The Bechdel Test (1985) says that a film is not worth watching unless it fulfils three conditions:
- It has to have at least two women who
- talk to each other about
- something besides a man
It comes from Allison Bechdel’s comic strip “Dykes to Watch Out For”. She in turn got it from Liz Wallace at her karate class.
It can apply to any story but Hollywood fails the test at a surprising rate, even now more than 20 years later.
NPR did a piece on the Bechdel Test a year ago. In it Eric Deggans, who writes about television for the St Petersburg Times, gave his own form of the Bechdel Test for race:
- At least two non-white characters in the main cast …
- in a show that’s not about race.
I did not know about the Bechdel Test till I read about it in Alaya Dawn Johnson’s post yesterday at the Angry Black Woman, but even I had something like it in my head:
- At least two black characters
- who are not stereotypes
- whose love lives we know about and
- who have their own storyline
“The Secret Life of Bees” would pass (the storylines of Alicia Keys and Sophie Okonedo), while the “Imitation of Life” would not (black characters are stereotypes).
Johnson gives the strict form of the Bechdel Test for race:
- It has to have two people of colour in it.
- Who talk to each other.
- About something other than a white person.
Like Deggans, I would add that talking about race would be, in effect, talking about white people.
Johnson says most shows fail, though “Battlestar Galactica”, “True Blood”, “Grey’s Anatomy” and “Veronica Mars” pass.
A show can pass the Bechdel Test and still be racist – and, likewise, it can fail and yet not be particularly racist at all. But it is a quick way of separating those that probably are racist from those that probably are not. And, more importantly, it gives you a way of thinking about stories and how white male they are in their point of view.
Deggans says that most shows fail the Bechdel Test because most successful television writers are white men. They just do not know what women or blacks talk about when they are not there.
Jennifer Kesler at The Hathor Legacy says it is worse than that: when she was learning to write for Hollywood they told her, in so many words, to fail the Bechdel Test: main characters should be white men and no one cares what women (or presumably blacks or anyone else) talk about unless it is about the main characters – who are white men!
But why? Because the white men who run Hollywood say it is what the “target audience” wants. But just what is this target audience? Kesler says in their minds it turns out to be “a construct based on partial truths and twisted math – to perpetuate their own desires”.
See also:
- racialbechdel.tumblr.com – a blog that reviews film, television and video games according to a racial Bechdel Test.
- Kesler: Why film schools teach screenwriters not to pass the Bechdel test
- Alaya Dawn Johnson: The Bechdel Test and Race in Popular Fiction
- The blackness of American television
- Hollywood
- white gaze
- black actresses
- If blacks ran Hollywood like whites do
- stereotype
Johnson says most shows fail, though “Battlestar Galactica”, “True Blood”, “Grey’s Anatomy” and “Veronica Mars” pass.
Hmmm… toss in Eureka, Lie to me, Prison Break, Stargate SG-1, House …. I would say the only show I routinely watch that would not meet these standards is Supernatural.
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ok. i don’t understand this.
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I am so angry at Hollywood and white media in general. Minority groups are never represented and when they are, its always to perpetuate stereotypes. Take for instance the movie “Hangover” with its Asian and homophobic stereotypes and also the way in which they depicted the black woman at the end of the movie(always oversexed/prostitute or unintelligent and uncultured)
Its no wonder I hardly watch TV or go to the movies anymore.
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Same here – I barely watch television.
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To Doreen:
Take for instance the movie “Hangover” with its Asian and homophobic stereotypes
Hollywood does like to portray Asian males as stereotypes as gangsters, effeminate, etc… they need to get out of the habit… the Asian character did at least kick the White guys butts. Among the white people there was a child molester, a white prostitute, a two timing controlling woman, and a sadistic cop… so not exactly a great portrayal of white folks.
and also the way in which they depicted the black woman at the end of the movie(always oversexed/prostitute or unintelligent and uncultured)
What..? There was brief flash of one of the white guys with a black woman in a photo. Although it appeared sexual, you had no idea whether she was prostitute or a tourist who was drunk (like all the main characters..) or what her intelligence was or wasn’t. There was however, a cop portrayed by a black woman who did come across as intelligent.
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charmed & supernatural.
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“FlashForward” passes the test easily.
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thats a cool show. i wonder what mid-season shows, are going to be like.
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[…] – The Bechdel Test and Race #1 […]
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The test doesn’t seem appropriate. While the population of the US is roughly 50% female, fewer than 20% of Americans are not of European ancestry. If we take the CBS network as representative (I picked it because it’s the lowest on my local dial), we could imagine a random racial distribution of Americans on television.
The CBS network lineup this week features 17 scripted series by my count, which collectively have 109 regular cast members. The average series thus has 6.4 regular cast members.
If the cast of each series is chosen to be as perfectly representative of society as possible, only 5 of 17 series will have more than one cast member who is part of a racial minority. In that case, 11 series would have only 1, despite the network’s cast having been chosen in an entirely racially representative manner – and would fail a racial Bechdel test.
If the cast of the network is chosen to be as perfectly representative of society as possible, for each series that has more than one cast member who is part of a racial minority, beyond the first five, one show will have none.
Slightly fewer than 11 series of 17 can have more than one cast member who is part of a racial minority without the overall cast of the network ceasing to represent society. In that case, six series would have none, despite the network’s cast having been chosen in an entirely racially representative manner – and would still fail a racial Bechdel test.
The test, unlike the test for female characters, is not appropriate to US television, where, in a fully racially equitable world, many bottle episodes would fail through no fault of racism on their part.
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Greg, you’re right, to a degree, but mind that the discussion does not have to be between regular castmembers to pass. Suppose we have a series about a group of five white boys and a black girl, who like eachother because they are all fantasy gamers, talking about fantasy books and games, not caring much about race, UNLESS it features in Fantasy, with comparisons to the real world and all, all the series has to show to pass both the Blechdel tests , is the girl talking about clothes with her mother, or about jewelry with a sista selling that.
It does not mean that the series has to focus on race, it just has to show that people who are not white men, have a life without white men too.
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[…] Abagond talks about the Bechdel Test for race, which is a nice connection to Fun Home (the post explains The Bechdel Test in the first place, […]
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The show may not be your cup of tea but I’d love to see a post on Sleepy Hollow. It features three unique central black characters, (Jennie and Abbie Mills and captain Frank Irving) with real lives the viewer cares about and all seem to be someone you could know in reality. Their personalities are distinct and they are themselves only–never a stereotype. While the show likely draws a nerdy white audience it doesn’t reek of being a show about white people or black people. If one can stomach a fantasy drama with each week’s monster-du-jour, I think you’ll find great acting talent sprinkled with witty humor and interesting nods to lesser known historical moments.
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[…] the Bechdel test is of a rather low standard. As Agabond notes in a 2009 post, “The Bechdel Test and race,” “[a] show can pass the Bechdel test and still be racist.” In Supergirl, problems with […]
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[…] the Bechdel test is of a rather low standard. As Agabond notes in a 2009 post, “The Bechdel Test and race,” “[a] show can pass the Bechdel test and still be racist.” In Supergirl, problems with […]
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