Sense and Sensibility and Persuasion
Empire Records. Besides talking about boys, they talk about hating the man, suicide, perfectionism, and drug abuse.
Perhaps. But that’s irrelevant. There is no shortage of male characters in film who are not identified through their relationship to a woman. Women don’t fare as well. One of the articles about the rule talks about two women in The Godfather who are credited as X’s Wife and Y’s Wife. These are not women that exist as full people in the way Corleone and the other men do. They’re adornments to further fill out the male characters. The rule attempts to give objective criteria for determining how developed female characters are in any given movie and not to protest for equal opportunity casting. A reverse Bechdel would be useless because we already expect our men to be strong and well-developed characters.
I’m not sure I understand what you’re saying. You are comparing “woman-centric” movies with movies in general (“woman-centric” movies would fail the reverse test as much as all movies fail the original)?
Wouldn’t that mean you consider a default movie to be “man-centric”?
Also, Ghost World would be pretty far up my list. Not as high as Kill Bill though.
My number one, Shawshank Redemption clearly fails, since I think there’s only one woman in the entire movie, the bank teller.
Pretty sure my number two Contact passes, since it stars a woman who I’m fairly certain talks to other women in the movie. (Although they are talking about aliens that could possibly be men)
The Right Stuff – Annie Glenn and Trudy Cooper have a conversation about Annie not wanting the TV news crews to come into her house because she’s self-conscious about her stutter. When she gets her husband on the phone he backs her up.
(Possible disqualification; Vice President Johnson wants to come in with the TV crews so he can be seen consoling Mrs. Glenn on John’s scrubbed launch, so they are in some sense discussing a male character.)
I’m saying that chick flicks are just as bad, only in the opposite direction.
I don’t think that’s a blindspot at all - to the contrary, that’s precisely the inequity the test is meant to highlight. A film that features men who exist primarily in relation to a woman is a “woman centric” film. The reverse, however, is not a “man centric” movie. It’s just a movie.
Largely because many of the topics that translate well onto the big screen are man-centric.
EDIT: Color me completely unsurprised that women shine on the small screen.
Let’s not forget that the list has nearly 3000 movies on it and I see a lot of smiley faces (meaning the movie meets the qualifications…something I missed the first time I glanced at it, I thought they all did), so it’s not that someone found some big Hollywood secret here. It’s not like someone said “Gee, have you have noticed that there’s almost no movies where woman talk about something other then men” and they could only come up with 20 or 30 movies that fit the qualifications. I have to wonder if someone thought (or hoped, to prove a point) they wouldn’t be able to find many movies when they started this list.
My favorite movie is “Rear Window” and there’s at least one conversation between Liza and Stella discussing how a certain (female) body might be buried. Granted, the conversation might refer to the husband of said female body - not 100% sure.
Anyway, strikes me as kind of an arbitrary test!
My favourite movie is “The Color Purple”, which passes with flying colours, mostly purple.
My next favourite movies are probably the Lord Of The Rings films, which, not so much.
Nor do mine, with three exceptions:
Helen Parr and Edna Mode discuss the supercostumes which Edna has designed (although their conversation eventually turns to Helen’s husband Bob) in The Incredibles.
The guitar-playing stewardess, the sick little girl and her mom talk together in Airplane!
The Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio (sp?) character and the smartass black sub driver talk briefly over the radio in The Abyss.
However, Breaker Morant, Limitless, The Hidden, Star Trek: The Wrath of Khan, Dark City, Trading Places, Pride & Prejudice, Cinema Paradiso, Memento, Groundhog Day, Notorious and Casablanca don’t pass the test, I think, and they’re my favorite movies.
One of the worst Star Trek movies, Insurrection, oddly enough does pass the test: Counselor Troi and Dr. Crusher discuss their rejuvenation on the alien planet, including their boobs firming up!
I find that to be a highly dubious assertion.
Yay! My favorite movie, Passion Fish, passes handily. May-Alice (Mary McDonnell) and Chantelle (Alfre Woodard) have a lot of conversations that aren’t about men (as well as several that are). Non-man topics include May-Alice’s drinking problem, the importance of knowing how to cook if you’re going to live in Louisiana, and many more. There are also conversations between May-Alice and the Robicheaux sisters (classmates from her youth) about a memorable sleepover, and May-Alice and a collection of her former fellow soap-opera actresses talk about a one-line part one of them had in a sci-fi movie (“I didn’t ask for the anal probe.”). Oh, and between May-Alice and Chantelle’s daughter, about alligators.
I had forgotten about The Incredibles until I checked the list on that page.
“Bend it like Beckham” is the first to spring to mind. I didn’t check its position on the list, but they sure do talk about soccer a lot.
“Bring It On” works too. (what? shut up, I like it! :D)
The most obvious: 1939’s “The Women.”
Everyone in the cast (including animals) is female, and they talk about men . . . among many other things.
This was my answer (with Aliens as a runner-up, whatever that combination may say about my tastes).
This Bechdel Test eliminates way more movies than I would have guessed. I started thinking about some of my favorite movies:
My first thought was Last of the Mohicans. It has two women, Alice and Cora Munro, but I can’t remember them having a conversation with each other. They exchange bits of dialogue, but I don’t remember anything I would call a conversation.
Breaking Away, another favorite, doesn’t qualify. More than two female characters, but they don’t talk to each other.
Doctor Zhivago has several female characters, but the only conversations between them seem to be about men.
I don’t remember any substantive conversations between women in The Godfather.
Then I thought about Fargo, but even there, the only conversations between women are about men.
Blade Runner, no female conversations there.
The Thing, no women at all.
The Station Agent, no all-female conversations.
Goodfellas, no.
Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, no.
No Country for Old Men, no.
In Bruges, no.
So I guess I’m gonna say Alien. There are definitely some qualifying conversations there. (Brief and to the point, but they’re in there.)