The Bechdel Test

The Bechdel test: Requires that a work of fiction have at least two women who talk to each other about something other than a man. It's especially good to name these women.

I think Allie's done Bechdel-fail projects herself, though not without a grudge.

This past Friday when I learned of the Bechdel test from Allie MacDonald on Twitter I was impressed. I could never have predicted such an educational and soul-stirring moment. I quickly said that my writing passes. I was lying to myself, first, and secondly to any who read that (mainly her). I wanted to believe it and my first serious fictional work from a few years ago did pass, that's what I was thinking of. However, so many have not since. Granted, I've only been writing really short stories in prose, which have (or are likely to ever have) virtually no impact on Hollywood casting, but it does have an impact on female awareness and self-worth. Allie's concerns about the test were primarily practical reasons relating to role availability and, therefore, job opportunities. I'm sure that artistic concerns are in there somewhere as well.

Nevertheless, I shall endeavor to make every work of mine a shrine to the Bechdel test (and then some) from now on. Writing women is a double-edged sword; if you don't write them at all then you're some kind of jerk; if you write them ineffectively then you are clueless. It's hard to write women for many men. Although with Twitter and Facebook and Instagram and Keek and Youtube it shouldn't be too difficult, but sometimes the exact women you want to write aren't easily found on these sites or other documents.

Sometimes a man also desires to portray women as only he knows how and not as women would like. There is a raw brutality to this kind of unfiltered art. A brutality I shall refrain from.

There is folly in the test. Take a film like Gravity; Sandra Bullock's vast domination of screen time, largely untethered to men, made a great statement about the value of women in cinema.  The Bechdel criteria becomes moot next to the victory of having a film featuring a single woman (and nobody else) throughout the majority of the film.

However, now the thunderstorm-irony of fate rains down and announces revelations.  I am a man and I was drawn to Allie, initially, for the physical and biological reasons.  However, it was the sense of personality and soul that made me take the first steps.  Nonetheless, had it not been for my male determination to captivate and impress and win Allie then I would still be ignorant of the Bechdel test.  Had it not been for this BS-purveying roommate-and-writer, I would still be ignorant.  Had it not been for Allie's interaction with this guy and, indirectly, me, I would still be ignorant.  If I was to fictionalize the above,  despite how good and true the material is, it would fail because Allie is talking about and largely to men.  And to this man, the most interesting possible arc involves, errrrrr, a man.  Damn it. 

However, it's okay to have the moment above so long as Allie's picking up her dry-cleaning and talking about her progress in cracking the next big mathematical equation as a completely self-taught mathematician and the dry-cleaner talks about having dropped all her Red Vines at the Grand Canyon that past weekend, then we have a winner.  Actually, maybe these sweeties are already worming their way into my heart.

Ultimately, Allie and the Bechdel test got me thinking and realizing and writing (yet again).  My fictional writing will forever be better thanks to that fateful night on Twitter.

However, let's put out the opposite: a test that requires that at least two men have a conversation about something other than a woman.  Sometimes there is a also requirement that the men must be named.

Personally, I'm okay if the men never shut up about women, every aspect of them.  Why shouldn't men revolve around women.  Why is it that women are the default revolvers?  Sometimes that woman is the only thing worthy of breath, even if a woman never feels that way about a man.  Of course, women do have those periods.  Men can talk about football and jellybeans and bacteria and spiral-ring notebooks, but ultimately isn't it defiance?  Defiance of what really matters, so much that they dare not acknowledge it for fear of the unrequited.

Bechdel is a good guide and a good challenge and here's to good times ahead.