"Two women (in visual or print media) must be having a conversation with each other. But… their conversation must not be about a man"

Have you heard of this Bechdel Test?

Disrupting the status quo | Alison Bechdel

Well, I’m currently reading the book titled, Alison Bechdel: Conversations edited by Rachel R. Martin.

In her engaging introduction to the book, Rachel says –

If you have spent a long time resisting the status quo—whether it’s in art, society, or the political world—what happens when the status quo at last gives way?

A universe of possibility opens up.

Alison Bechdel stands in that universe of possibility. 

Thanks to the surprising success of her graphic memoirs, the Tony Award–winning musical adaptation of her graphic memoir Fun Home, and the honor of her being named a MacArthur Fellow, the status quo has been disrupted…

she notes.

So what makes Alison Bechdel special?

For many of us who work with Theory, Alison’s Test assumes a lot of significance. On the likes of a Simone de Beauvoir or a Laura Mulvey or a Judith Butler!

She’s quite popular for the Bechdel Test, named in her honour!

Wherein, two women (in visual or print media) must be having a conversation with each other. But… their conversation must not be about a man.

This test was created by Alison aka Alison Bechdel - graphic artist in 1985.

The purpose of this test is to assess whether a film or other piece of media adequately portrays women as characters with agency and relationships beyond their interactions with men.

This book introduced me to a few of the nuances behind the Test!

Here goes -

The “The Rule” strip from Alison Bechdel’s comic “Dykes to Watch Out For” (1986) introduced what is now known as the Bechdel Test, a simple test for gender bias in media.

This test is used to evaluate representation of women in films and all creative forms of media since then.

Quoting from an interesting conversation between Gross and Alison from off the book -

Gross: Alison, listeners will be really angry with me if I don’t ask you about the Bechdel test. And why don’t you describe what it is?

Bechdel: [Laughter] All right, well, I feel a little bit sheepish about the whole thing because it’s not like I invented this test or said this is the Bechdel Test.

It somehow has gotten attributed to me over the years. Many, many years, ago back in 1985, I wrote an episode of my comic strip where two women are talking to each other about—they want to go see a movie. 

And one woman says, you know, I’ll only go to a movie if it satisfies three criteria. I have to confess that I stole this whole thing from a friend of mine at the time because I didn’t have an idea for my strip—my friend, Liz Wallace. And Liz said, okay, I’ll only see a movie if it has at least two women in it, who talk to each other about something besides a man.

And that left very, very few movies in 1985. The only movie my friend could go see was Alien because two women talked to each other about the monster. [laughter]

But somehow, young, feminist film students found this old cartoon and sort of resurrected it in the internet era. And now it’s this weird thing. Like, people actually use it to analyze films to see whether or not they pass that test.

Gross: So . . .

Bechdel: And still, very few—surprisingly few films actually pass it, although more and more do.

Blogger’s Note: As Alison has observed, very few films have actually passed the test. Can you name them?

PS: You may also want to read our past post on a similar thread on the Smurfette Principle HERE.