Is there more than one woman in the movie?
Do they talk to each other?
Do they talk about something other than a man?Now this seems pretty straightforward. Couldn't you answer yes for all three questions for just about every movie? Well, the claim is that a surprising number of movies don't pass the test. With a moment's reflection, some are obvious. You wouldn't expect many women in an all-male prison. So just how many movies really don't pass the test?
On the one hand, I love watching movies. On the same hand, I also love collecting weird statistics. I could watch a bunch of movies and pass it off as some kind of scientific something-or-other! On the other hand, these people beat me to it, and they've been at it for awhile. They have about 1800 movies in their database, plus a nifty form to let visitors submit movies.
But I'm not going to let that get in the way of my latest excuse to watch more movies! What could I do that wouldn't just be copying them? Well, if you've seen the name of the blog, you've probably figured out my solution. I'm going to watch a bunch of movies, and as I watch them, I'm going to ask the three questions above to see if it passes the Bechdel test. But I also ask the three questions below, to see if it passes the Reverse Bechdel test.
Is there more than one man in the movie?
Do they talk to each other?
Do they talk about something other than a woman?I'll focus on recent, popular movies, and update whenever I get a chance to spend a few hours watching and grading a movie. I view this as something of a scientific experiment to compare the most popular movies.
And so it begins…
