Arwen doesn’t serve a critical role, unless muse for heroes is critical. She is mildly significant in Tolkien lore for the deep fans and has part of the appendices dedicated to her relationship with Aragorn. But in the book(s) itself she physically appears and speaks for literally what is about a couple of pages in most editions.
Just a few fewer lines (since she’s a spider), but Shelob gets more time than Arwen.
Arwen was an important person in the history of Elves in MIddle-Earth and the history of Gondor, but she only had a bit part in LotR. In the movie(s) she had a more prominent role, but I was talking about the book. And not the Appendices.
As far as counts of characters, I was considering all named characters that appear “on camera”. There were dozens of males, although many had only bit parts. But then most of the female characters had only bit parts, too.
Then, you have to count Arwen.
I dont count “unnamed orc soldier #37”. Named characters with lines- many lines.
Jackson very smartly dumped Glorfindel, who showed up once, then went away in the books, for Arwen.
If you Google LOTR cast, you get 6 men and two women on the first line.
I did. She’s one of the eight female characters. She’s just didn’t have a prominent role in the book.
I thought I made it clear I was talking about the book, not the movies. Hell, I haven’t even seen the third movie. I bailed out of the second one about halfway through.
Mentioning the “on camera” has me confused.
I put the phrase in quotes to show that I didn’t mean it literally.
Did you count Shelob?
I did indeed. Here’s my list (in rough order of appearance). However, I did this from memory and it’s been years since I reread any of the book, so I may have forgotten one or two.
OK, then, name three movies that fail the reverse test, in that they don’t have two named male characters who talk with each other about something other than a woman.
The mere existence of movies that fail the test isn’t a problem. The fact that movies that fail the test are so incredibly common, however, is a problem. The fact that nobody would ever think of making a movie that fails the reverse test illustrates just how big a problem it is.
How about something other than war or violence?
I am currently watching online the 1968 movie Bullitt. Typically of movies or television 58 years ago, all the doctors are men and all the nurses are women. All the policemen are men. The only major female character is the main character’s girlfriend. Surprisingly, she is an architect. Surprisingly, one of the doctors is Black.
The Women
All is Lost
Bambi vs. Godzilla
Not following this. The test isn’t about war or violence so I think you are making another point?
The Bechdel Test is useful in the aggregate: Across a body of fiction, what percentage pass the test? It’s ok if individual works fail the test, but if a large body of works has a 57% pass rate, that’s a smell that needs more investigation.
Considering the test is a low bar (the criteria are boolean), it’s a bad smell.
Being the 80s/90s kid that I was, I remember Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles had a token female, April. At that time in my life I was the token female in my peer groups so naturally I always had to be April. While it could be annoying, I kind of liked being the only girl. I thought of myself as an ambassador for my gender.
That said, I can’t help but notice how my favorite things stack-up in terms of gender distribution. The Thing is one of my favorite films, but it’s a total sausage fest. I think there is better representation than there used to be, but it varies quite a bit depending on genre.
It’s also worth considering that while we are talking about old things, that doesn’t make it irrelevant for the purposes of discussion, because a lot of these old things have had tremendous staying power and popularity even today. So old ideas about gender are still very much part of our culture.
And it’s still unusual enough to be noticed when a female character gets screen time that isn’t somehow concerned with “women’s issues.” It’s important for those issues to be seen and discussed in the public dialogue but it’s also important for women to be depicted as having an identity outside of their gender.
Exactly, the test assumes women never talk about anything but men- but if you had a similar test for men, see how many talk about their feelings or their relationship. Different types of films, like those with mostly men- are also limited in their choices of discussion.
Friends, one of the most popular sitcoms of all time, had 6 main characters, 3 women and 3 men.
I’ve seen fan fiction that gender-flips the characters in a show, and it’s just striking how suddenly it’s women, women everywhere.
Movies cost too much to just do that on a lark, but imagining movies and TV shows with the genders flipped is a useful way of visualizing the bias I think.
Back in the early '80s, I knew an aspiring actress in St Paul, MN, who was cast as the Chief Inspector in a British murder drama, a role written specifically for a man. She carried it off well and got good reviews.
That’s exactly the opposite of what the test is about. Women talk about plenty of other things than men. But movies, when they show women talking with other women, it mostly is just about men. Movies, in other words, are not an accurate reflection of reality.
The reverse is not seen. In movies with mostly-male casts (which is a lot of them) have the men talking about all sorts of things. Even in a war movie, the men will usually talk about their families back home, or their civilian jobs, or their favorite foods, or sports, or whatever. Sure, they mostly talk about violence, but it’s not the only thing.
I’m still waiting for an actually realistic film about grade-school boys in the 1990s where every line of dialogue is either about sports or video games.