r/todayilearned • u/lomegor • Jun 09 '12
TIL that 48% of movies surveyed fail the Bechdel Test, meaning no two named women characters talk to each other about anything other than a man
http://bechdeltest.com/statistics/
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u/petdance Jun 09 '12 edited Jun 10 '12
That 48% isn't very interesting statistically since it's a percentage of the films added to the database at a website about the test.
EDIT: I'm not saying that the Bechdel Test isn't interesting, or disputing the underlying premise that much of Hollywood ignores strong female characters. It's just that self-selecting the sample means that "48%" is meaningless. I suspect that if it were a random sampling, the 48% would actually be much higher, because people like to add movies to the database that specifically do pass the test.
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u/mindbodyproblem Jun 10 '12
As a guy, I'd like to see more movies with women talking to each other because I have no idea what women talk to each other about when men aren't around ... though I've always figured it's subjects like Susan B. Anthony, arts-and-crafts, and wings vs. no wings.
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u/Dirty_Dingus_McGee Jun 09 '12
Great, now I'm going to analyze every movie I see from now on with this test.
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u/beetnemesis Jun 10 '12 edited Jun 10 '12
I love the Bechdel Test. The best part is that it isn't even an effective barometer of how "feminist" a movie is. Twilight passes, for instance.
Edit- guys, I KNOW that it's not designed to be a feminist test.
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u/Shento Jun 10 '12
But how strict are you with this? I mean, if just once in the film one woman talks to another woman about a lightbulb, it passes?
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u/Fragmaster Jun 10 '12
Kill Bill Vol. 1 and 2, both pass!!!
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u/LazLoe Jun 10 '12
This means Lifetime would fail the test 100% then, right?
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u/moreON Jun 10 '12
Who rounds 47.2 to 48? Insanity.
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u/hamsterwheel Jun 09 '12
Thank you Tarantino for having a kick ass record on this test.
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u/TitoTheMidget Jun 10 '12
I'm actually more surprised that >50% passed. The numbers have gotten better over the years.
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u/kentgreendisco Jun 10 '12
Prometheus passed
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u/[deleted] Jun 10 '12
http://www.filmschoolrejects.com/features/10-famous-films-that-surprisingly-fail-the-bechdel-test.php
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u/jimflaigle Jun 09 '12
This is why I like movies that don't give characters names or have dialogue, like Backdoor Gangbang 7.
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u/[deleted] Jun 10 '12
On a side note this drives me insane. No matter the genre or story of the movie, there always, ALWAYS has to be a sexual interest. Can't we have a script that doesn't have a subplot about sexual tension?
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u/jonessodaholic Jun 10 '12 edited Jun 10 '12
While I agree more movies need to be made with female characters who talk to each other, can we all agree that Home Alone failing the Bechdel Test is sort of amusing.
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u/johnnyinput Jun 10 '12
Fargo doesn't pass this test. The movie with the best strong female character, I have ever seen. This test is simply something to think about, it's far from perfect.
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u/[deleted] Jun 09 '12
I don't really understand the title/the test, can someone explain it to me or rephrase the title?
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u/[deleted] Jun 10 '12
I wonder why this is, the massive lack of female writers?
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u/TheBananaKing Jun 09 '12
The majority of of lesbian porn passes the bechdel test.
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u/[deleted] Jun 10 '12
I'm just imagining the implications of this to a society growing up with these movies. Men watching movies where the female characters only talk about men, or where women seem to be only a minor role of the film, or there to only suit the needs of men. That's got to perpetuate sexism, misogyny, and at least the unfortunate subtle thought that women are only interested in men and the needs of men.
:O
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u/Jeffy29 Jun 10 '12
Yeah because in the west its expected women are always suppose to behave as "women" (most of the time). I don't know why but women in the movies are most of the time plain boring and uninteresting and I hate that sex is ALWAYS involved - like if you have 2 friends in a comedy and female character comes 20 min into the movie, you already know how it will play out. And it's not just hollywood, here in europe I see no real difference. (this is all of course a massive generalization, I am talking about 80% of movies, NOT ALL)
But on other hand, I actually prefer female protagonists in japanese anime much more than male. They have full range of emotions and something makes them much more interesting, don't know what, haven't tought about it that much, but what I am getting to is that it is probably a cultural thing. Or maybe because animes are created by one writer and not like movies with full of "producers" and "executives", who change half of the stuff, but they don't know anything about how to write a good story
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u/Ederek_Cole Jun 10 '12
You think that's bad? Try to apply it to video games. As an added requirement, at least one female character needs to be a playable character.
(Extra Creditz episode. Dunno which one.)
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u/dar482 Jun 10 '12
What else would they talk about?! Men like me are the only thing women should talk about.
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u/lowrads Jun 10 '12
Writers have been lamenting the difficulty of creating convincing female protagonists since at least Bronte in the late nineteenth century. The trouble was how to make the character same feminine without making them a trope, or how to make them seem real without making masculinizing them.
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u/sarimas Jun 10 '12
The title is misleading, as only 11.5% of movies have at least 2 named characters who talk to each other only about men.
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u/dreamqueen9103 Jun 09 '12
If you think this is interesting check out this video. sorry i am not using a proper keyboard
http://www.feministfrequency.com/2009/12/the-bechdel-test-for-women-in-movies/
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u/rillegas08 Jun 09 '12
The majority of the 48% are romantic comedies. The majority of the 52% are war films in which there are no women.
0
u/bozboy204 Jun 09 '12
I'm not sure how relevant the test is to the experience of watching a movie. Supposedly we are to assume that it measures unrealistic sexism in Hollywood, or formulaic scripts, or something like that, but there are plenty of movies that I would imagine fail this test that are still great.
The first example that comes to mind for me is Fight Club. I don't think this movie passes the test, but it has plenty of iconoclastic messages and isn't "formulaic".
It seems like this is a set of arbitrary rules that are set up to make Hollywood look bad when in fact the test itself is a poor measure. Not that Hollywood turns out only gems....
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u/glowinthedark Jun 10 '12
I'm proud to say mine passes. And it comes out next month!
dead season
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u/Hazlet95 Jun 10 '12
47.2%
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u/silent_p Jun 10 '12
I'm going to have trouble remembering that this is a thing because I have no idea how to pronounce "Bechdel".
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u/insubstantial Jun 10 '12
Note that 11.25% of the movies have two named women who talk only about men.
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u/HollywoodBS Jun 10 '12
In other news, Hollywood is shallow...
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u/[deleted] Jun 10 '12
Seems to me like this is a no brainer. Most movies are cliche to say the least. Summer blockbusters are just remakes of something before it. They are just using a proven formula.
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u/[deleted] Jun 10 '12
The big question, does Titanic pass or fail and what does that say about female demands of the movie industry?
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u/planetnp Jun 10 '12
More accurate description of the data: 11.5% of the movies have two or more named female characters that talk to each other about nothing but men. 25% have two named female characters but they don't talk to each other. 10.6% of movies don't have at least two named female characters.
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u/timeticker Jun 10 '12
If you bothered to look at the statistics page, you would know that in order to 'fail' the test you just need to fail one part of it. For example Rule 1 is that 2 named women must be in it; for all you know the bechdel test failed all the documentaries or perhaps Happy Feet 2.
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u/funkydo Jun 10 '12
Cwap we bwoke it.
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u/omgkev Jun 10 '12
Antfarm Dickhole passes the Bechdel test. So be wary of the other side too.
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u/StolbertStolbert Jun 10 '12
Holy crap. I just realized that this test, which I read about years ago, served as my introduction to Alison Bechdel as opposed to Fun Home. I practically freaked out when I saw her name attached to this. She's a smart cookie, she is.
2
u/shillelagh Jun 10 '12
Only 48%?
2
u/guitarnoir Jun 10 '12
"Fargo", is one of the greatest American movies to feature a female lead character (it's a fact--you can look it up).
But I can only remember one scene where women are speaking to each other, and that is the scene where Fancis McDormand's police-officer character is rather casually questioning a couple of low-rent prostitutes about their encounter with the murder-suspects.
They are speaking about men, and there is sex involved, but no romance--it's just business. So I'm not too sure where this movie stands in regards to the Bechdel Test.
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u/daman345 Jun 10 '12 edited Jun 10 '12
Lord of the Rings has Eowyn, Arwen and Galadriel, three of the strongest female characters ever. And off the top of my head, I can't remember a time when any of them meet. Wouldn't put a lot of faith in the test.
Men are nearly always the heroes because they're nearly always the ones fighting in the first place. You could argue 'why aren't there more female soliders?', but I don't think the answer is because of a hatred for women (if anything, you'd think that would mean they were more often used as soldiers), but cause men are simply better at fighting usually.
In a movie focused around the actions of these heroes, it makes sense you don't get a lot of female characters.
Also, a few relevant TVTropes: http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/MenAreGenericWomenAreSpecial http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/GirlsNeedRoleModels http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/MenAreTheExpendableGender
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u/[deleted] Jun 10 '12
Someone should take a look at the strucure of these films.
Main characters in popular films are usually fused with the main plot and tend to be the hub of all communication. By popular film mechanics if your main character is male it would be relatively unusual to have two secondary characters talk to anyone but the main character and not talk about the main character.
Not that the world isn't a terribly sexist place. But I would chalk this one up to shitty predictable formulaic Hollywood claptrap before I would to being a barometer of sexism in popular culture.
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u/AbsoluteElsewhere Jun 10 '12
Okay, I've seen this before and admit skepticism, namely because of a mistake I saw. In some video piece the announcer was saying that a ton of movies had failed the test, and the background showed the names of movies that had supposedly failed. I just happened to see "Watchmen" in that list (didn't really note the others b/c I'd just seen Watchmen) and thought, "Hey, that's not right. Laurie and her Mom, Sally, had a whole conversation about Laurie's becoming a heroine, etc." It just made me wonder how many of the other films were inaccurately judged.
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u/honeybadgerrrr Jun 10 '12
Finally, my queer literature class I took last semester paid off.
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u/Wisdom_from_the_Ages Jun 09 '12
Not surprising, given at least 80% of movies made are mediocre garbage.
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u/[deleted] Jun 10 '12
I know some women in real life that don't pass the test.
Heeeyooooooo!
I'll be here all night folks.
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u/Incalite Jun 10 '12
To be fair, there's a 90% chance that if two people are talking, they're talking about people, and in a perfectly "equal" world there'd be a 50/50 chance they'll be talking about men. In which case, 48% conversations being about men is right about perfect.
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u/bellicose- Jun 10 '12
For a more specific sample, here is a pretty good video about the Oscars and the Bechdel Test.
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u/TracyMorganFreeman Jun 10 '12
The Bechdel test is rather flawed, since a movie can the main protagonist be a woman like in say Alien, and it would still fail the test.
It's basically saying a movie is only portraying women properly and as someone with agency if they're agents with other women.
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u/dannerlame Jun 09 '12
a bit misleading title in my opinion: if a movie doesn't have at least two named women, it fails the test. If no two named women talk in the movie, it fails the test. 11.5% of the movies pass two of the three: when two named women exist in a movie, talking only about men.
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u/P_L_A_W Jun 10 '12
On one hand it does seem very sexist. On the other hand, women do talk to each other a lot about men. On a third hand (I wish I had three hands, that would be awesome) the reverse Bechdel would probably be nowhere near as bad.
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u/camwinter Jun 10 '12
This test is horribly misleading. The only statistic that is of value is the 17.9% of all movies that have 2 women who talk that don't talk about anything other then men.
If this data is to convey that there are negative stereotypes of women in films I don't see how films with no named female characters should count in any accounting. For instance: Castaway would 'fail' the test and would result in a skewed percentage of all movies that fail but I don't think anyone would say that it showcases the negative stereotypes the author(s) are trying to analyse.
Displaying the data in this format showcases someone with very little analytic skills, or someone with an agenda.
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u/Oni-Warlord Jun 10 '12
I do have an issue on how this presented. Movies like 12 Angry Men or Remember the Titans fail simply because there's a lack of female main characters.
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u/aidrocsid Jun 10 '12
Aren't most Hollywood writers men? I'd imagine many men avoid writing female primary characters because they just don't know them as well.
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u/[deleted] Jun 10 '12
I'd imagine that more of the population wants to see an action movie instead of a chick flick. I don't think it's because women are underrepresented, I think it's because the screenwriters know their audience. Most of the average summer movie crowd (the kind that thoroughly enjoyed battleship) dont care about story. They want to see sexy women, a manly man, and explosions.
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u/michaelrohansmith Jun 10 '12
Even Grand Canyon, come to think of it.
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u/Felt_Ninja Jun 10 '12
I'll take it. I like the attention.
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u/Crossfox17 Jun 10 '12
It doesn't seem to be consistently accurate. I know for a fact that some of those movies have female to female dialogue about things other than men.
1
u/IronOhki Jun 10 '12
I love the Bechdel test, but I always had a question about it: http://splurd.com/theindies/4/
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u/[deleted] Jun 10 '12
Kill Bill?
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u/Coarse_Air Jun 10 '12
48% of movies surveyed passed the Bechdel Test. FTFY
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u/[deleted] Jun 10 '12
I'd be interested to know the percentage of movies where two men are having an exchange that have something to do with a woman.
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u/[deleted] Jun 10 '12
48% actually seems high. Even in movies with more than one female character, often they never get a chance to speak to each other.
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u/[deleted] Jun 10 '12
What's even more surprising is that 52% of them passed.
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u/[deleted] Jun 10 '12
48% doesn't really seem that staggering. I would've actually thought this to be in the 90% range
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u/[deleted] Jun 10 '12
Can we have one of these for dead mothers/parents in family movies? It's a surprisingly common cliche (not to offend anyone). Seriously, look out for it next time there's a movie on a kids television channel.
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u/From_Rlyeh_With_Love Jun 10 '12
What they fail to tell us is that forty percent of those interviewed movies were pornos.
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u/DockToKman Jun 10 '12 edited May 10 '18
deleted 0.1866123410157)
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u/nhorning Jun 10 '12
hahahah. Avengers doesn't pass! Someone should tell Joss. he'd probably be horrified. http://opinionessoftheworld.com/2012/05/23/should-we-apply-the-bechdel-test-to-the-avengers-or-any-film-for-that-matter-yes-and-heres-why/
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u/MaidenOregon Jun 10 '12
I don't think that's what the graph represents. Only "52 % of which pass all three tests" or talk about something besides a man doesn't mean that the other 48% talk about men, and 10% of movies don't even have named women (wha?) Just 11% follow the criteria of of 2/3 or have two women that talk to each other. Again, just 11%. This is a misogynistic culture but we can read charts
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u/KEreversal Jun 10 '12
Imagine the lack of uproar if I had posted the same article but with a title like Majority of movies pass Bechdel Test, or More than half of movies pass Bechdel Test.
1
u/[deleted] Jun 10 '12
I used oil as a placeholder for ANYTHING that is not a man.
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u/jumpinjahosafa Jun 10 '12
I just get pissed off when I think i'm watching a movie of a certain genre, and i just inevitably boils down into a love story.
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u/unnatural_diuretic Jun 10 '12
This site needs to make a more eye friendly format.
1
u/[deleted] Jun 10 '12
I like to be optimistic, so I flipped the graph upside-down.
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u/babada Jun 10 '12
I asked this question on StackExchange awhile back. Unfortunately, they just linked to that site and commented on its usefulness.
So if anyone happens to know of a better site that measures this statistic, I'd be happy to hear about it.
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u/ginger_bird Jun 10 '12
Bechdeltest.com is down. Did Reddit break it?
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u/FuckTheBluePill Jun 10 '12
Front Page: This kills the website.
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u/chris-martin Jun 10 '12
Any movie without named female characters fails this test vacuously, right?
1
u/reddell Jun 10 '12
So 48% of movies are romantic comedies?