The Bechdel Test was first described in the comic strip, “The Rule” in 1985. A female character
says she only watches films that satify the following three requirements:
1. The film contains at least two women
2.
Who talk to each other
3.
About something besides a man.
The rule is supposed to be a low bar to get over. But it
demonstrates effectively how often Hollywood fails when it comes to
representing women on the big screen.
This blog post includes a lot of great graphs on the number of films that pass the test. And
this site is a
user edited guide to specific films and discussions of which rules films pass –
and which they fail. Sometimes there is
disagreement.
Films and theatre are different mediums but I decided to put
the theatre I have watched and the plays I have written to the Bechdel test.
As I mentioned before, the Bechdel Test seems like an easy
one to pass. It doesn’t suggest how important the women are to the film or the
story. It doesn’t suggest that the women are interesting or relevant or strong
or multi-layered, just that they exist and talk to each other about something
apart from a man. Films could pass this test by having a cameo appearance by
two women saying hi to each other.
How does theatre compare? Some of the conventions of theatre
make analysis tricky. The recent On the Bodily Education of Young Girls by
Adena Jacobs and Fraught Outfit had a stage filled with young girls and women –
but it is essentially dialogue free. In Angela’s Kitchen last year, Paul
Capsis plays all the members of his immediate family – including his mother and
grandmother, who interact during a large dinner scene starring the whole
family. For me, both of these shows pass the test.
One-woman or one-man shows are typical stage endeavours. As
are two-handers. It’s very unusual for films to have casts this small, but on
stage it happens a lot. A female monologue about anything apart from a man
still fails the test. A male and female two-hander, even about the subject of
gender politics, fails – even when the female character talks to her mother,
because the mother is unseen. But I’m not sure that’s exactly the spirit of the
Bechdel Test.
Putting aside comparisons between the two mediums, using
those three rules, 50% of the shows I’ve seen in the last twelve months pass the
Bechdel Test. At last week’s Sunday Sessions at Belvoir St theatre in Sydney,
playwright Tom Wright discussed analysing the plays of all the mainstage
theatre companies in Australia every year – and his overall impression is that
most years only 20% of shows pass the Bechdel test.
For comparison, of the Top 20 user-rated films at the IMDB,
only three pass the test – Schindler’s List, The Godfather Part II and Pulp
Fiction. But barely.
*
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| Penny (Renee Palmer) talks to herself in Like a House on Fire but passes the test in Painting with Words & Fire |
If you’ve seen any of my plays or read this blog for a
while, a lot of my work is dominated by female characters. But how does my
writing stack up against the Bechdel Test?
I have five full-length plays. Three of them pass the test.
The fourth is a two-hander, one man and one woman. It’s the play I alluded to
above – one about gender politics, where the woman is seen to speak with her
mother, but her mother is on the other end of the phone line, unheard. The
fifth play is a one-man show. Three of five. 60%.
I have twelve short plays that run between five and twenty
minutes. Only three of these pass the test. 25%.
One other features two female characters who do not talk to
each other. Three others are female monologues, which – when combined –
actually produced a show that did pass the test, Painting with Words & Fire. But as monologues, they are three
women talking to themselves.
Of all my short plays, the casts are usually two or three
only. One has four characters – two men, two women; the women do not interact
at all.
*
The Bechdel Test is a simple proof that women are almost
invisible in feature films. While the graphs linked above might suggest about
half of all films pass the test, remember how little it takes to pass. Passing
the test doesn’t mean women are well represented in that film; the only reason
Pulp Fiction passes is that two women discuss tongue piercings and fellatio.
The Godfather, Part II and Schindler’s List pass based on one scene each.
In theatre, I think it might be more clear if a work passes
or doesn’t pass. We don’t have extraneous characters; either there are two
female characters who interact or there are not. Characters aren’t on stage for
cameos, they are always important parts of the work. And yet, the percentage of
mainstage theatre company works in Australia still puts the number at 20% pass.
To me, that is a major failing.
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