Bechdel test

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The American cartoonist and author Alison Bechdel made the Bechdel test or Bechdel-Wallace test popular in her comic " Dykes to Watch Out For " ( German: "Remarkable Lesbians" ). It is not a scientific test, but is used to perceive and assess stereotyping of female characters in films .  

Background and aim of the test

Research by the Center for the Study of Women in Television and Film at San Diego State University has found that women are underrepresented in feature films. In 500 top films from 2007 to 2012, a third of the leading roles were occupied by women. The average ratio of male to female actors was 2.5 to 1. In 2014, only twelve percent of the clearly recognizable protagonists in the 100 best-selling films were female.

The Bechdel test is used as a simple statistical aid to point out gender clichés in feature films or the film industry by checking whether independent female characters occur. However, the test does not provide a necessary or sufficient criterion for the fact that an individual film is (non-) sexist.

Questions of the test

The Bechdel test consists of three simple questions. If they are answered positively, the film has passed the test.

  • Are there at least two female roles?
  • Are you talking to each other?
  • Are you talking about anything other than a man?

In more recent versions of the test, it is also asked whether the two women in the film have a name.

application

After the Bechdel test had been used by feminist film critics for a long time, it was made known to a wider audience in an article in the New Yorker in 2011 .

The Bechdel test was used by media critic Anita Sarkeesian to analyze films that were nominated for an Oscar in 2011 . In 2014 the Washington Post reported that only four of the nine nominated films passed the Bechdel test in the “Best Film” category. And that although the year of actresses is described as a particularly good year for strong and convincing female roles in films (“a banner year for ladies in cinema”) and the test is considered very rudimentary (“Not exactly a high bar”).

The European film funding fund Eurimages implemented the Bechdel test in the film funding criteria in 2013.

In cooperation with the Women in Film and Television International (WIFTI) network, the Swedish State Film Institute established the Bechdel test as an official quality feature in 2013: the A rating . If a movie is the Bechdel Test, the work gets an A for "approved" ( German  "recognized" .) The A can be shown on the screen or the screen before the film is running, and on billboards, in TV guides and other Published in print or online media. The Swedish cable broadcaster Viasat Film followed suit .

The French film magazine Tess wrote and published film reviews under the aspect of the A rating.

In 2014, the French daily Liberation published the rating results of the Cannes Film Festival , with 13 of 18 films passing the Bechdel test. At the same time, Sophie Charlotte Rieger founded the film blog Filmlöwin , initially as a sole proprietorship. The blog deals with films by and about women. The Bechdel test is criticized in numerous articles. In reporting on the 2014 Berlinale , Deutschlandradio Kultur found that out of 20 films that took part, only 3 passed the Bechdel test.

In 2017, as part of the Henrike Iglesias Academy, there was a lecture entitled “Watch it like Bechdel” with Sophie Charlotte Rieger on watching films through feminist glasses.

The Bechdel test can also be used to analyze interactions in social media .

criticism

The lack of reliability of the test is criticized. A film passes the test even if two female characters only talk about making-up. In contrast, a film worn by only one (female) character, for example, would never be able to pass the test.

Users and critics of the test are sometimes accused of overinterpreting the test, which was originally intended as a joke, although it is very unreliable and under-complex and is therefore not suitable as a rigid criteria for sorting out. According to media critic Andi Zeisler , the test is “used far beyond the original intention [...]. While Bechdel and Wallace formulated it as a simple means of evaluating the common, unconsciously normative plots of mainstream film, existence today would almost be synonymous with 'being feminist'. The test was never intended to be a measure of feminism. ”Zeisler writes that the false assumption that a work that passes the test is“ feminist ”can lead authors to“ trick the system ”by doing just enough Written women's roles and dialogues in the script to pass the test, but continue to exclude women as the main characters.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Teresa Jusino: Alison Bechdel Would Like You to Call It the “Bechdel-Wallace Test,” Thank You Very Much . In: themarysue.com from August 25, 2015.
  2. ^ Christie Launius, Holly Hassel: Threshold Concepts in Women's and Gender Studies. Routledge 2015, ISBN 978-1-138-78880-0 , Chapter: Case Study: Bechdel Test. P. 19.
  3. ↑ Edward Helmore: The naked truth: Hollywood still treats its women as second class citizens. In: The Guardian . December 1, 2013 ( theguardian.com ).
  4. ↑ Martha M. Lauzen: It's a Man's (Celluloid) World. On-Screen Representations of Female Characters in the Top 100 Films of 2014. ( womenintvfilm.sdsu.edu PDF).
  5. ↑ a b c Kathleen Hildebrand: Is Episode VII Feminist? In: sueddeutsche.de, December 18, 2015.
  6. ↑ a b c d Vanessa Steinmetz: Data analysis on the film business: women also bring in coal. In: Der Spiegel Online Kultur, April 5, 2014.
  7. ↑ Alison Bechdel: The Rule
  8. ↑ a b Tad Friend: Funny lika a Guy . In: The New Yorker . No. 55 , April 11, 2011.
  9. ^ Bechdel Test Movie List. In: bechdeltest.com. Retrieved April 10, 2016 .
  10. ^ Dustin Kidd: Pop Culture Freaks. Identity, Mass Media, and Society. Westview Press 2014, ISBN 978-0-8133-4912-1 , p. 107.
  11. ↑ Caitlin Dewey: How many of this year's Oscar nominees pass the Bechdel test? Not many. In: The Washington Post . January 17, 2014 ( washingtonpost.com ).
  12. ↑ Eurimages News: Gender equality within Eurimages: current situation and scope for evolution.
  13. ^ Anne Hemmes: Bechdel test in Swedish cinemas. Women who talk to women. In: Süddeutsche Zeitung. November 8, 2013.
  14. ^ Swedish cinemas take aim at gender bias with Bechdel test rating. In: The Guardian. November 6, 2013 ( theguardian.com ).
  15. ↑ Le festival de Cannes passe le test de Bechdel , Liberation, May 27, 2014.
  16. ↑ The lioness pack. In: Filmlöwin. Accessed December 26, 2019 (German).
  17. ↑ Berlinale: Failed in the Bechdel test , Berlinale Blog, Deutschlandradio Kultur, February 15, 2014 ( Memento from July 16, 2015 in the Internet Archive )
  18. ^ Sophie Charlotte Rieger. In: Filmlöwin. Accessed December 26, 2019 (German).
  19. ↑ David Garcia, Ingmar Weber, Venkata Rama Kiran Garimella: Gender Asymmetries in Reality and Fiction: The Bechdel Test of Social Media. arxiv : 1404.0163 , April 1, 2014.
  20. ^ Robbie Collin: Bechdel test is damaging to the way we think about film . In: The Telegraph , November 15, 2013. Retrieved November 15, 2013. 
  21. ^ Andi Zeisler: "We Were Feminists Once: From Riot Grrl to Cover Girl", the Buying and Selling of a Political Movement. PublicAffairs, New York 2016, ISBN 978-1-61039-589-2 , pp. 55-57.