Movies: The Bechdel Test

[Mijin]

@Kimstu

Like I said, I don’t think the absence of at least two fully developed female characters necessarily makes a movie bad, but it does mean that it might not be so easy just to “throw in” a Bechdel-qualifying scene without coming across a bit odd.

It doesn’t necessarily follow that a film that fails Bechdel doesn’t have two fully developed female characters; they just may not have a scene together. Also the requirement of “not about a man” is open to interpretation.

I agree with others that it’s a nice rule for making a general point, but there are lots of films that fail the test and nonetheless present a positive view of women.

[Malthus]

@Mijin

It doesn’t necessarily follow that a film that fails Bechdel doesn’t have two fully developed female characters; they just may not have a scene together. Also the requirement of “not about a man” is open to interpretation.

I agree with others that it’s a nice rule for making a general point, but there are lots of films that fail the test and nonetheless present a positive view of women.

Heh, Gravity. No two named female characters talk …

[Measure_for_Measure]

@Ellen_Cherry

Here’s a list of the movies that pass. …

But, as Zsofia (and most of you) points out, it’s not about evaluating individual movies, it’s about becoming aware of how women are portrayed overall.

I constructed a dataset from 1936 to now from the webpage. (N>=10, each year). It’s noisy, though the fluctuations decline as the number of movies per year increases.

My 2 series were “Share of movies listed with less than 2 women” and “Share of movies that pass the Bechdel test”. To deal with the noise, I added a 5 year centered moving average. Here’s the 3 part chart:
http://wm40.inbox.com/thumbs/7d_130b41_d2595_oP.png.thumb

There appear to have been pro-Bechdel fads in the early part of the era. But methinks the first sustained tendency towards more female inclusive films was from 1980-1986. The 1990s also showed some positive trends. We’re now somewhere north of 60%, which isn’t especially high.

Here are the mean shares by decade:

. tabstat LT2women passBechdel, by(decade)

Summary statistics: mean
  by categories of: decade 

  decade |  <2 women    pass Bechdel
---------+-------------------------
    1930 |  .117         .383
    1940 |  .165         .462
    1950 |  .131         .445
    1960 |  .179         .465
    1970 |  .106         .464
    1980 |  .113         .543
    1990 |  .089         .585
    2000 |  .078         .618
    2010 |  .071         .611
---------+-------------------------
   Total |   .119396     .5116288
-----------------------------------

So we’ve moved from something like 45% to 60%.