# Name your favourite movie - but it has to pass the test! **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [February 15, 2012, 2:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/name-your-favourite-movie-but-it-has-to-pass-the-test/612880 "2012-02-15T02:14:14Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 6
**Author:** ![VarlosZ](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/d78d45/32.png) [@VarlosZ](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/VarlosZ)\ **Post date:** [February 16, 2012, 4:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/name-your-favourite-movie-but-it-has-to-pass-the-test/612880/101 "2012-02-16T04:36:14Z")
> [@Carmady](#): > > The test doesn’t exactly say that women in film are rarely given substance. It says they rarely talk to each other about something other than men. They can still be given substance through other means. > > Nobody would say Marge Gunderson (Fargo) is without substance. Or Sarah Connor. Or Celine (Before Sunrise, Before Sunset). Nor would anyone say Angelina Jolie was not a major character in many of her roles (Salt, Tomb Raider, Hackers, The Tourist, Wanted…). Yet I think all of these films fail the test. That’s all true, but I think the point of the exercise is more about whether a movie has female characters whom exist as something other than appendages to the male characters, instead of specifically whether they have certain types of conversations with each other. The conversation test is just a means of creating something objective to hang your hat on. Even if the test sometimes flunks the kinds of movies you mention, it’s necessary (and, I think, pretty clever). ---
**Author:** ![JohnT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnt/32/15048_2.png) [@JohnT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JohnT)\ **Post date:** [February 16, 2012, 4:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/name-your-favourite-movie-but-it-has-to-pass-the-test/612880/102 "2012-02-16T04:39:49Z")
_Titanic_ Has a scene where Old Rose and her (granddaughter?) argue over whether Old Rose can continue talking. It was a two-sentence exchange, something like: “C’mon granny, let’s get to bed.” “No!” But it definitely passes. 😉 Also, there’s a scene where Rose and her mother talk about their families prospects and how Rose’s dad left them penniless. However, this exchange comes as part of a larger conversation about Rose and Calvin so it may not count (it’s when Rose is dressing and has her mom help her with her… girdle?) ---
**Author:** ![Carmady](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f04885/32.png) [@Carmady](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Carmady)\ **Post date:** [February 16, 2012, 5:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/name-your-favourite-movie-but-it-has-to-pass-the-test/612880/103 "2012-02-16T05:07:08Z")
> [@Jragon](#): > > The test is silly, and doesn’t really mean much. I’ll admit that since so MANY movies fail to pass it does shed some light on male centrism in hollywood etc, but I think there are plenty of corner cases where it doesn’t mean much either. I don’t think the test is silly. I’m just taking the point to be more narrow than some. There is definitely a blind spot in movies when it comes to women interacting meaningfully with each other. I’m thinking of it along the same lines as the Disney Princess Impossible Birth phenomenon (Jasmine, Pocahontas, Belle, and the Little Mermaid all have fathers but no mother). The fact that none of these characters have any interaction with a mother does not mean that they are uninteresting characters altogether (all but Jasmine are more interesting than their male counterpart), but it is certainly a noticeable exclusion. ---
**Author:** ![SciFiSam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/47e85d/32.png) [@SciFiSam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SciFiSam)\ **Post date:** [February 16, 2012, 5:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/name-your-favourite-movie-but-it-has-to-pass-the-test/612880/104 "2012-02-16T05:07:19Z")
My favourite movies: Terminator: Yes. Sarah and the other waitress talk about the first Sarah Connor dying. The Truman Show: No. But I’m not sure there are any conversations that aren’t about Truman - most of them involve him in person. Groundhog Day: No. But Bill Murray’s in every scene. The Goonies: Sadly, no. Bring it on: definitely. Tons of conversations about things other than boys. Mean Girls: Same. Four Weddings and a Funeral: No. But I think all the men’s conversations are about love, too, though not necessarily women. Rat Race: Yes - several times, between Whoopi Goldberg and her daughter. City of God: definitely no. Hanna: Yes, a few times. I also like quite a lot of action movies, and those tend not to have many female characters, and the female characters don’t talk to other woman. Like, say, Salt. And a lot of romcoms only have women talking about men (or their conversation always includes a man as a romantic interest), because they’re romcoms. Apart from romcoms, what’s noticable about my favourites, apart from Hanna, is that there are far fewer women than men altogether, let alone having them talk separately. I also think movies have somewhat improved in this respect since the Bechdel test was first proposed in what was it, the eighties? ---
**Author:** ![Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/7cd45c/32.png) [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elendil_s_Heir)\ **Post date:** [February 16, 2012, 5:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/name-your-favourite-movie-but-it-has-to-pass-the-test/612880/105 "2012-02-16T05:09:37Z")
_Pride & Prejudice_ passes. Lizzie Bennet and her mom talk about the difficulty of arranging good marriages (not about any particular man, mind you), and Lizzie and Lady Catherine de Bourgh talk about Lizzie’s upbringing and how her sisters are all (somewhat scandalously) entering society at about the same time. _Limitless_, my favorite movie from last year, fails. There are two female characters and they’re never even in a scene together. ---
**Author:** ![SciFiSam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/47e85d/32.png) [@SciFiSam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SciFiSam)\ **Post date:** [February 16, 2012, 5:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/name-your-favourite-movie-but-it-has-to-pass-the-test/612880/106 "2012-02-16T05:12:27Z")
> [@Carmady](#): > > I don’t think the test is silly. I’m just taking the point to be more narrow than some. There is definitely a blind spot in movies when it comes to women interacting meaningfully with each other. > > I’m thinking of it along the same lines as the Disney Princess Impossible Birth phenomenon (Jasmine, Pocahontas, Belle, and the Little Mermaid all have fathers but no mother). The fact that none of these characters have any interaction with a mother does not mean that they are uninteresting characters altogether (all but Jasmine are more interesting than their male counterpart), but it is certainly a noticeable exclusion. TV shows do this a lot too. In real life, 10% of sole parents are male, 90% are female; TV would make you think was the other way round. This started to get to ‘drinking game’ regularity in Burn Notice; while Michael’s Mom was in some ways a single parent, every other week a single dad would come to them asking for help and one sole time - up to season four - a single mum did. ---
**Author:** ![amarinth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/3be4f8/32.png) [@amarinth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/amarinth)\ **Post date:** [February 16, 2012, 5:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/name-your-favourite-movie-but-it-has-to-pass-the-test/612880/107 "2012-02-16T05:43:22Z")
I know my favorite movies don’t pass. I checked the AFI top 20 (from 1988. they’ve redone the list several times) Citizen Kane Casablanca The Godfather Gone with the Wind Lawrence of Arabia The Wizard of Oz The Graduate On the Waterfront Schindler’s List Singin’ in the Rain It’s a Wonderful Life Sunset Boulevard The Bridge on the River Kwai Some Like It Hot Star Wars All About Eve The African Queen Psycho Chinatown One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest 6 pass. From memory, all 20 would pass the “reverse” test (2 men talking about something that other than a woman), but I could be remembering incorrectly. Even if you discount the movies that are about war and crime, which are apparently macho-manly-subjects, there’s still some discrepancy in the numbers that pass each version of the test. Not passing doesn’t make the movies bad (nor does passing the test make a movie good) but it does show some level of bias. ---
**Author:** ![SciFiSam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/47e85d/32.png) [@SciFiSam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SciFiSam)\ **Post date:** [February 16, 2012, 6:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/name-your-favourite-movie-but-it-has-to-pass-the-test/612880/108 "2012-02-16T06:31:34Z")
> [@amarinth](#): > > I know my favorite movies don’t pass. > > I checked the AFI top 20 (from 1988. they’ve redone the list several times) > Citizen Kane > Casablanca > The Godfather > Gone with the Wind > Lawrence of Arabia > The Wizard of Oz > The Graduate > On the Waterfront > Schindler’s List > Singin’ in the Rain > It’s a Wonderful Life > Sunset Boulevard > The Bridge on the River Kwai > Some Like It Hot > Star Wars > All About Eve > The African Queen > Psycho > Chinatown > One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest > > 6 pass. From memory, all 20 would pass the “reverse” test (2 men talking about something that other than a woman), but I could be remembering incorrectly. Even if you discount the movies that are about war and crime, which are apparently macho-manly-subjects, there’s still some discrepancy in the numbers that pass each version of the test. > > Not passing doesn’t make the movies bad (nor does passing the test make a movie good) but it does show some level of bias. Then there’s IMDB’s top films of 2011, though WTF is ‘Tower Heist?’ I’ve never heard of it. However, for ten random apparently-successful films, the male domination is apparent. I haven’t seen them all, but apart from The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, which has male and female leads and the female is more important, the others all have male leads and women as adjuncts to the men. ---
**Author:** ![Jackmannii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jackmannii/32/311_2.png) [@Jackmannii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jackmannii)\ **Post date:** [February 16, 2012, 1:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/name-your-favourite-movie-but-it-has-to-pass-the-test/612880/109 "2012-02-16T13:03:29Z")
Apart from the dumbness of the “rule”, my probable all-time favorite movie qualifies - “Rear Window”. Two women do converse - about whether another woman has been murdered. ---
**Author:** ![Gyrate](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gyrate/32/3588_2.png) [@Gyrate](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gyrate)\ **Post date:** [February 16, 2012, 1:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/name-your-favourite-movie-but-it-has-to-pass-the-test/612880/110 "2012-02-16T13:22:23Z")
_Undercover Blues_ - the main villain and one of the protagonists are both female so it fits, as long as “conversation” can be defined as “climactic fight scene”. ---
**Author:** ![Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/7cd45c/32.png) [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elendil_s_Heir)\ **Post date:** [February 16, 2012, 4:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/name-your-favourite-movie-but-it-has-to-pass-the-test/612880/111 "2012-02-16T16:11:51Z")
> [@SciFiSam](#): > > Then there’s IMDB’s top films of 2011, though WTF is ‘Tower Heist?’ I’ve never heard of it… A recent crime comedy: [Tower Heist - Wikipedia](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tower_Heist) ---
**Author:** ![Jack\_Batty](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jack_batty/32/3201_2.png) [@Jack\_Batty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jack_Batty)\ **Post date:** [February 16, 2012, 4:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/name-your-favourite-movie-but-it-has-to-pass-the-test/612880/112 "2012-02-16T16:16:19Z")
I’ve heard of it. I saw the trailers for it during the entire week it was in the theaters. ---
**Author:** ![tullsterx](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/e9bcb4/32.png) [@tullsterx](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tullsterx)\ **Post date:** [February 16, 2012, 5:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/name-your-favourite-movie-but-it-has-to-pass-the-test/612880/113 "2012-02-16T17:45:34Z")
Easy, The Joy Luck Club ---
**Author:** ![Unauthorized\_Cinnamon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/bc8723/32.png) [@Unauthorized\_Cinnamon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Unauthorized_Cinnamon)\ **Post date:** [February 16, 2012, 6:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/name-your-favourite-movie-but-it-has-to-pass-the-test/612880/114 "2012-02-16T18:53:41Z")
> [@SpoilerVirgin](#): > > I am a woman and a feminist, and yet not one of the movies on my top 10 list passes the test. I see that someone mentioned _Persuasion_ upthread, but I couldn’t think of a scene in which they weren’t talking about men. Maybe I’ll watch it again to see if I can find one. I’m pretty sure Anne and Mary talk about Mary’s health (or rather, Mary natters on about her health while Anne makes vague and sporadic sympathetic noises), and there may be some female conversation about Louisa’s condition. Also, Mrs. Smith and Anne discuss Lady Dalrymple and her party. One of my favorite movies passes: **Shaun of the Dead**. Liz and Barbara discuss Barbara’s wound, and Diane coaches both women on their zombie impressions. 😃 **Enchanted April** passes with flying colors. Lots of conversations among women about non-man stuff. ---
**Author:** ![missinformation](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d07c76/32.png) [@missinformation](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/missinformation)\ **Post date:** [February 17, 2012, 12:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/name-your-favourite-movie-but-it-has-to-pass-the-test/612880/115 "2012-02-17T00:33:47Z")
I almost forgot one of my all-time favorites: Little Women…both versions and How To Make An American Quilt Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood Now and Then Sisterhood of the Travelling Pants ---
**Author:** ![JohnT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnt/32/15048_2.png) [@JohnT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JohnT)\ **Post date:** [February 17, 2012, 2:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/name-your-favourite-movie-but-it-has-to-pass-the-test/612880/116 "2012-02-17T02:52:10Z")
Just saw _Mrs. Miniver_ (1942) and it passes the Bechdel test with flying colors. Not a bad movie, either - I’m surprised that some call it among the worst B. Picture winners of all time. 😕 ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [February 17, 2012, 12:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/name-your-favourite-movie-but-it-has-to-pass-the-test/612880/117 "2012-02-17T12:43:11Z")
I suspect that a lot of people are missing the point in this thread. I can easily come up with a list of films that pass the test, but if I go through a list of what I would list as my _favorite_ films, there are few that do. Moreover, in the cases of the ones that do pass the test, it’s really not in a significant way – virtually all the interaction on screen is between men or a man and a woman. So **Spartacus** passes the test, but just because of one pretty inconsequential scene. **The Terminator** has only a couple of scenes between women (Sarah and the other waitress, Sarah and her roommate) that do no more than set up background. my real favorites – **The Seven Samurai, A Mamn for All Seasons, 2001, Forbidden Planet, Spartacus** (if you ignore that one scene), **The Flight of the Phoenix, Star Wars, The Day the Earth Stood Still** etc., flunk the test. It’s not because I don’t like women, or don’t think they can’t be the subject of serious drama. The test reveals something about the way our culture has been evolving and its underlying assumptions. I can come up with films I like that do pass the test – **A Bug’s Life, Aliens, Spirited Away, Bridesmaids** – but note that they’re more recent (and are unusual in other ways). And, as a guy, I don’t include “chick flicks” among my favorites, which winnows the field down even more, since those are the most likely candidates for films fitting the bill. ---
**Author:** ![Evil\_Captor](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/f17d59/32.png) [@Evil\_Captor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Evil_Captor)\ **Post date:** [February 17, 2012, 3:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/name-your-favourite-movie-but-it-has-to-pass-the-test/612880/118 "2012-02-17T15:59:14Z")
I agree, the purpose of the test is to reveal the culturally-embedded sexism in movies, and it does so brilliantly. ---
**Author:** ![Stanislaus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/stanislaus/32/3391_2.png) [@Stanislaus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stanislaus)\ **Post date:** [February 17, 2012, 4:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/name-your-favourite-movie-but-it-has-to-pass-the-test/612880/119 "2012-02-17T16:51:47Z")
\*\*Inception \*\*makes an interesting case. Why shouldn’t Arthur, Eames, Saito, Yusuf or Fischer be female? Why couldn’t Michael Caine have been Judi Dench instead? But no - we’ve got a MacGuffin psycho ex-wife, and a naif who mainly exists as an audience substitute. There’s no reason for any of the inception team to be male other than convention. Which is odd, in an otherwise consciously original movie. ---
**Author:** ![Ulfreida](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ulfreida/32/8014_2.png) [@Ulfreida](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ulfreida)\ **Post date:** [February 17, 2012, 6:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/name-your-favourite-movie-but-it-has-to-pass-the-test/612880/120 "2012-02-17T18:59:43Z")
+1 for Enchanted April, my first thought. Others: Cold Comfort Farm, Hairspray, The Inn of The Sixth Happiness, Beetlejuice. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/name-your-favourite-movie-but-it-has-to-pass-the-test/612880.md?page=5) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/name-your-favourite-movie-but-it-has-to-pass-the-test/612880.md?page=7)