So some Swedish movie theaters have decided to institute a new rating system to let viewers know whether or not the films they show pass the Bechdel Test — that is, if at any point in the film two female characters have a conversation about something other than a man.
Over in the Men’s Rights subreddit, a fella with the classy handle classypedobear takes strong exception to this terrible affront to human decency. His argument?
Wait. WHAT IS WRONG WITH TALKING ABOUT KITTENS?
Thanks, AgainstMensRights subreddit!
Couldn’t tell if he was trolling on his way to some sort of racial “gotcha” so I didn’t bother to engage. The Help obviously has other issues beyond women talking to each other — yet another film that shows white people leading the Civil Rights movement.
It refers to a personal ability or mode of behavior that pushes you through hardship, physical or mental. Usually expressed as “you have sisu/it was done with sisu”.Some people might give more specific definitions, but those might not be commonly agreed on. Some people like to pretend sisu is something Finns are especially good at, or something foreigners cannot understand.
If they wanted a test along similar lines (is there one?) at least one good rule might be: “does not use violence/aggression to solve a problem.”
Holy crap… did good say something worth reading?!
@Viscaria
I understand what you mean, but I think you’re giving them too much credit. I honestly think most of them refuse to see any other human as living rich, full lives. It’s doucheyness by solipsism more than anything else.
@gelar
Best giggles of the evening!
*stands*
*ovatifies*
@wordsp1nner
Mine too. :3 The reverse Bechdel too. It completely fails the Vintermann test though. So far, one man has made a personal sacrifice for multiple women… and about twice as many men. And it’s ultimately meaningless, since all but two of them are vaporised twenty minutes later. I feel really bad about that… I didn’t mean for them to be, but there’s really no way out of it.
A little late in the thread, so it’s probably been said already. I question the necessity of a rating like this, personally. Why can’t Western media figure out what Japan already has and just make more shows with a wide range of female characters in them? Not to say Japan doesn’t have it’s drawbacks, but this is one thing SOMEONE seems to have gotten right.
Nope.
Oh come on Katz, give him credit, he did manage to write a post without crapping out a random link…;)
I’m fascinated by the words in different languages that relate to their cultural identity (eg, virtus in Latin, sophrosyne in ancient Greek). American English has no such word that I know of. Because we have no culture.
Plus, The Help is a pretty decent film… though I’m sure we could find some WRAs to argue that it’s bigger tree’d against white peoples.
Good, did you actually SEE Kill Bill? The women in the film don’t actually spend all of their time talking about Bill.
Here’s the screenplay:
http://www.imsdb.com/scripts/Kill-Bill-Volume-1-&-2.html
The film passes the Bechdel test by the second scene in which the main character and one of her female enemies stop fighting to talk to the woman’s daughter. Bill comes up later in the conversation, but the two women have a history of their own that they talk about.
Interesting selective memory on your part.
I remember watching “The Women” (original version) with my first husband back in the 1980s. He was from Panama, and so, despite being a gay man, had never heard of it. About an hour in, he turned to me and said, “I just noticed, we haven’t seen Mary’s husband yet.”
I honestly can’t remember if any of the characters talk about anything BUT men, though.
@Athywren
Hmm. I’m inclined to disagree. I’m a lot less upset now though. 🙂
Yeah, I’m going to have to disagree with the idea of the Die Hard franchise as an example of strong female roles in movies, or as progressive in any way. It’s a classic backlash movie in that it frames the attempts of the women who’re associated with the male lead to be independent from him as obstacles that he has to overcome in order to become the hero who will save the day. With the wife in particular her attempts to separate from him are a bad thing that our poor hero has been afflicted with, and her recapitulation to the idea of letting him take back his rightful place as the dude who owns her is a major part of the narrative arc.
There were lots of movies with backlash themes at the time, but I can’t think of any off the top of my head that were as obvious about it as Die Hard. Falling Down has obvious backlash themes too, but at least in that case you have the “wait, I’m the bad guy?” speech to frame things a bit differently.
cloudiah, that kitty is amazing! Spring-heeled Cat. 🙂
Gelar – belatedly adding to the applause. Loved your script.
I think I’ve figured out Mr “could anyone’s life pass the Bechdel test”‘s problem. The only “women” he knows are RealDolls. They probably don’t talk about him or anything else when he’s not around.
Though if they do … heheheheh.
“The thing I really can’t get past (now that we have this last film) is that they added a “buddy” character in Justin Long (who was very charming in the role, I admit) to accompany John and to be his comedic foil in the fourth movie and kept the daughter as a hostage. Then in the last movie, we meet the son, and he gets to be the “buddy” character and the comedic foil, giving him a status that was never given to either Holly or Lucy. It just really irritated me.”
Fucking agreed. However, the movie was not as good as the rest of the franchise (except 3. Nothing, not even liver, was worse than 3.), and I know men who feel this too without thinking about the *why*. I think the why is the lack of a strong and capable woman. Everyone loves Holly. Everyone loves Lucy (even if they mistakenly call her her father’s daughter and not her mother’s, really that pissed me the fuck off and I can’t get over it, it is a complete betrayal of Holly). I also think that the “buddy” (his son) became a big stupid lug like his father, whereas the “buddy” in 4 was shown to be intelligent and capable of foiling the bad guys, even though he got damselled, too.
@Robert I loved Are You My Mother?, but like you say, it’s not at accessible as A Fun Home. I recommend both books, but it’s a good idea to read A Fun Home first.
@Dvärghundspossen Joel Mchale’s Jeff is the main character, but Community is great ensemble sitcom that focuses plenty of time on the three flawed, quirky and very human three female characters.
@Artic Ape The latest version of Batwoman/Kate Kane debuted in 2006, she’s a supporting character in the Batman section the DC universe. She had a feature in Detective Comics, written by Greg Rucka and drawn by mainstream’s comic most talented artist (IMHO), JH Williams, which is collected in the Elegy graphic novel, which I highly recommend.
She got her own solo book in 2010, with JH Williams co-writing, with W. Haden Blackman, as well as drawing the majority of the issues. It’s the first mainstream super hero book with a lesbian lead and it rocks, but sadly Williams and Blackman quit the book after issue 24 over editorial interference. They were frustrated that the editors were willing to let Kate and Maggie Sawyer become engaged, but flat out refused to let ever them get married. I actually haven’t read the the book since they left, but will probably check them out after my anger at DC subsides.
JH Williams is drawing Neil Gaiman’s new Sandman book and the art is beyond gorgeous, because he’s mainstream’s comics most talented artist (again, IMHO).
I also highly recommend the amazing comic Promethea by Alan Moore and Williams, where Moore creates his own alternate universe Wonder Woman.
Not to mention two male minority characters, one of whom has a mental condition.
@Robert The Women is the ultimate “bitchfest” movie, since it only has female characters that endlessly bicker and fight, and all the other women are so awful that Mary flees to get back with her cheating husband. For me, the performances made watching the movie worthwhile, despite the endless cliched, sexist “cattiness”. Rosalind Russell is a blast.
RE: Mejas
As a gay man, I do NOT prefer to have all-male casts. I don’t watch for fanservice.
RE: Buttercup
Ooh, ooh, I’ve got some! My Neighbor Totoro, Spirited Away, Castle in the Sky, Princess Mononoke, Coraline! Miyazaki movies are actually really good about that! And again, Volver (though warning, there is sexual violence in it!)
RE: wordsp1inner
What’s fun about the Bechdel test is it’s so embarrassingly simple. But honestly, the Vintermann test would be best solved by only having men as background characters! There, they never have to undergo adversity or sacrifice anything!
RE: Good
Seems that most of the conversation between women in movies is discussing how to deal with the male antagonist.
Then why don’t we see more female antagonists? Ursula, Cruella, and Maleficient are AWESOME Disney villains! And I LOVE the Other Mother from Coraline.
Um, if we’re being honest, I do watch some things for fanservice. I’d get bored pretty quickly if those were the only things I ever watched, though. I guess some guys never do?
RE: CassandraSays
Enh, that makes sense. I guess in my case, if I want fanservice, I’ll go full-bore and grab something actually intended to scratch my gay romance itch. I’ve discovered ‘fanservice’ mostly means, ‘two pretty white men touching each other but NO HOMO BRO’ and that really grates on me. No, I don’t want two straight guys with homoerotic subtext, I want FUCKING QUEER PEOPLE DAMN YOU.
With the fanservicey stuff I watch the subtext isn’t so much a subtext as a giant flashing neon sign. Thanks for catering to the female audience, Japan and Korea.
(That would actually be an interesting discussion, why the media there does tend to make much more effort to appeal to women as consumers, and why American media doesn’t. I guess rom-coms are supposed to appeal to some women but they just annoy me.)
Good, did you actually SEE Kill Bill? The women in the film don’t actually spend all of their time talking about Bill.
It’s been a while since I saw “The Color Purple,” but I’m pretty sure the women talk about things other than men in that one, too. And as fascinating as Dabney Coleman is, the women in “9 to 5” talk about things other than him.
Quentin Tarantino always writes awesome female characters. I think it’s less because of whatever feminist sensibilities he may have and more because he happens to find strong women sexy (and if they can also go around barefoot, so much the better), but when you’re a lady moviegoer you take what you can get.
That puts an interesting spin on the guys who prefer the female characters that are common now.
“I like boring. Boring but hot, that’s my preference.”
RE: CassandraSays
Yeah, I’m not a huge fan of yaoi (or bara much either, for that matter) but at least it’s a thing that exists. I have a big chip on my shoulder how fandom here seems to think queer romance is two straight guys who look at and touch each other, all the while joking about how now gay they are. That ain’t fan service to me; that’s just dangling a shiny in front of my face and going, “At least you get to IMAGINE having this!”
But then you have things like Noah’s Ark and all those mad feelings fade away…