.png)
In 1985, Alison Bechdel published a comic strip that would change the landscape of representation for women in film. The aptly-named Bechdel Test, Bechdel-Wallace Test, or Mo Movie Measure, has three criteria a movie must meet to pass: (1) it has to have at least two women in it, (2) who talk to each other, about (3) something besides a man. Bechdel credits her friend Liz Wallace for the idea, compounded with Virginia Woolf’s 1929 extended essay, A Room of One’s Own.
This test was an oasis in a terrain of films featuring women as extensions of men. Virginia Woolf, in A Room of One’s Own, writes, “Women have served all these centuries as looking glasses possessing the magic and delicious power of reflecting the figure of man at twice its natural size.” Most movies featured women as wives, girlfriends, or secretaries. Top-grossing movies in the years leading up to the publication of the comic include Back to the Future (1985), Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom (1984), Star Wars Ep. VI: Return of the Jedi (1983), and E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial (1982). None of these pass except for E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial. E.T. has a conversation at about 17 minutes in, in which the mother, Mary, asks Gertie, her daughter, what her Halloween costume will be. Gertie answers that she wants to be a cowgirl.
As representation in media became a more prominent subject, the Bechdel Test followed suit as the metric with which to measure it. The increase in internet usage in the 2000s created a platform for the test to gain traction. This traction continued into the following decades, and in 2020, the term was added to Merriam-Webster’s Dictionary. What started as a spoof-like comic strip in a radical feminist newspaper had become the most popular criterion for representation, any representation, in modern media. In the context of 1985’s film landscape, this test was revolutionary and thought-provoking. However, the media range of 2023 contains vastly more layers to its representation. The conversations had by film critics and moviegoers alike are more complex, and a test as simple as the Bechdel-Wallace test no longer satisfies.
In a 2023 interview with The Guardian, Bechdel herself stated, “It was a joke. I didn’t ever intend for it to be the real gauge it has become and it’s hard to keep talking about it over and over.” She also brings up that it has become so mainstream that feature filmmakers calculatedly fulfill the test criteria. She says, “What’s really dismaying now is the way so many movies cynically try to take shortcuts and feature strong female characters – but they just have a veneer of strength and they’re still not fully developed characters.” The test is so simplistic that a movie can easily and intentionally boast its passing without a commitment to representation. Movies like Goodfellas (1990) and The Wolf of Wall Street (2013) pass the Bechdel-Wallace test. The Wolf of Wall Street features female characters as extensions of the spotlit men and contains misogynistic and objectifying messages about women. Goodfellas centers around the lives of men and barely touches on the women in their lives and how the men’s lives of crime affect them. Only through technicalities do they both pass.
The modern breadth of representation extends far beyond the widely accepted gender binary of the 1980s. Its scope is beyond gender, even. The layers of representation are multidimensional and interwoven, and the depictions of intersections of various identities have become more significant. Issues of age representation, especially for women, have come into focus. Ten percent of movies in 2020 included male characters 60 and older; only 6% included female characters 60 and older (USA Today). Additionally, racial representation has become widely talked about, as have accurate portrayals of LGBTQ+ characters. One primary concern of those seeking representation is the worry that a qualitative test, such as the Bechdel-Wallace Test, will facilitate surface-level depictions and do nothing to curtail harmful stereotypes. The Bechdel-Wallace test functions within the dated gender binary, and films are increasingly depicting a more complex portrait of gender.
Several new tests have been developed in recent years, including the Waithe Test, which is passed only when a film features a Black woman who exists within a position of power and is in a healthy relationship. Another, the Vito Russo Test, states that the film must contain an identifiably LGBTQ+ character not predominantly defined by their sexual orientation or gender identity. New York Times film critic Manohla Dargis coined the “Duvernay Test” after director Ava Duvernay. Dargis’ criteria include stories where “African-Americans and other minorities have fully realized lives rather than serve as scenery in white stories” (Dargin, 2016).
These tests have yet to rise to the internet-captivating, disputed, and publicized level of the Bechdel Test. However, their discourse and presence indicate an increasingly expanded-upon world of representation– meaningful and qualitative representation– in film and television in the years to come.
Sources
Anderson, Hephzibah. “Alison Bechdel: “the Bechdel Test Was a Joke... I Didn’t Intend for It to Become a Real Gauge.”” The Observer, 2 July 2023, www.theguardian.com/books/2023/jul/02/alison-bechdel-test-dykes-to-watch-out-for-cartoonist-interview.
Bechdel, Alison. “Bechdel Test Movie List.” Bechdeltest.com, 2019, bechdeltest.com
Dargis, Manohla. “Sundance Fights Tide with Films like ‘The Birth of a Nation.’” The New York Times, The New York Times, 29 Jan. 2016, www.nytimes.com/2016/01/30/movies/sundance-fights-tide-with-films-like-the-birth-of-a-nation
Massie, Victoria M. “Want to Measure a Film’s Diversity? Try “the DuVernay Test.”” Vox, 1 Feb. 2016, www.vox.com/2016/2/1/10888212/duvernay-test-movie-diversity.
Oliver, David. “Ageism Still Lurks in Hollywood, according to Analysis of Female Film Characters.” USA TODAY, 13 Apr. 2021, www.usatoday.com/story/entertainment/movies/2021/04/13/women-film-study-highlights-ageism-concerns-hollywood/7201257002/.
“The Numbers - Top Movies of Each Year.” The-Numbers.com, 2019, www.the-numbers.com/movies/#tab=year.
“MEDIA TESTS for DIVERSITY and REPRESENTATION.” Wide Angle Youth Media, www.wideanglemedia.org/blog/media-tests.
Comments