#Bechdel-Wallace Test

[capricorn-0mnikorn]

The Disability Representation Test I came up with (eventually)

It's been a hot minute since I posted about this; I was reminded of it by this post, talking about disabled people (or lack thereof) in 'utopian' sci-fi.

This was inspired by the Bechdel-Wallace Test for women's representation. And while I recognize that that has been taken out of context, and overused as a means of film and literary critique, I found the process of coming up my own version useful for figuring out what I find satisfying in a story (I've named it The 1,001 Problems Test):

One: There's at least one disabled person (Requiring more than one, as in the Bechdel-Wallace Test, would be too easy to "pass" by putting them in an institutional setting, rather than in mainstream society, especially in a short story, with only a few characters to begin with)

Two: Who wants something (Too often, the disabled character is only there as a way for the protagonist to show their qualities and morals, but is never given a chance to express desires of their own)

Three: Besides Cure, Revenge, or Death (A disabled character can certainly want to be cured--especially for chronic pain, fatigue, and progressive conditions--but they should want something else, too. They should have some motivating factor beyond their disability).

Four: And takes action to try and get it. (See point Two; if you retold your story from your disabled character's P.O.V., could they be the protagonist, or are they just looking at the world through the window, waiting for someone else to rescue them?)

[wirelessw]

In the original Metroid, the final boss is Mother Brain.

Can Metroid technically be considered to pass the Bechdel-Wallace Test, if we consider death lasers a form of communication?

[mauesartetc]

If anyone’s interested, I created a Google Sheet documenting how different Helluva Boss episodes scored on the Bechdel-Wallace test.

As I’ve mentioned in previous posts, the show’s female characters seem pretty underdeveloped compared to the male ones, so naturally I was curious to see how it’d fare in this type of assessment.

For those unfamiliar with the test, its criteria is simple. In order to pass, the fictional media in question must feature all of the following:

At least two named female characters

Who talk to each other

About something other than a man

It’s really pretty basic, which makes it all the more telling that numerous movies have failed it.

And to be clear, failing the test doesn’t necessarily mean an episode is terrible, nor does passing necessarily mean it’s good. The test is just a tool to highlight how writers utilize female characters in the narrative.

As of this writing, Helluva episodes are almost evenly split between passes and fails, which is a better overall score than I expected. Kinda sucks that Millie has so few positive interactions with other women, though. It might be nice to see her hang out with some girlfriends (or her sister, maybe??), just so she has some semblance of a social life outside of work and her husband. For that matter, does Loona have any female friends? (She’s acquainted with Octavia, sure, but I don’t consider one discussion to constitute a friendship.) Has she met Vortex’s girlfriend yet? Would they get along? And why the hell hasn’t Stella shared a single conversation with her daughter? Feels like a ton of story potential is being left on the table here.

Anyway, I’ll update the sheet as new episodes come out, though if the writing is soul-crushingly awful I might finally give up and stop watching altogether. Just fyi.

[logicalstroopwafel]

I’m suddenly wondering if there are any leverage episodes that don’t pass the Bechdel-Wallace test. The show has two main women, makes sure to have some women on the side as well, and doesn’t often discuss romance at all, so part of me would be amazed to find there was an episode where Parker and Sophie (or any of the women side characters) don’t discuss something that’s not a man.

On the other hand, reality is often disappointing, and if an episode has a male mark, or Parker and Sophie only talk about their teammates or how to seduce someone, it still wouldn’t pass the test.

[panphilosopher]

I sorry, you have an issue using the Bechdel Test. I, on the other hand, am using the Bechdel-Wallace test to its full intentions.

[acelessthan3]

I know it's a (good) joke that @shetheyslay was making on a post about gay sex, but like as a gay man it really is like that sometimes sitting on the sidelines of the Feminist Culture War™.

Like the Bechdel-Wallace Test is an occasionally useful tool for evaluating the treatment of women in media that's been bastardized into this be-all end-all litmus, but there are contexts and experiences where it's functionally useless. I'm reading about relationship anarchy and there have been several points where what I'm reading mentions resisting the heteropatriarchal subjegation of women within how relationships are formed and maintained and the roles we take therein, and I look around at my sexual and romantic relationships and those of my peers and go, what women tho?

Which isn't to say there isn't potential for misogyny (Lorde knows there's plenty of sexist gays out there), and relationship anarchy broadens the scope of relationships-worth-investigating in our care networks beyond just the romantic and sexual, so there's plenty of room for resisting the patriarchy when talking about how you relate to your friends or coworkers or public/media figures or your mom, but how much energy do I really need to invest in liberating myself from a phallocentric mindset (in romantic relationships specifically) when as a man in relationships with other men there are frequently no women involved?

Like there are people who unironically will hate on gay media because it doesn't feature enough women or w/e when like yes! Because this is a story about gay men! It was never meant to be a feminist critique. Please get out of our bedroom so we can continue with the gay sex!

And the people who don't get that are just like:

[procrastinatorproject]

I had seen people call it the Bechdel-Wallace test, but never knew where that originated. Turns out it's Bechdel herself, asking that credit be given to the woman who originally told her about the test.

So I'll try to update my usage in the future, that seems very fitting, actually.

[dedicatedblog]

White Plastic Sky

Nope.

[jesterbells]

Also it's not about policing an individual movie--it's useful for pointing out broad TRENDS in movies. Like what percentage of movies fail the test because they have no female characters? Because the female characters have no names? Because the female characters never talk to each other? Because the female character only talk about men? If you're favorite movie doesn't pass the test that's ok! It's not saying every movie has to! But it sure would be nice to have a media landscape where more stories do pass and correct longstanding inequalities in representation.

you people will just. say anything

Keep reading

[ghostmarionette]

I come bearing another poll!

The Bechdel or Bechdel-Wallace Test:

It has to have at least two women in it.

Who talk to each other.

About something besides a man.

Source

[diekerel]

Please correct me if I'm wrong, because I so so desperately want to be wrong, but I don't believe Howl's Moving Castle passes the Bechdel-Wallace test. Like, Sophie's a great character, I genuinely believe she's well written, but I think she only talks to three other women, and it's always about Howl?

Miyazaki seriously flexed on every single mangaka by creating female characters that are actually complex and developed, and that don’t exist purely to be with the male character, as well as have their own motivations and dreams.

Miyazaki is an absolute GOAT of a storyteller.

It’s beautiful right?

[pumpkinmetaphor]

RIP Shouji Nanako you would have loved Chappell Roan

[sunfoxfic]

I wish the phrase "Bechdel Test" had never fallen into common vernacular and I'm not kidding.

[chuckduckling]

It bugs me how the majority of films released each year have 1) two male characters 2) talk to each other about something 3) other than a woman, because the fact that men's lives don't 100% revolve around women 100% of the time is just naturally assumed. Nobody even notices.

And yet, even though it's historically proven difficult for even 50% of films released each year to pass the Bechdel-Wallace Test, that doesn't matter. We need to endlessly debate the need for the test, we need to endlessly debate whether it even matters at all.

Meanwhile, it will never matter for male characters, because of course most films will have two men talk about something other than a woman at least once during the film's runtime. Male characters don't have to revolve completely around female characters at all times in order to exist in the majority of narratives. That's already the status quo.

[festeringfae]

Yellowjackets is a really great example of how when people complain about "too many lesbian period pieces," they're misidentifying the real problem, which is that media doesn't know how to create relationships between women that don't revolve around their interpersonal relationships with men.

There's a reason the movie specified by Wallace in the Bechdel comic is Aliens: only in a completely otherworldly setting could a movie imagine a reason why two named women discuss anything besides a man. In Yellowjackets, nobody complains about or refers to 1996 Van/Taissa as lesbians in a "period piece," even though fiction set in the 1990s is just as much historical fiction as shows set in the 1890's.

All this combined with the latest year I've seen a setting labeled a "period" as a derogatory statement are things set in the last few years prior to the 1960's cultural revolution, and I suspect what people are really trying to complain about is that so-called "representation" is mostly cherry-picked to bare almost no resemblance to the daily experience of anyone currently living. It still takes an airplane crash for an audience to believe teenager girls might talk about something besides boys. It takes a killer space alien. It takes a time (be it the 1700's or contemporary Christmastime) where being attracted to women is the conflict itself.

Because at any other time, media would have to reckon with the fact that while systemic patriarchy exists, a contemporary woman of any sexuality has enough agency in her own life that she could happily not have any interpersonal relationships with men at all, and still have real, valid problems. Problems beyond that which the viewer can just blame on the woman anyway, because she shouldn't have been liking/trusting/fucking the wrong man. Problems as frequent as low wages, medical scares, renovation timelines, instead of as rare as cannibalism, aliens, or even running for state Senate.

There's no word for a woman 'Regular Joe.' There's just "The Girl Next Door." The problem is, the industry won't acknowledge that you can tell that girl's story from her own point of view-- not just the wild speculation of her neighborly voyeur.

[nounpolycule]

I did not live through Rose Tyler/Dean Winchester for River Song/Rose Tyler to be weird because they never met in canon