Tag Archives: Bechdel Test

A number of critics have denigrated the BECHDEL TEST and not without good reason. As previously addressed, it’s a funny punchline from a 1980s comic strip that serves as an absurdly ineffective litmus test. In most cases this is due to the pathetically low bar it sets. Yet, in others cases, passing the test would […]

By now I hope we can all agree that just because a film features female characters who speak with one another about anything other than a man, it does not automatically qualify as FEMINIST-FRIENDLY. What we really need to consider is context. So, let’s do just that. And let’s do it with BRIDESMAIDS. BRIDESMAIDS is […]

As you probably know, the BECHDEL TEST hails from a gag from DYKES TO WATCH OUT FOR, a 1980s underground comic strip by CERTIFIED GENIUS, ALISON BECHDEL. It unfolds when two women pass by a movie marquee and one asks the other if she wants to catch a flick. The friend declines with the following qualification:

“I only go to a movie if it satisfies three basic requirements. One, it has to have at least two women in it who, two, talk to each other about, three, something besides a man.”

She concludes that the last movie she was able to see was ALIEN [1979].

To reiterate, this idea came from a comic strip, that’s C-O-M-I-C, meaning it was intended to be funny. Yet, since then it’s evolved (devolved?) from a witty exaggeration into a cinematic aspiration. And why? Because so many contemporary Hollywood films fail this absurdly deficient litmus test. And when the occasional anomaly does manage to hurdle this ridiculously low-hanging bar, some people have the poor taste to call that “progress.”

How did this happen?