EPIC Movies EPIC FAIL Gender Parity Test
August 21, 2010
by Susan Macaulay
|Susan is the Founder of the blog Amazing Women Rock, where the following article was originally posted. The opinions expressed herein are those of the author, and not necessarily those of The New Agenda.
We need more positive and powerful female role models.
We need them speaking on world stages everywhere. We need them in politics.
And we need them in the media: online, in books, on TV and radio, and in the movies. ESPECIALLY in the movies.
Sadly, the entertainment industry falls incredibly short with respect to gender equality, as I was recently reminded when I stumbled upon an eye-opening piece of cultural research from Anita Sarkeesian of Feminist Frequency. (YouTube channel / website).
Sarkeesian uses The Bechdel Test (created by Allison Bechdel in her comic strip Dykes to Watch Out For in 1985; see: www.dykestowatchoutfor.com, to show just how poorly movies measure up on the gender balance issue.
The test is a simple, albeit unscientific way to:
- gauge the active presence of female characters in Hollywood films
- assess how well rounded and complete the female roles are
Three Questions Tell The Tale
The Bechdel Test asks three questions:
- Are there two or more women in it who have names?
- Do they talk to each other?
- Do they talk to each other about something other than a man?
According to Sarkeesian, blogger, feminist, geek chick and the force behind Feminist Frequency, an astonishing number of popular movies don’t pass The Bechdel Test.
Sarkeesian says the big screen fail:
“demonstrates how little women’s complex and interesting lives are underrepresented or non existent in the film industry. We have jobs, creative projects, friendships and struggles among many other things that are actually interesting in our lives… so Hollywood, start writing about it!”
Yeah Hollywood. Get on it.
I’m stunned.
Yeah! I love this video! Representation, representation, representation! It’s the R word, peoples.
And…. just checked out Amazing Women Rock. What an incredible blog!
Susan,
I’m curious as to what you think about the brewing war btw Jennifer Aniston over her movie coming out this weekend vs. Bill O’Reilly over the notion of having children as a single mother.
I was half listening to an entertainment show at the gym yest and they will telling O’Reilly to go back to being a tool and stick with politics not try to be hip and into pop culture. LOL!
I have heard of these problems in women’s representation before, so I have been trying to apply the lessons there as much as I can in my own writing.
Amy,
I’m childless by choice, and I think parenthood is hands down the toughest job ever. Plus, it’s 24/7 for life! Hats off to every mother, single or otherwise, in the world. Moms just blow me away.
Regarding Bill O’Reilly: see Rachel Maddow tear him to bits here (I’m still laughing): http://www.amazingwomenrock.co.....-rofl.html
Henrietta,
Thanks so much
Glad you like the site, please share it.
BTW, this clip from the 1950s movie musical Annie Get Your Gun kinda captures the whole gender parity issue in a nutshell…
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JY7Hh5PzELo
Susan you mentioned there were a few movies which passed the test. could you tell. they sure should be advertised.
the story of Joanna I from Naples 14th century (recent book by Nancy Goldstone “the lady queen”) just asks for a movie production.
There are multiple problems keeping authentic women out of Corporate Media productions. One of them is gate-keeping by the old men who own all media, they don’t allow any one but themselves and the companies they own to have a voice in corporate media. Another is men actually believe that the male opinion is the only opinion when in fact it isn’t even the majority opinion but they just keep right on only producing the male view of the world. Another problem is the men in charge actively discriminate against women in the writing and production professions in the case of writers far more women get degrees in the writing professions than men so there should be far more women employed as writers.
But with all of the above problems which go unsolved what really amazes me is the fact that the old men in charge don’t even care how much money they lose because women don’t pay attention to the schlock they crank out and then label “women’s content”. Last time I checked Oxygen network was in 70 million homes and averaged less than 100,000 viewers with no comment as to how many were female. Here is the deal, “women’s content is content that women will pay to consume, there is no other financially rational definition. Occasionally they bungle into something that works like “Twilight” but they have no real idea why it works and are more likely to F up there next attempt at a woman’s genre than succeed.
Marille – I haven’t done the research on that, and after writing this piece I began to think back on the movies I remember with strong female characters – either there are few, or my memory is worsening, or perhaps a bit of both…
A handful sprung to mind: The Colour Purple, Alien, Thelma & Louise, Juno, The Hours, Gone With The Wind, The Rose, Harold & Maude (my fave cult movie), ummmm…. which ones do you remember?
I must be missing a whole bunch…
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