Films shown in Sweden get Bechdel (gender bias) rating by kpo

Sometimes you own the libs. Sometimes, the libs own you.

Interesting...

http://www.thelocal.se/20131108/film-critics-divided-on-swedish-gender
-bias-test

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Thursday, December 12, 2013 9:55 PM

Yeah. I'm pretty sure even Serenity doesn't pass the Bechdel test.

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Thursday, December 12, 2013 11:03 PM

http://bechdeltest.com/

The website above, Bechdel Test Movie List, has a column
on the left listing movies and their Bechdel rating.

I'll try to find a movie I've seen there before commenting.

Discussion of Serenity : Bechdel test.
http://bechdeltest.com/view/204/serenity/

====================== :>
All I suggest is a man hears what he wants to hear and disregards the rest. ~Paul Simon

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Thursday, December 12, 2013 11:24 PM

Thelma and Louise, 1991

Thelma: Driiive Louise! Drive! Drive the car! Go! Go! Go go go go go go!
Louise: What is it? What happened?
[Thelma holds up money]
Louise: You robbed the store? You robbed the whole damn store?
Thelma: Well we needed the money.
Louise: Oh shoot!
Thelma: It's not like I killed anybody for God's sake!
Louise: Thelma!
Thelma: I'm sorry, we needed the money, now we got it.
Louise: Oh shoot! Oh shoot, Thelma!
Thelma: Louise, get us to damn Mexico.
Louise: Allright, oh shoot! Oh shoot! Oh shoot!

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Thursday, December 12, 2013 11:38 PM

Well... Serenity cuts it REALLY close then. The female characters are all out of focus for most of the movie. And I'm still not really sure that a couple lines of dialogue passing between two women about a dangerous situation they're in meets the requirements.

The point of the test is to check that female characters have character depth and interests beyond men that they can discuss with other women. The conversations they do have are very short and I don't think actually demonstrate that.

In the series, though, they actually have a lot of conversations that fulfill that purpose. Not so much the movie.

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Friday, December 13, 2013 12:41 AM

The Miracle Worker (1962)
Annie Sullivan & Kate Keller

Paradise Road (1997)

Elizabeth (1998)
Elizabeth & Queen Mary

Cookie's Fortune (1999)
Cora & Camille

Calendar Girls (2003)
Chris & Annie

I'm not getting much, as brain refuses to respond to the
"ReCall" button. Haven't seen many movies the last 7 years,
neither.

But I'd hope most movies with a primarily female cast
would, sooner or later, have a conversation about ...
cooking, cleaning, child-bearing & the uselessness of
higher education for women. (Wait! Turn off the sarcasm!)

====================== :>
All I suggest is a man hears what he wants to hear and disregards the rest. ~Paul Simon

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Friday, December 13, 2013 12:59 AM

Sometimes you own the libs. Sometimes, the libs own you.

Despicable Me was one I watched fairly recently with good female main characters.

It's not personal. It's just war.

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Friday, December 13, 2013 4:11 AM

FREMDFIRMA

Quote:
Originally posted by kpo:
Despicable Me was one I watched fairly recently with good female main characters.

And some reallly bad female bit characters.. moose tranquilizer, meh hehehehehehehhee.

I like Edith too, she's soooo villain-in-waiting, it's epic.

-F

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Friday, December 13, 2013 4:49 AM

I like this idea. Go, Sweden!

Quote:
Originally posted by BYTEMITE:
In the series, though, they actually have a lot of conversations that fulfill that purpose. Not so much the movie.

But even on the show you still find most conversations between the female characters revolving around men: about Simon and Mal, generally.

The best examples of passing the Bechdel test are Kaylee and River. They tend to actually talk about Kaylee and River, be it apple chasing or Kaylee's sexual exploits or having sharp tools for self-defense. Zoe barely shares a line with anyone but Mal or Wash outside group conversations.

Meanwhile, the male characters have tons of meaningful conversations that don't even touch on the female characters. Mal and Jayne, Mal and Wash, Mal and Simon, Mal and Book. Heck, Mal and Niska. Even excluding Main Character Mal, you get Simon and Jayne, Simon and Book, Jayne and Book, etc., so there's not even that excuse of it being due to a male protagonist. When you really think about it, it's pretty startling.

I love the show and it does have amazing female characters but I wouldn't exactly call it revolutionary in terms of how women are represented in relation to men.

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Saturday, December 14, 2013 12:31 AM

Keep the Shiny side up

You do sort of wonder why every film, no matter its subject, would be rated on whether two named female characters talk about something other than men. Why not rate them on whether two named disabled characters talk about something other than therapy, or two vegan characters talk about something other than where to get a good soyburger?

"When your heart breaks, you choose what to fill the cracks with. Love or hate. But hate won't ever heal. Only love can do that."

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Saturday, December 14, 2013 12:51 AM

Because poorly written female characters tend to be defined through their relationships with the male characters, whereas male characters are defined by their actions. It's a common issue as a result of slow to change cultural norms and literary concepts as well as a lack of very many female writers.

And yes, to answer your not so subtle question, it's a feminist concept.

And as a child of this generation, I'm GLAD that it IS a concept, because many of the female literary characters of yesteryears are boring and one dimensional as hell. I was actually GLAD they gave Arwen something to friggin' do in the lord of the rings movies besides sit around and look pretty. Because then you start to wonder why in hell Aragorn likes her better than Eowyn.

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Saturday, December 14, 2013 4:27 AM

Well said, Byte.

Also kind of telling that "Vegans talking about Veganism" is considered the equivalent of "women talking about men". Shows you the problem right there.

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Saturday, December 14, 2013 5:32 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by AgentRouka:
Well said, Byte.

Also kind of telling that "Vegans talking about Veganism" is considered the equivalent of "women talking about men". Shows you the problem right there.

Indeed. Perfectly demonstrating the Point.

====================== :>
All I suggest is a man hears what he wants to hear and disregards the rest. ~Paul Simon

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Saturday, December 14, 2013 7:15 AM

FREMDFIRMA

Quote:
Originally posted by BYTEMITE:
I was actually GLAD they gave Arwen something to friggin' do in the lord of the rings movies besides sit around and look pretty. Because then you start to wonder why in hell Aragorn likes her better than Eowyn.

Oh don't EVEN get me started about either one, you've heard my flaming of Eowyn the hypocritical slacker dimwit, don't get me started on Arwen, especially when shitheads compare her to Luthien, which really offends me, cause Arwen wouldn't even give Aragon the time of friggin day till he was wealthy and powerful and then, ONLY then, she was all over him and historically her only intervention was to send his buddies (who woulda gone without her encouragement) into certain doom with him, cause well, why not, right ?

About the only female character I liked in alla that was Rosie Cotton, she is what she is, and proud of it, strong and fierce in her own little way and never for a moment pretending she is something she ain't, take it or leave it and if you dun like it, lump it!
THAT, I can respect.

-Frem

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Saturday, December 14, 2013 9:01 AM

Keep the Shiny side up

Quote:
Originally posted by BYTEMITE:
Because poorly written female characters tend to be defined through their relationships with the male characters, whereas male characters are defined by their actions. It's a common issue as a result of slow to change cultural norms and literary concepts as well as a lack of very many female writers.

And yes, to answer your not so subtle question, it's a feminist concept.

That's fine if you're making a movie that has male and female characters. But down-rating a movie like "Captain Phillips" because it doesn't meet the "named women talking and not about men" criteria when there are basically no women in the (true) story seems pretty pointless. Then again "Machete Kills" gets up-rated because it meets the "named women talking..." criteria even though the Bechdel reviewer notes "...all of the women are heavily sexualized exploitation-vixen types.", which sounds pretty gender-biasey to me.

Seems like there could be better criteria for determining if a movie portrays women without gender bias, like actually watching the movie and deciding for yourself, perhaps.

I expect that the Bechdel ratings accomplish more by causing discussion of gender bias in general than they do as actual rating of individual films. I'd think that's their actual purpose.

Quote:
And as a child of this generation, I'm GLAD that it IS a concept, because many of the female literary characters of yesteryears are boring and one dimensional as hell. I was actually GLAD they gave Arwen something to friggin' do in the lord of the rings movies besides sit around and look pretty. Because then you start to wonder why in hell Aragorn likes her better than Eowyn.

Many male characters were, and are, also one dimensional as well.

I always figured Arwen was the avatar of peace, healing, and reconciliation in LOTR, and as such wouldn't be involved in battles and destruction. Always considered Galadriel a pretty strong character, although she never had any "adventures" either. You don't have to be out hacking up Orcs to be a strong character.

Then again, Tolkien did write a pretty strong and complex female character in Eowyn. Admittedly, she had quite a crush on Aragorn, but Tolkien goes into great detail about why she might reasonably develop such an attraction. I always considered Eowyn one of the most well-rounded characters in LOTR.

"When your heart breaks, you choose what to fill the cracks with. Love or hate. But hate won't ever heal. Only love can do that."

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Saturday, December 14, 2013 9:42 AM

Geezer,

I don't think anyone is saying that the Bechdel test is a fool-proof feminism detector. And yes, there are movies that "legitimately" fail it because the story setting simply contains no female characters. Qualifiers need to be in place.

But when you look at the Large Number of good movies that fail it, you can reasonably start asking WHY they fail to pass this simple test, WHY even a show like Firefly with a good number of rich female characters fails to have them share a non-male-related conversation so much of the time. Why female conversation is apparently considered dead air.

Looking at the sum, it's a troubling testament that women need to be shown in relation to men in order to be shown at all.

The test is a useful tool for examining that aspect of media.

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Saturday, December 14, 2013 11:56 AM

Keep the Shiny side up

Quote:
Originally posted by AgentRouka:
But when you look at the Large Number of good movies that fail it, you can reasonably start asking WHY they fail to pass this simple test, WHY even a show like Firefly with a good number of rich female characters fails to have them share a non-male-related conversation so much of the time. Why female conversation is apparently considered dead air.

I would suspect that one reason is that folks who write movies are often just trying to tell a story, not advance a particular agenda. If a conversation between two women doesn't advance the story, why have it in there?

And now that I think of it, why is the criteria "Two named women talking about something other than a man" even germane to the discussion? Why couldn't a named male and female having a conversation not related to men and women be considered as showing their equality? For example, how many times did Zoe talk reason to various male characters?

As noted, I believe the main idea behind the Bechdel ratings is more to get discussion going than to be a valid measure of gender bias in a particular movie.

"When your heart breaks, you choose what to fill the cracks with. Love or hate. But hate won't ever heal. Only love can do that."

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Saturday, December 14, 2013 1:09 PM

Sometimes you own the libs. Sometimes, the libs own you.

Quote:
As noted, I believe the main idea behind the Bechdel ratings is more to get discussion going than to be a valid measure of gender bias in a particular movie.

Well just because it's not perfect/foolproof doesn't mean it's not 'valid'. The point of the Bechdel test it seems to me, is that it's very basic and unstringent. You would expect most stories (not all) to have women characters talking to each other at some point or other - AND for them to not be talking ONLY about men. These are not difficult conditions to satisfy - or they shouldn't be. I don't think the suggestion is that writers start going out of their way to include scenes of women randomly chatting to satisfy the Bechdel test. It's more food for thought... because the Bechdel test ought to be satisfied more often than not without the writer trying, don't you think?

It's not personal. It's just war.

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Saturday, December 14, 2013 1:11 PM

Sometimes you own the libs. Sometimes, the libs own you.

Son of a...

double

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Saturday, December 14, 2013 1:33 PM

Quote:

I would suspect that one reason is that folks who write movies are often just trying to tell a story , not advance a particular agenda. If a conversation between two women doesn't advance the story, why have it in there?

Why is it so rare that two women having a non-male-related conversation DO advance the story?

Do women just not do anything worthwhile except talk about men?

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Saturday, December 14, 2013 2:31 PM

Keep the Shiny side up

Quote:
Originally posted by BYTEMITE:
Why is it so rare that two women having a non-male-related conversation DO advance the story?

Do women just not do anything worthwhile except talk about men?

If you accept the Bechdel ratings as valid, it appears that, since most of the movies listed on the Bechdel site do meet their criteria for lack of gender bias, it's not so rare at all.

http://bechdeltest.com/

"When your heart breaks, you choose what to fill the cracks with. Love or hate. But hate won't ever heal. Only love can do that."

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Saturday, December 14, 2013 2:35 PM

Keep the Shiny side up

Quote:
Originally posted by kpo:
Well just because it's not perfect/foolproof doesn't mean it's not 'valid'. The point of the Bechdel test it seems to me, is that it's very basic and unstringent. You would expect most stories (not all) to have women characters talking to each other at some point or other - AND for them to not be talking ONLY about men. These are not difficult conditions to satisfy - or they shouldn't be. I don't think the suggestion is that writers start going out of their way to include scenes of women randomly chatting to satisfy the Bechdel test. It's more food for thought... because the Bechdel test ought to be satisfied more often than not without the writer trying, don't you think?

I think it depends on the story. Looking for gender equality in a story that has no females and rating it as having gender bias would seem to be like rating a movie about the English Civil War as racist because there are no strong Asian characters.

"When your heart breaks, you choose what to fill the cracks with. Love or hate. But hate won't ever heal. Only love can do that."

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Saturday, December 14, 2013 2:39 PM

Firefly doesn't have very many Asian characters.

--troll--

Quote:
If you accept the Bechdel ratings as valid, it appears that, since most of the movies listed on the Bechdel site do meet their criteria for lack of gender bias, it's not so rare at all.

That's because things have started changing. Older movies have this problem a lot. Newer movies are getting better about it.

Doesn't mean it's not a valid literary concept/device still.

And based on what I'm reading about what people are saying about Serenity, I'm not sure that most of those passes haven't been stretched to meet the definition.

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Saturday, December 14, 2013 4:23 PM

Lemme see now.

In literature & movies, Men talk to each other about government,
power, history, war, business, science, philosophy, art, religion,
money, psychology, medicine, exploration, invention, duty, honor,
sex, women ... And more.

In literature & movies, Women talk to each other about men, their
feelings for men, their need for men ... the money that men have.

In movies, Women talk to each other about men, but they also talk
about other women and the goings on in the neighborhood. So ...
when they are not talking about men, they are gossiping.

Women are not able to think about things that matter, so they
shouldn't and "don't bother their pretty little heads about it."

====================== :>
All I suggest is a man hears what he wants to hear and disregards the rest. ~Paul Simon

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Saturday, December 14, 2013 4:59 PM

MAGONSDAUGHTER

Quote:
Originally posted by Geezer:

I would suspect that one reason is that folks who write movies are often just trying to tell a story, not advance a particular agenda. If a conversation between two women doesn't advance the story, why have it in there?

Follks who write movies, um screenwriters, do have agendas. Most hollywood films contain the same story arcs that are repeated over and over again. How many films have you seen where someone down and out follows their dreams, has set backs and then makes good. That's basically archetypal american philosophy played out over and over again.

Sometimes plotlines happen so often that its almost unthinkable that anything different could occur. That's why the big twist in the film Alien was that Ripley, a female survived, and survived alone without the potential love interest man saving her life. In that one film alone, Ridley Scott probably did more for promoting equality for women than probably a great many feminist writers.

The same can be said for the character of Uhura in Star Trek. Rodenberry was breaking with racial and gender stereotypes by creating that character, which was just about unthinkable in that time. He had an agenda, to break those stereotypes.

So what the list does is highlight some significant issues with how females are portrayed in mainstream films. Yes, as Agent Rouka points out, occasionally it wont fit the script. Shawshank Redemption, set in a male prison wont pass the litmus test. But its useful for looking at mainstream films as collection and determining what are the stereotypical ways of depiction of females.

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Saturday, December 14, 2013 10:38 PM

Keep the Shiny side up

Quote:
Originally posted by BYTEMITE:
Quote:
If you accept the Bechdel ratings as valid, it appears that, since most of the movies listed on the Bechdel site do meet their criteria for lack of gender bias, it's not so rare at all.

That's because things have started changing. Older movies have this problem a lot. Newer movies are getting better about it.

Doesn't mean it's not a valid literary concept/device still.

I'm glad you agree that most current movies pass the Bechdel test.

Actually, if you look at their database, most years (back to 1900) seem to have a majority of films that pass the Bechdel test (based on a random selection of years. Don't have the time to look at 100+ years of films), at least for those films that have female characters. Not too many women in "Sands of Iwo Jima" or "The Dam Busters", for example.

"When your heart breaks, you choose what to fill the cracks with. Love or hate. But hate won't ever heal. Only love can do that."

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Sunday, December 15, 2013 11:13 AM

America loves a winner!

Quote:
...the following three criteria: (1) it has to have at least two women in it, who (2) who talk to each other, about (3) something besides a man.

Movies are 2 hours long. If 2 women DON'T talk about a man... it's called reality.

This seems silly to me, for those who go to the movies to be entertained.

Fathom the hypocrisy of a government that requires every citizen to prove they are insured... but not everyone must prove they are a citizen

I'm just a red pill guy in a room full of blue pill addicts.

" AU, that was great, LOL!! " - Chrisisall

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Sunday, December 15, 2013 12:02 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by AURaptor:
Movies are 2 hours long. If 2 women DON'T talk about a man... it's called reality.

This seems silly to me, for those who go to the movies to be entertained.

Whereas men talking to each other about anything at all is utterly removed from reality.

Right.

Jesus.

Geezer brought up some really good points questioning the value of applying this rating. Legitimate arguments can obviously be made. Why post something as asinine as this?

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Sunday, December 15, 2013 12:06 PM

Sometimes you own the libs. Sometimes, the libs own you.

I think I'm going to start using the word asinine. It's a good word.

It's not personal. It's just war.

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Sunday, December 15, 2013 1:00 PM

America loves a winner!

Quote:
Originally posted by AgentRouka:
Quote:
Originally posted by AURaptor:
Movies are 2 hours long. If 2 women DON'T talk about a man... it's called reality.

This seems silly to me, for those who go to the movies to be entertained.

Whereas men talking to each other about anything at all is utterly removed from reality.

Right.

Jesus.

Geezer brought up some really good points questioning the value of applying this rating. Legitimate arguments can obviously be made. Why post something as asinine as this?

Does the Bechdel scale take into account what MEN are saying ?

No ? Then why even bring it up? I was responding to the topic. What specifically about it did you find 'asinine'.

Thanks in advance.

Fathom the hypocrisy of a government that requires every citizen to prove they are insured... but not everyone must prove they are a citizen

I'm just a red pill guy in a room full of blue pill addicts.

" AU, that was great, LOL!! " - Chrisisall

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Sunday, December 15, 2013 1:04 PM

Sometimes you own the libs. Sometimes, the libs own you.

It kind of suggests that in your 'reality', either:

a) There are no women
b) They don't talk to each other
c) They only talk about men

It's not personal. It's just war.

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Sunday, December 15, 2013 1:13 PM

Again, the Bechdel test exists because male characters tend to get more character depth/development and tend to be more important to stories than female characters.

If you want to argue that the Bechdel test is not actually a very good measure of this because even old films have managed to have two female characters not talk about men, I do not disagree. Litmus tests are never perfect. I don't think the movie Serenity did a very good job of exploring the female characters of Firefly, and yet supposedly it passes the test with just a couple lines of dialog towards the very end.

This doesn't mean that litmus tests and by extension the Bechdel test are not useful whatsoever.

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Sunday, December 15, 2013 1:13 PM

America loves a winner!

Quote:
Originally posted by kpo:
It kind of suggests that in your 'reality', either:

a) There are no women
b) They don't talk to each other
c) They only talk about men

It's not personal. It's just war.

d) They almost NEVER talk about men.

See, to me, that's the clear point I was trying to make here. Women can seemingly talk for DAYS about all manner of things, movies, shoes, music, recipes, work, kids, school, friends, hair products,... eventually the topic of men gets brought up, but it doesn't appear to me to be the cornerstone of their conversations.

I guess my real peeve on all this is that movies are fictional. There's a finite amount of time where characters need to be developed, stories need to be laid down, and an interesting progression from start to finish must be achieved.

All while holding the attention of the viewer, us ticket buying folk who sit and watch these things.

Maybe I'm wrong, but this does seem to be much ado about nothing.

Fathom the hypocrisy of a government that requires every citizen to prove they are insured... but not everyone must prove they are a citizen

I'm just a red pill guy in a room full of blue pill addicts.

" AU, that was great, LOL!! " - Chrisisall

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Sunday, December 15, 2013 1:17 PM

Quote:
d) They almost NEVER talk about men.

Which is the point. In movies, they talk about men a LOT.

And no, movies are not supposed to be realistic... But you realize the reason that women talk more about men in movies than in real life is because this is what appeals to the primary demographic? Emotionally available women who want to hook up with the male lead creates a sort of relationship proxy sense of fulfillment. The women in movies are basically there for the sake of the 18-35 male audience.

This bothers female writers and female audience members who want characters that they can relate to, because they don't just talk about the boys they like, and especially not in life or death situations. Hence, the Bechdel test.

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Sunday, December 15, 2013 1:21 PM

America loves a winner!

So, Gerard Depardieu really ISN'T a sex symbol to women in the real world ?

Fathom the hypocrisy of a government that requires every citizen to prove they are insured... but not everyone must prove they are a citizen

I'm just a red pill guy in a room full of blue pill addicts.

" AU, that was great, LOL!! " - Chrisisall

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Sunday, December 15, 2013 1:24 PM

...I have no idea who that is.

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Sunday, December 15, 2013 1:27 PM