bechdel test.

Feminism

wikipedia says it all..
 This test asks the question 

• are there at least two women in the movie?
• do the women talk to each other?
• although a character is not the main protagonist and therefore her lines are unimportant in an individual movie, this question speaks for the movie industry as a whole.  It is more obvious to see this point when you think about the reverse application of the Bechdel test.  In "the Professional", Leon talks to his higher-ups about the "target."  In many movies, the man is talking to another man about something other than a woman unless it's a love story.  Even in "50/50," Adam talks to his friend about cancer while there is the side romance.  Obviously, it is because that is the plot.  If Adam was a woman, she would be talking about her cancer.  But where are the female protagonists?   
• Why is it easy to predict that the main character will be a man?  
• If you disagree...
• then try this "game" with a friend (I'd bet, but I don't know where you are.) 
• go through a list of movies (like imdb or movies that came out within the past year)
• then choose a position.  If you claim there are as many female protagonists as male, then pick the "female" side.
• then check, if the main lead is listed as female or male.  For dual leads, no one wins.
• for every movie that takes the female side get a quarter, for every movie that has a male lead, pay a quarter.
• did you make or lose money? 
• is it about something besides a man?
• Women who talk about a man only promote his position in the story.  Aside from romance which is only about "men-women" and each other (men-men, female-female also). Many times a woman's existence in the story is completely dependent on the male main lead's i.e. "the (scientist's, producer's, assassin's, king's,...) (wife, girlfriend, SO)"  
• What about women who move the story along.  i.e. the wanderer, the friend, the actual scientist, a warrior enemy, the empress, the colleague, the daughter, the captain, the captain's first mate, the sorceress, etc... a woman who talks to the bus driver about the bus fare?
• For that last question, I would revise this condition so that women have more than 2 lines back and forth, so movies don't pass this test with a mere "hi" and a return "hi."
• It's amazing how many movies still fail this.  
•  I would also revise this point to allow a "pass" to include men in group conversation with at least 2 women where the women say at least two lines in the entire conversation about something other than men and at least one line back and forth to each other, so that would eliminate a situation were the man is the teacher and the girls respond to only him.  
• women can exist in the background as waitresses, bartenders, janitors, and faces in the crowd, but does this give realistic insight into the interactions of the main protagonist?
• if this story is considered "realistic" to you then you must 1) not be "getting any (for heterosexuals)"  or 2) must be living your life in a sausage fest.  

Bechdel test for racism:  

I haven't actually watched "the help" but I hear that it barely passes the Bechdel test.  As an Asian watching cinema, I rarely EVER see an Asian woman in american film most particularly not as lead.  It might have something to do with the fact that America itself is only 5% Asian, but I'm willing to believe that not even that percentage is represented in movie leads.  I accept that because it appears money comes from white people watching white movies.  While an Asian like me ignores media.  (My own opinion of my own race).  It's still a little narrow minded when in "international" or "world-related" movies (not space) present the white male as the lead when 60.3% of the world population is Asian and probably about half the world is still female. 

  Even in Africa, the lead is white.  He/or she is the white savior to a dying society most likely, and without this white lead, the story crumbles.  The African American population % in America is greater than I thought, and rightly so, they are better represented in films.  However, Hispanic/Latino populations are greater than the African American population as of Feb 2014 on Wikipedia when I checked.  They are SERIOUSLY under-represented.

IDK about mixed races though.  I think most people consider Obama "black" when he is multiracial.  Similarly, many might think of Keanu Reeves (from "the matrix") white.  This is all based on how a person looks rather than what he/she is.  The problem also goes out to gender-less societies for the original Bechdel test and for silent movies, and for movies without too many people (i.e "Gravity") How do you characterize these?

Romantic Comedies

Romantic Comedies usually fail the Bechdel test and the "reverse" Bechdel test, so they should be omitted from evaluating the movie industry as a whole.  The story promoted in "rom-coms" are relationship between the two halves of the relationship usually in a heterosexual one. 

Why the failure?

  Many who direct and produce film are men, so they write stories that they can relate to with themselves as the protagonist.  Understandable...  George R.R. Martin is unique in that he can write a good story with female major characters.  But since, Catching Fire, Black Swan, and Pan's Labyrinith were also pretty good too a good movie can have a good female lead. I'm sure most of us knew that.  I 'm just stating this for the special few.

This leads directly into a second point.  Since the protagonist is male, most of the movie will take on is point of view(POV).  In his POV, most of his conversations are with men.  Even in political situations, labs (even bio labs (where there are lots of women)!!!), hospitals (as doctors and not as male nurses), on stage, and every where else, his primary business is to talk to another man.  Since it's his POV, and he is the protagonist.  He will, for most conversations that goes on in his movie, will always be at least 1 man in the conversation.  But in my opinion, there is real sexism with the Bechdel test.  One of the reason for the deficiency of female representation in movies is because male producers do not think to place any women in professional positions even in the background.  The sexism beyond Bechdel is when the main male lead is predictably in a higher position than the woman.  I.e. receptionists are SO OFTEN played by women, and men NEVER play nurses. 

Friendships are never a problem though.   i.e. 50/50 -That'll be like talking to your bro.   For this, the problem if it fails any form of feminist Bechdel tests will only be because the protagonist was a man and because most of the story follows his conversation with individuals.


A good deal of the problem with female representation is also because story telling in movies is very often times linear in perspective.  There are no multiple view points.  There sequences where evil-doers discuss their conversations and then cuts right into a romance scene with the hero and wife, but not too often are we given the same perspective in her life as the hero's.  There more often times a definite hierarchy of roles in non-romantic movies.  I.e. if there was a movie about a ship about to sink, it could be interesting to know the perspectives of a mother looking for her kids, an international teen who was touring, a European food critic whose job it was to evaluate the ship's food, the engineer aboard the ship struggling to fix ship, etc. all in one movie. 

A word on Racial Bechdel:

Of the top 21 movies, 19 of them have white male leads.  The 20th is "Seventh Samurai" and the 21st is "City of God."    (I'm too lazy to go through the rest, but the 22nd's lead is white male Se7en as of Feb 2014 & the 25th movie is the first female lead).  These are disappointing quick statistics.  Combine "Female" and "coloured" and you will probably get an even more disappointing statistic.  How often do you see a Hispanic as lead?  How about a Hispanic woman?  How many different Hispanic women have been leads as there have been many different white men as leads?  With these stats why should anyone of color even bother to go into acting.  Minorities and women who don't want to be stuck in secondary roles are probably better off boycotting the mainstream media to develop a popularized diversified film industry.   


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good* - 8 or above on IMDB.
lead's race- first name on top bill.