My boyfriend’s a huge fan of the last Batman movie and keeps inviting people round ours to watch the film. By now, he’s probably seen it at least five times since he got the dvd before Christmas. And well, he seems to think that the film just keeps getting better and better the more often he watches it. And yes, I basically agree: It is a brilliantly made film and it’s perfectly entertaining, and not to forget Heath Ledger’s awesome portrayal of the Joker.
But I have to say, I keep feeling more and more uneasy about it. Especially after watching the Making Of, in which the film crew describes just how much psychological development they put into the two main characters Batman and the Joker. They go on and on about how Batman is such an interesting, layered phenomenon, how much it means that he faces his own fear, embraces it and uses it as a weapon and especially how the idea of a superhero who saves us all is such a popular story. But I can’t get my head around how they manage to talk about all these psychological and sociological aspects without ever dropping a single line on the fact that all these world-saving superheroes are white and male? Batman embodies the ideal of white masculinity and after all, I can’t quite see the difference to old cowboy movies, where they either shoot or help the poor stupid Indians and then either rape or save the poor stupid women. Thanks, great pleasure to watch your film, Mr. Nolan. (For a much better review on race and gender issues in that film: What if the “Dark Knight” was a black knight instead?)
From there, I clicked on and came to a text on the Bechdel test:
For those of you who haven’t heard of it, the Bechdel test comes from Alison Bechdel’s germinal comic Dykes to Watch Out For. In DTWOF there’s a character named Mo who will only watch a movie if it:
(a) Has two women in it who
(b) Talk to each other
(c) About something other than a man
So I decide to apply that test on our movie collection, which consists of about 75 film, most of which have been bought by my boyfriend. I admit, my application of the test was a little sloppy, since I can’t be asked to sit down and watch them all right now. And well, I’m not radical enough to have a photographic memory.
The only three films which I am absolutely sure of that they pass the Bechdel test are Amelie (yes, you might have guessed, that is a film I bought), Aliens and Alien IV (though in one case, it’s a woman and a girl and in the other case, a woman and a robot woman). Even if I drop the last rule and apply the second one sloppily, only a few more films jump to mind that might pass the test: Terminator, Alien (there’s two women on that ship, surely they talk to each other??), Serenity (the four women HAVE to talk to each other at some point, right?), maybe one of the Bourne films (again, a few female characters who might cross paths?), Sin City (I can’t believe I’m writing this) and… does Sweeny Todd count? The bit where Sweeney’s wife sings “Mischief!” and Mrs Lovett throws her out?
I feel devastated.
But it’s not enough yet. I thought about the Pixar movies we have and which I love dearly. Ratatouille and Monsters Inc. Main characters? Male. The women in it? Well, there’s Colette in Ratatouille, but I get the crazy idea she’s only female so Linguini has someone to fall in love with. And the rats? Hah! There’s no such thing as female rats! What kind of crazy world do you live in?
And Monsters Inc, well, boils to down very much the same. A female monster, Celia, who’s Mike Wazowski’s girlfriend and a secretary, an old boot who happens to be the big boss, which is kind of cool, and the little girl, Boo (I love Boo!). Oh, not to forget, the monster taking care of the children is OF COURSE female. The scary monsters? The yellow children police? The villains? Oddly enough, they all seem very very male… Let’s see who I might identify with then: A secretary who’s madly in love with someone, a boss who’s horribly ugly and unkind, a cute little girl and a babysitter. Sweet. I opt for the cute little girl.
(…and why has wordpress swallowed my line breaks? I want them back!)
I am totally applying the Bechdel test to everything within a thirty foot radius. Movies make me sad. Cuz you know, they’re MOVIES, which means you can do all sorts of cool stuff you can’t do in other mediums, and most of them are about white dudes blowing shit up, or completely unworthy dudes getting cool chicks (for Some Unknown Reason). And I like dudes, and I like man-interaction, but nobody’s doing anything with it (personalities in movie characters have ceased to be optional and become straight up discouraged).
I just applied your thing to my work and realized that I own no movies that meet the requirements of your test, except maybe Alejandro Jodorowsky’s “The Holy Mountain.” I feel very a bit guilty now.
Thankfully, I own more books then movies, and I have thought of one example that passes this test. Neil Gaiman’s short story “The Problem of Susan,” which has an academic conversation about C.S. Lewis’ chronicles of Narnia. I can think of one other example of this in Gaiman’s work, that one was about death and did involve a man at the end but that man was the Egyptian God of the Sun so he may not count.
Oh, Tom Robbins I’m pretty sure there are bits were women talk about things aside from men. Like whooping cranes, although it does come back to politics so you may not count him.
Also, hi. My internet kink commenting identity is araut rosseau. I discoverd your blog through “Beyond the hills.”
Hi arnaut rosseau! Thanks for your comment!
No misunderstandings – it’s not my test. I just blatently copied it. But yeah, it sucks and I haven’t even tried applying it to series and books, because I fear for my emotional well-being.
And whooping cranes? Lol!
Yeah, Tom Robbins is like that.
It’s nothing to worry about, I have very few movies. Also the theory is very vague. How are the women talking about the men, like in something like “The Boarder,” by James Joyce. The subject of the story is a woman forcing a man to marry her daughter after the both of them have sex (the man and her daughter), so that the daughter has a stable income. Or say it’s two woman talking about how they’re going to defeat the sociopath who happens to be a guy, and what if the women are talking about the abstract concept of man and feminism?
It’s kind of like how the Rabbis would talk about the concept of working on the Sabbath. There is entire books about what consititutes work.
Well, the “theory” is from a comic book ;)
And yes, surely it’d be possibly to track every single conversation back to some male, but I don’t see that as particularly useful. The point is rather, imho, that there is an evident lack of female characters in most films and that women seem to be thought unfit to carry a story. The Bechdel test makes that obvious, especially if you try to apply it the other way round.