Movies Passing the Bechdel Test for Sexism Earned More in 2013

[Kenjitsuka]

Interesting list. Not very scientific, but quite interesting to see!
Another but: Not every movie SHOULD pass this test, as -because DIVERSITY- Gravity demonstrated.
Some movies just have very few characters or don't include a lot of women for plot or world reasons...

MOST movies should pass, obviously, just never 100%

 

[Thaluikhain]

"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?

Excepting, of course, as has been pointed out many times before in this thread, the Bechdel Test is not to determine if a movie is sexist or not.

Funny how people desperately trying to condemn it as failing to tell if a movie is sexist or not tend to overlook that.

 

[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?

Excepting, of course, as has been pointed out many times before in this thread, the Bechdel Test is not to determine if a movie is sexist or not.

Funny how people desperately trying to condemn it as failing to tell if a movie is sexist or not tend to overlook that.

Please read the title of this news article. That should explain the behaviuor.

 

[Darmani]

How did Oz, Great and Powerful make the cut? ALL the relevant dialogue revolves about The Wizard, who is a guy!

What one scene did they have that wasn't about him?

Despicable Me 2 really makes me wonder if Thor 2 managed a miss. IM3's one claim is HAVING a scene.. okay a passported one (Killian comes in at the end to menace but I thought that was the point. here two smart women, the one with the idea and the one who can make it work just talking and here comes killian the spurned nerd turned alpha douche to fuck it all up and turn the scientist into whiner. It had all the feel of lifetime movie.
And I still wanted a truer to the mandarin fill in.

 

[Thaluikhain]

Please read the title of this news article. That should explain the behaviuor.

Sure, the article is bad (either blatant misleading clickbait or simple fail), but people attacking the test should know what the test is and what it's for, despite that.

 

[Erttheking]

You know, I'm starting to think that people are taking this article way too seriously. Talks of people being forced to write female characters, the death of creativity...the article just points out that movies that happened to pass the test made more overall than the ones that didn't! It's an interesting little tidbit, nothing more! Why is everyone getting up and arms over this?

Because someone is making a claim they can't support using misleading statistics, and then other people are passing that claim along to other websites making further elaborations on the claim that can't be supported. And calling it "news".

I don't know about the rest of the folk here, but I'd call out this sort of claim any time bad science is reported incorrectly. Doesn't matter if it's about sexism or not.

Misleading statistics? I don't see it. Movies that passed the Bechdel tests overall made more than ones that did not, the article is poorly worded but that's what I'm overall taking away from this. What, did I miss something?

 

[Lightknight]

Perhaps high-budget films are being more mindful of PR issues? The only way this study would be meaningful would be if it accounted for that. Otherwise it could be easily explained by large budget films being made with large PR departments on their staff just trying to appeal to the broadest audience possible by avoiding social issues. Perhaps they're even aware of the test and actively passing it?

You have to figure out what percentage of big budget films pass the test. How many passed the test in the previous year, and what average budget the test failing films have.

Comparing movie revenue to other movies is not comparing apples to apples. You could be comparing golden apple baskets to a single half-eaten and rotten apple when comparing budgets. Budgets are generally proportionate to revenue. Even a failed 100 million budget movie still typically makes close to 100 million to nearly comp expenses.

And what's with the criteria of this test? If girls talk to eachother about men it suddenly fails? I can't get my female coworkers to shut up about men. Is accurately portraying one of the most common discussions that either sex has somehow sexist? Men also talk about women all the time. It isn't even a gender/sex specific trait. So how does portraying it magically cross a red-line? Sounds arbitrary to me. Counter-cultural even. All just to appease some randomly ascribed criteria? Are women somehow backwards when they talk about men?

 

[b3nn3tt]

Having reading through three-and-a-bit pages of this thread, I'm going to basically take a middle-ground by picking out the points from each side of the argument that I find the most relevant and sensible.

The Bechdel Test is not, and has never been, a test for sexism. However, the article is extremely misleading in that regard, including the title, and I can see how that would lead to a lot of the confusion displayed.

To weigh in on the correlation/causality arguments, I think that it comes back to the writing of the article again. I highly doubt that the fact that a film passed the Bechdel test had any significant impact on its box office success. I do think, however, that the test is very good at highlighting the discrepancies in representation in films. Even without the modifications to the test, given that the population is a pretty equal split between men and women, it would be expected that at some point over the course of a film, two female characters would have some dialogue that didn't revolve around a man. However, as has been shown time and time again, this is rarely the case. Does this mean that films that don't pass are sexist? No. It simply highlights the fact that women are fairly poorly represented in film.

The article is mostly meaningless fluff, as it is difficult to really draw anything from the fact that more films pass the Bechdel test and do well, other than 'Oh, that's a nice shift'. However, I am slightly saddened by the number of people who seem to think it a bad thing that this is the case. Greater representation is a good thing, I don't really see how that can be argued against.

 

[K12]

It's a bit weird to think that "The Conjuring" passed the Bechdel test since it has some really creepy misogynist overtones going through the film, i.e. women are weak and evil.

Also who's the second female character in Pacific Rim?

 

[martyrdrebel27]

GTA certainly does pass the test.

GTA passed the Bechdel Test.

You both are absolutely right and I stand corrected.

I must've been asleep during the subplot development or something.

dude, you're doing this wrong... This is the internet, we have an arrangement. You're supposed to stand by your point and and violently defend it. It doesn't hurt if you call us fags and throw a few a few racist remarks in as well. Then we're supposed to smug assholes and say something like, "oh, posh, the frivolous rabble are at it again." "hmm, yes. Quite. I am most bemused."

You're breaking the internet! Now call me a fag and imply my mother's a whore!

 

[Something Amyss]

I highly doubt that the fact that a film passed the Bechdel test had any significant impact on its box office success.

I agree with most of what you posted. I just wanted to point out with this that the flip-side is that the logic is that movies that represent women won't sell. While there may be no impact on box office success, it by itself should at least put into question that logic.

So yeah, this isn't exactly what the article makes it out to be, but it does have something significant.

 

[strumbore]

Dumbest test ever...read the fine print on the right of the "winners" and then read the titles

 

[Something Amyss]

dude, you're doing this wrong...

No, you're doing this wrong! Haha! Take that!

But seriously, my brain slammed on the brakes when I saw that. It's so unusual to see someone be all "haha, fair play."

 

[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.

We can go back quite a bit further than 'Frozen.' How about the film that was essentially the reason to start the thing in the first place, 'Alien?'

I have never actually seen Alien. I don't like scary movies, and growing up everyone kept saying how scary it was so I stayed far away. Aliens though, I saw several times. Ripley is indeed awesome. And of course, who can forget Vasquez? She was by far the best character in the entire movie.

 

[Hero in a half shell]

The best example is Desolation Of Smaug. The female elf, among a few other things in the movie, was completely unneeded. Everything she did could have been accomplished by Legolas instead.

So you're saying they should have made Legolas fall in love with Kili?

That would have been AMAZING!

...I'll admit I forgot about that.

That would, however, be pretty goddamn fantastic.

I demand fan fiction immediately.

Kili slumped into the muscular elven arm's of his would be lover.

"I... I am sorry" He gasped, as his vision grew hazy, his strength left his athletic body, and his dwarven axe grew slack in his hand. "I have seen this wound before." Legolas gasped, "You have been penetrated by a Morgul blade, it's evil ejaculate runs in your blood. If I do not cleanse you now you will succumb to the temptation of the dark side and be forever the Emperor's slave. You have but one hope, I must pump the venom out of you're body with my Elven dagger."

Kili had never seen a dagger so large, it quivered in the moonlight, long, pale, and hard, with little leaves lovingly engraved all along the tip. "I'm afraid it always hurts the first time" Orlando Bloom whispered in Kili's ears, as he thrust ...

Oh lord I can't go on. Bloody Bollocks that was emotionally draining. (To make it extra realistic I added lots of apostrophe mistakes, and accidentally diverted briefly into Star Wars before mentioning a character by their actors name instead of their own.)

Hoped you enjoyed it. I didn't.

 

[Something Amyss]

Dumbest test ever...read the fine print on the right of the "winners" and then read the titles

Dumber than the various "gay" tests?

I mean, seriously.

It's a bit weird to think that "The Conjuring" passed the Bechdel test since it has some really creepy misogynist overtones going through the film, i.e. women are weak and evil.

A sexist movie can pass the test and a "feminist" movie can fail. That's actually not all that strange.

You know, because it's not a test for sexism.

Those statistics are based on a ridiculous ''pass or fail'' for sexism and are worth nothing.

Likewise, it's not test for sexism. I know what the article states, but at this point is anyone really surprised about a misleading news headline?

Please read the title of this news article. That should explain the behaviuor.

It's not unreasonable to expect you to know what you're talking about if you're going to rail against it.