It says a lot about a film, when it doesn’t pass the Bechdel test.. One could argue that passing it is the bare minimum for films that don’t aim to be outright sexist, let alone films that claim to be feminist. But is it really the be all and end of all of a ‘feminist’ film, and are the failures still worth watching?
The test, invented by Alison Bechdel in 1972, is a simple one. A film must, A) have at least two named female characters, B) these characters must have at least one conversation and C) this conversation should be about something other than a man. Of course, this is hard to achieve when your entire film is written, directed, produced and acted by men in a story that revolves entirely around men. Even harder still when these characters don’t associate with any women outside of family members and love interests, which in turn, makes it virtually impossible for these women to have any life of their own.
To list every film that has failed would be to list almost every film ever made. And if that isn’t enough to depress you, an (un)surprising number of them manage to fall at the first hurdle: having enough named female characters.
It’s not all bad news, though. A surge in women writers and directors over the last decade have churned out enough female led films to give Wes Anderson a heart attack, and we have been blessed with a slurry of heroines with rich inner lives, with conversations spanning a whole range of topics. Should we really be praising these films for their inclusion of a single conversation not about men? Probably not. But the bar is low, and they are a welcome change to the many, many films that have failed before them.
That said, I would argue that not all of these failures are necessarily anti-feminist in themselves – a film can still have some feminist merit without actually passing the test. With the variety of films that are out there, does a one-size-fits-all metric work anyway?
Firstly, it’s best to get the definition of a ‘feminist film’ out the way. A feminist film should, simply put, champion the core values of feminism – the liberation and empowerment of women. Fully rounded female characters with humanising storylines are generally marks of a film with feminist values.
Science fiction epics Gravity (2013) and Arrival (2016) certainly did their bit to change female representation in the genre. Yet as empowering as it is to see young, white, conventionally attractive women in STEM on screen (what a win for women everywhere), both films failed to cough up another named female character for them to converse with. In fairness, Gravity is set in space, but then that didn’t stop Alien from doing it.
Perhaps expectations shouldn’t be too high for the sci-fi genre anyway, with its massively male dominated audience. You would think then that romantic dramas, on the other hand, would shine in this area. A Star is Born (2018), La La Land (2016) and Marriage Story (2019) have all been lauded for their interesting, realistic depictions of women, yet the former two fail on the first step (enough women) and the latter on the third (non-male centered conversation). Marriage Story’s saving grace, however, is that it is not really designed to pass the test – the entire conflict of the film revolves around the deteriorating relationship of a wife and husband. The female characters are still developed and well portrayed, and isn’t that what we’re after?
When Harry Met Sally (1989) is another example of a film that doesn’t pass the test, but doesn’t pass the reverse test either. Similar to Marriage Story, the film is an exploration of men and women and their complex relationships with one another, both platonic and romantic. And so what if Meg Ryan and Carrie Fisher talk about men at every interval? That’s the point. The dialogue alone makes the film a worthwhile watch.
Other worthy mentions of Bechdel failures include 500 Days of Summer (2009) and Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004), which offer much needed critique of the manic pixie dream girl archetype. Yet despite this move away from its problematic rom-com predecessors, neither female character manages to have a conversation divorced from men. It’s a missed opportunity to hammer their point home – but the films still have merit for subverting a very real (and very annoying) sexist trope.
As illuminating as the Bechdel Test is, then, passing it is not necessarily a prerequisite for a good or feminist film. Even Bechdel herself claims she’s not a “stickler” for the test – “If I were, I wouldn’t see many movies.” I think here, the real significance of the Bechdel Test is revealed. It effectively serves to point at a telling gap in our stories, and invite us to question why it’s there.