and Sister are discussing what the latter has done while alone in Blood Gulch, but the former decides to ask about the Reds and Blues, her cameraman (who's a film student) goes "Ah, there goes the Bechdel Test."

Web Comics

Web Original

Western Animation

Brought up by Alison Bechdel herself in The Simpsons in the episode "Springfield Splendor", where she's guest starring as herself in a convention panel for female creators of comics. Marge's reaction to hearing about the Bechdel test: Marge: That's so interesting. That's so interesting. I'll have to tell my husband about that.

In the Rick and Morty episode "Never-Ricking Morty", Morty has to come up with an improvised story that passes the Bechdel test in order to save Rick's life (somehow). In the story, Beth and Summer (Morty's mother and sister) drink tea while talking about their heavy "special time", all while avoiding referencing the existence of males in any possible way (for example, at one point, the two are attacked by scorpions, and Beth specifically states that they're all female scorpions).

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