The Bechdel test!

Ohhkay. So for those of you that don't know it, the Bechdel test is a measure of how male-centric we

Obviously, this movie passed.
Did we ever think it wouldn't?
(for the cavemen among us, that's Frozen)

are. Simply put, it asks whether, in any given movie, two named female characters speak to each other about something other than a man.

Sounds simple enough, but even some of the Harry Potter movies fail.... the books all pass, though, unless you don't count girls as women. There's also some debate as to groups including men being allowed.

And this one failed. So miserably.
There are about three female characters
in the entire series, and they basically
never talk to each other at all.
LOTR also fails, about as miserably.
All this is to prove
that a movie can be good and fail this test.

There's a lot of leeway in the 'man' thing, too, where people who want all movies to fail this count discussing male children as discussing men. And guess what? That eliminates a lot of conversations.

However, I'd like to point out that if you don't count children and group conversations, the 'reverse Bechdel' would be failed by a lot of movies too.  What's interesting there is that reading through the movie reviews on that website, even in movies where the Bechdel test is passed, it's usually passed long after the reverse is. One exception I'm almost sure of is Pride and Prejudice- I'm pretty sure it passes the Bechdel test with flying colours, although the women do talk about men a lot, and it may actually fail a reverse Bechdel.

If you look at the statistics, like here, though, what is much more embarrassing than the number that fail the test is the number that fail it utterly and completely, having less than two named female characters at all.

The stats here seem to be actually pretty okay. They could be better, but the fact is that 100% isn't the target here. A movie with a male main character is unlikely to pass the test, and that's fine. Not every movie has to have that much of a female presence. Granted, any movie not set in an all-boy's school with more than a few characters should probably have more than one named female character, but hey.

Despite being quite male-centric,
Amadeus (1984),
actually passed the test.

I'm pretty impressed by Hayao Miyazaki having 9/10 movies pass- although I shouldn't be, most of his main characters are female.

Lee Daniels' The Butler first came to my attention
because of the approximately ten seconds or Alan Rickman.
I'm impressed it passed- it has very few
female characters compared to female.

Here's another gender thing, though, on a random tangent. It is nearly impossible to find pictures of men in magazines. It's disproportionately women. Seriously. Look through a men's magazine, and most of the pictures? Sexy women, because that's what men want to see. And women's magazines? stylish women! Cooking? Usually a woman. The only place you'll find lots of men is sports... and gay men's magazines.

Fact is, the industry cranks out what it thinks people want, and it's usually right.  Men aren't really all that interested in female-centric movies, and yet women will mostly put up with male-centric ones so long as the plot's good.

Summary- Don't refuse to watch a movie just because it fails this test, but watch for how early in a movie two men have a conversation versus two women. And then watch how it's almost never 'ladies first'. Really, the aim should be about half-half.