The Bechdel Test

So, the other day, Miss Banshee sent me a story from NPR and said, "I thought this was right up your alley." It was a story about a cartoonist named Alison Bechdel, particularly about one 1985-era installment from her long-running  comic (now on hiatus), Dykes to Watch Out For. That comic established what is now referred to as "The Bechdel Rule" or "The Bechdel Test."

The Bechdel Test is a sort of litmus test for films. In the comic, a character tells the other, as they stand in front of a movie theater, that the only movies she sees must:

1. Have at least two women in it,
2. Who talk to each other,
3. About something besides a man.

And although that comic is old enough to vote and drink alcohol, it's still relevant. And that makes me sad.

What is the last movie you can remember that passed this test? I asked myself. I drew a blank. Hmm, I thought. This is up my alley.

I set the story aside, and then I saw the latest installment of "Target Women", Sarah Haskin's whip-smart segment on the weekly internet TV show infoMania, about how women are treated as one single demographic with some sort of hive mind. The latest installment was about chick flicks, and it sent me right back to Alison Bechdel.

Both the story about the Bechdel rule and the segment of 'Target Women" got me to thinking: What movies are out there in which women talk to each other the way I talk to my female friends?

Sure, we talk about relationships and babies, but when I think about how much air time those topics get, they don't actually rate very high. We talk about pop culture, politics, art, feminist and queer theory, world issues... you know, coffee talk. We talk about jobs — the ones we have and the ones we want. We talk about the houses we want to buy some day and the current events that matter to us. While my husband is very important to me, when I get together with smart women with shit to say, I have other things I'd rather talk about, because I'm a smart broad with a lot of smart shit to say.

But I thought and thought about movies that showed examples of women acting the way I do with other women, and I came up with bupkis. Zip. Nada. Maybe I'm overthinking and drawing a blank because of that, but when I updated the Bechdel rule for myself to also include a fourth stipulation that the two women must also discuss something other than babies, I came up empty-handed for movies that fit the bill. Except, of course, the movie Bechdel's character cites as the last film she saw that fit the criteria — Alien ("the two women in it talk to each other about the monster").

So help me out. Name me some movies where women talk about politics or something? Two women talking to each other, of course — not just another movie with the Token Smart Chick talking to a man. Tell me why this movie fits the criteria and I will start renting away. Because I, like Alison Bechdel, want to see women that represent me in film, and I want them to be more than mere tokens.

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