Movies Passing the Bechdel Test for Sexism Earned More in 2013

[Amir Kondori]

People apply the "Bechdel test" like it means something it doesn't. It was just used to make a point that most media featured men as the leads and that female characters that did exist tended to exist only in relation to the male characters.

It is not supposed to be a metric of how good a work of fiction is. It is not even a metric of whether or not a work of fiction is sexist. It is just supposed to highlight the disparity between the portayal of men and women in media.

If certain movies that did well happened to pass the test, great, looks our society is heading in a more egalitarian direction. It does NOT mean that Hollywood should start casting lots of female leads nor does it mean that those movies did well because they pass the Bechdel test.

 

[Jumplion]

The money is almost literally the entire point of the article. The whole thing is an implication that if films pass the test, they make more money.

However poorly worded the article may be, as you mention later, that's not really the main point of the test itself. It is an interesting fact that movies this past year that passed the test earned more than previous years, which is an interesting

In regards to enjoyment, several of the posts in this thread are people saying they enjoyed the movies that passed more than those that didn't.

Okay, good for them. I'm sure plenty didn't enjoy those same movies, regardless of test passing or not.

My point was that the Bechdel Test is nice, but it shouldn't be assumed that correlation = causation between anything including box office revenue.

And it isn't assumed that correlation = causation, but the correlation of a lack of passing this simple test implies some disturbing trends over the years that should be addressed.

You may be on the right track, but as soon as you mention how strange and saddening it is to not be able to name very many films that pass, you fall into the same trap as those commenters you mention.

The Bechdel Test either need to be kept separate as a tool of observation or acknowledged as being part of sexism discussions.

Why does it have to be an either/or? The Bechdel test can be used as a tool for diversity discussion, or it could be a gateway to disusing gender, racial, and sexual representations in media.

 

[Amir Kondori]

Yes, but people didn't go to see them based on a random die roll, either.

I'm not claiming the Bechdel test is perfect, but I'm saying that given these numbers, it's pretty plausible to conclude that:

1.) Movies that pass the test tend to be written from a less aggressively male-centric perspective, and
2.) these movies ultimately get sought out and recommended by more people because they don't alienate half of the population.

How do you interpret this data?

Careful, your logic is about to break. I guess maybe I don't need to write this post since my comment above addresses it, but here I am anyway.

The fact that movies pass the Bechdel test has nothing, and let me repeat that because it is important, nothing to do with the quality of the films nor their gross. Bad movies can be written that pass the Bechdel test. The Smurfs 2 passes the Bechdel test. Yes, the Smurfs 2.

The Bechdel test is a quick litmus test for portrayal of women versus men in media. That is it. Movies can and have been written that appeal to women that don't pass the Bechdel test. Movies that do pass the Bechdel test are not automatically interesting to women. I tried to find numbers but couldn't, so forgive me if I am making too big a leap for some of you, but I have to imagine that the audience for G.I. Joe Retaliation was at least 51% men, if not a good deal more. This is another movie that passes the Bechdel test. This is another movie that, well I won't speak for everyone on quality but it reviewed poorly.

The Bechdel test never was meant to judge the quality of a movie and it was never meant to make the judgement of whether or not a movie is sexist. It was meant to help highlight the disparity between men and women in media. No more, no less.

 

[The_Echo]

This seems to imply that these movies made more money because they passed the Bechdel test (which is rather arbitrary, honestly).

Which further implies that their passing is why people went to see them, though they couldn't possibly have known this prior to seeing the movie.

 

[Lola Lazerface]

It is not supposed to be a metric of how good a work of fiction is.

HOLY SHIT YOU FIGURED OUT OUR SECRET!

If certain movies that did well happened to pass the test, great, looks our society is heading in a more egalitarian direction. It does NOT mean that Hollywood should start casting lots of female leads nor does it mean that those movies did well because they pass the Bechdel test.

You were doing quite well up until that point. Unless you're right and our longing for equal representation is just entitled dumbfuckery -- an answer that you, yes, you! -- would be able to answer yourself if only for a minute you would imagine yourself to be a non-male. Must be difficult, though.

 

[Karadalis]

Who would have thought that having characters that feel real make for a better movie?

Sorry but the "Bechdel" test has little to nothing to do with the success or non success of these movies. Having more complex characters, better actors and a better overall story however has more to do with it then the movie featuring two women talking to each other or not about something that doesnt concern the ongoings of the movie... wich inevitably include male protagonists or antagonists in some form or other.

Also what does the bechdel test say about the sausage fests that where the hobbit movies or avengers... or ironman 3 or spiderman. Or heck.. even harry potter and the other lotro movies... star wars.. wich all where notorious for only having one female sorta kinda lead figure per movie? (allbeit the latter ones are ofcourse not 2013)

Fact is that the bechdel test has little to nothing to do with peoples decision on wich movie to watch. People dont even know about that test that completly leaves out the performance of male actors, the overall storyline, the hype for the movie months before its actually released in cinemas and any pre existing franchise or IPs.

So i cant imagine that a single person looked at a movie and said: "You know.. this is a good movie cause it prolly will pass the bechdel test"

So maybe.... juuuuust maybe its just a concidence... also its not really an academic method.

The transformers movies wouldnt suddenly become any better just because two women in it would talk about the weather while the all male cast (humans and transformers) duke it out in city and/or desert XYZ

 

[Amir Kondori]

It is not supposed to be a metric of how good a work of fiction is.

HOLY SHIT YOU FIGURED OUT OUR SECRET!

If certain movies that did well happened to pass the test, great, looks our society is heading in a more egalitarian direction. It does NOT mean that Hollywood should start casting lots of female leads nor does it mean that those movies did well because they pass the Bechdel test.

You were doing quite well up until that point. Unless you're right and our longing for equal representation is just entitled dumbfuckery -- an answer that you, yes, you! -- would be able to answer yourself if only for a minute you would imagine yourself to be a non-male. Must be difficult, though.

Wow, so much hostility. Why? You are angry because I said it is great that more movies pass the Bechdel test? Because I think a more egalitarian society is a good thing?

Where the hell did you come up with "our longing for equal representation is just entitled dumbfuckery"? You are putting words in my mouth and ideas in my post I NEVER said.

Really sad that this is the level of discussion on these topics.

 

[Dragonbums]

Ok, I guess I get the 2 or more character part. you don't want token females. Though its somewhat dubious that a woman apparently can't be strong unless she has a female BFF, but whatever. I get the talking about something other than a man (the most meaningful part of the whole test). But why do they have to talk to each other? The Hobbit fails because the women don't talk to each other? Really? Why? Why isn't a female character strong or deep or w/e unless she talks to other women?

I call bullshit.

It has nothing to do with implying female characters are weak because they don't have a female BFF, it's pointing out the unnatural trend that apparently the only time women even communicate with each other is when they either want to compete for a man who catches their love interest, and/or they want to fawn over another man.

That is the reason why this criteria exists. You will not be surprised or hard pressed to find two or more males talk to each other that has nothing to do with getting a babe, or competing with other men for babes. The same literally cannot be said for women.

Because apparently the act or happenstance of two women just happening to talk to each other and having nothing to do with love interests is beyond some people's comprehension. It's so fucking simple. Even having two side characters doing it means you pass the test, and yet still a wide range of movies fail the test. Is that to say that those movies are SEXIST? Heck now.

If were were to apply that to videogames, Portal and Half-Life would fail because one only features a human female and a robot (and as such cannot really initiate woman to woman talk) and If I'm not mistaken Alyx is the only prominent female character in the series surrounded by dudes, so by virtue it fails because there are no other women present. And if there were, she wasn't talking to them (I'm assuming you can correct me on this, but you get the point)
I'd be the last person to call these games sexist for they have some of the best written female characters in the games industry, but it does point out the trend that male are default and women are the other category.

As one person stated earlier, the key to passing this test with flying colors is to, actually put in more than one or two female characters.

 

[Amir Kondori]

Good to see that you pretend to have both A) a poor grasp on reading comprehension and B) forgo addressing the substance of my comment in favor of whining about tone. That shows some industrial-grade intellectual rigor. May I suggest you go have a look at my comment addressing Ukomba before you make an even bigger embarrassment of yourself?

Thanks!

What does your response to Ukomba have to do with me or anything I wrote? What was the substance of your comment, I missed it under all the anger and sarcasm? I did address the only thing that could vaguely be classified as substance, hell, I even quoted it like they teach you in school.

Wait, this is some avant-garde meta thing, right?

EDIT: I am going to call you on your bullshit, because if anyone didn't address the substance here it is you. My first two posts address the meat of applying the Bechdel test in ways it was never meant to be and you haven't touched on that one bit. You've only assumed I am a man.

 

[Sniper Team 4]

I'd like to see more women doing things in movies that in no way relate to trying to get a man (or another woman). I'd like to see that happen in video games more often too. I think Elsa and Anna proved that this isn't an impossible thing to pull off in a movie.

 

[Extragorey]

Another article that seems to misunderstand what sexism actually is.

Treating women differently from men is not sexism. Sexism is specifically discrimination based on gender. To treat women differently from men is perfectly natural, since women are actually different from men on a physiological level, and it is in no way discrimination.

The same applies to racism, with which people throw around accusations far too liberally without actually understanding it.

 

[Thaluikhain]

Complete aside, but one other thing in the article irritated me a lot.
"Perhaps even more shocking is that every single director was male. We repeat: 50 movies, zero female directors. Maybe some more women behind the camera would be a good start, eh?"

Excuse me? They seem to be implying that this fact is somehow sexist. Who is supposed to be at fault here? Are viewers supposed to avoid movies unless they're directed by women? Maybe I'm reading too much into it. It just seems like a very very silly thing to bring up.

Er...you don't find it noteworthy that there's a large gender divide there? Women are 50%(ish) of the population, 0% of the female directors of the 50 most popular films of 2013?

Nobody is saying not to watch films directed by men, they seem to be doing little more than prompting people to say "Hang on, look at that"

 

[Vale]

The Bechdel test is not really indicative of "this is not misogynistic" at all. It's a question of whether or not two female characters ever talk about something other than men in the given piece of media.
That this is considered some kind of achievement is frankly pathetic and ignorant.

 

[Entitled]

You fail to understand basically everything you're saying. The point we're making is this: These films passing the test could have absolutely nothing to do with their status at the box office.

If you are saying this you are still misusing the phrase "correlation doesn not imply causation", because you are not arguing with a specific causation, but denying that there is any correlation in the first place, if you believe that the examples are just random noise that wouldn't show up in a proper sample.

As I said in another post, for there to be any evidence that test passing films make more money, we would need the data from many previous years.

Except that here the hypothesis could also be specifically about recent audiences having a taste for more balanced movies than before.

It is well documented, that Becdel-test winning is growing on the long term [http://imgur.com/a/612eD#0]. There is little doubt that in a decade like the sixties, there was a negative correlation between a movie's profitability and it's Bechdel-failing, assuming that long term trends of what movies get made are indicators of what is there demand for.

Yes, technically your phrasing of it is more accurate, but this is such a self-evident trend that that's exactly why there is little reason to point it out. If I hear "Movies with Bechdel passing are more profitable", and next to it see a 2013 chart, then it is a given that the trend is a recent one.
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[Smooth Operator]

Catering to focus groups earns you more money... who would have ever guessed that, I always thought they did it for shits and grins.

 

[Strazdas]

"Sex and the city" also pass this test, and it is one of the most sexist movies made. This test is basically a joke, that was barely applicable to the dense minds back when it was created and is completely useless now.
But i guess you have to do what you have to do to make men look bad right?

Real talk: The many moronic, laughably & extremely obliviously overprivileged comments in this thread just break my fucking heart.

You ding dongs only get to complain after the unlikely event that women & minorities of all sorts unfairly start earning more -- to name something -- than you milquetoast, sheltered kids lacking empathy up to the demanding standard of basic decency.

Shame on me for tentatively concluding -- from an admittedly tiny sample size -- that the The Escapist community was enlightened and not plagued by shit aforementioned.

Can you repeat that in a way that males sense?
Are you saying that we can only complain when woman earn more money? how is that even related?