more counting

[beccaelizabeth]

http://characterscount.pbwiki.com/Torchwood#view=page
http://characterscount.pbworks.com/Torchwood-S1%2C-S2
Yes, someone made a wiki so if the theoretical crowds of fans all help count then we can put all the numbers in the same place.
Still working on formatting, standardising and accessibility.
It was pointed out my pretty color codes aren't helpful for people that don't see pretty colors.
Also, some of them are too pale for me to read, now I think about it. :eyeroll:
So I made it a bit different.
I will make it different again once I think of a better way to phrase it.

I also added a column for the test the person counting SG1 does where it's the race equivalent of Bechdel, two people of color talking about something other than a white person. I've filled in a few, but where there's more than two characters involved I might have to watch again to check. And I'm not watching again for a while. But it being a wiki other people can fill in the boxes if they happen to know.
... okay, actually, I could figure it out from my notes and have spent the morning doing so.

I keep feeling like the thing where two people of color seldom get to talk is less of a Thing than the one where two women don't get to talk to each other, because there's a half the country of women and less than half of people of color here. But I also am the first to say it doesn't matter if women aren't much in the military or whatever because they're making up stories and they can make stories better. Also while a random sample might be 10% any given person of color will have ancestors of color too, just for starters, so their lives aren't random and should have more people in. So I think it's my feeling I need to change.

details on people of color below the cut


1-01 there's Suzie and Toshiko. They talk in that scene where Gwen meets the team and Tosh explains about hiding the bodies. They do not talk to each other alone. Gwen is in basically every minute of this one.

1-02 has Toshiko and an army guy. The army guy talks to Gwen to stop her following the team to the crash site. Does not talk to Tosh.

1-03 only has Toshiko.

1-04: Toshiko, Tanizaki, Lisa. Lisa talks to Tanizaki about cyberconverting him.
TANIZAKI: Lisa! Let me go!
CYBER!LISA: I can help you. The human race is weak. I can make you strong.

1-05: Toshiko and a woman at the party the fairies invade. They only meet briefly while running in opposite directions.

1-06: Toshiko is on her own.

1-07: Toshiko, the guy who was going to kill his kid, the kid. There's conversation in the presence of the kid's white mother. The kid never talks to the man, and Tosh doesn't talk before clunking him on the head.
Some mind voices probably are from people of color, but Tosh never talks back to them.

1-08: Toshiko, Suzie, Detective Swanson, and one of the dead guys Mark.
Suzie's dad isn't a speaking character, though he kind of makes a noise.
Toshiko and Suzie talk about honor and the job. They're probably on comms at the time but they're the ones watching, not being watched, and the others don't join in their conversation.

1-09: Toshiko and the owner of the cafe. They never meet.

1-10: Toshiko, Alesha and Jade.
Alesha and Jade talk to Emma, not each other. They don't talk to Tosh.

1-11: Toshiko and the guy in hospital, never meet.

1-12: There's only Toshiko. This is for plot reasons, being in the past and with wartime racism.

1-13: Toshiko and her mother, and Lisa. Toshiko and her mother talk briefly about how to save the world. Bonus points for Japanese.

2-01: Toshiko and the woman in the hologram. Never speak to each other. Does it even count as a group if one of them is a recording?

2-02: Toshiko, Beth. Only talk in a group.

2-03: Toshiko and a builder. Never meet.

2-04: Toshiko. Only.

2-05: Toshiko and a cashier. Never meet.

2-06: Toshiko, Martha, tester at the Pharm. Tosh and Martha never get a one on one conversation. Martha and the tester talk but are observed from back on base. I called it a fail but it could be a pass depending how you look at it.

2-07: Toshiko, Martha, and a doctor at the hospital. Never alone.
Also I just noticed that once Martha is a patient she never gets medical about her own condition or has a conversation with the doctor treating her. We have instead her talking to Jack 'must be death, stolen my life' and her doctor talking to Gwen to say Martha must be 80. Now I want to fill in a conversation where she tries that line on Martha.

2-08: Toshiko, Martha, security guard on the stairs who might be Farrington. This episode is all Owen. So, fail due to groups.

2-09: Toshiko, one of the bridesmaids (Megan), the guy in the dress shop, the lady doing the 'do you take this man to be your' speech.
They don't talk to each other, I think. The bridesmaid comes in and sees dead DJ in the room with Tosh there, but it's less a conversation than a screeeeeeam.
So again, talking to groups only.

2-10 has only Tosh.

2-11: Toshiko, a man at the missing persons group, Helen the nurse on the island, one guy in a dayglo vest who asks for a cup of tea. Yes 'speaking part' is a really low bar. And I'm not quite sure it's him. This is why the long version of my notes is very long.
No two of these people meet. Gwen meets all of them. So, more fail.

2-12: Toshiko, Tosh's mum, Jim the surgeon who gets dead, and the pshrink who doesn't believe Owen and sends him for a long rest. Tosh and her mum talk in front of people. The others don't meet.

2-13: Toshiko, Dr Angela Connolly (the medical doctor from 2-07), Charles from 1900s Torchwood, and probably Nira from the power station but under red light I'm guessing.
No two of them meet.

 

Season One

 

Episode	Speaking characters	Women	percentage of women	people of color	percentage of people of color	Bechdel Test	m&m talk not-f	PoC talk not-white
1-01 Everything Changes	20	5	25%	2	10%	pass	more fail	more fail (group)
1-02 Day One	18	4	22%	2	11%	pass	more fail	more fail
1-03 Ghost machine	18 or 26	6 or 8	33% or 30%	1	4% or 5%	fail	pass	near total fail
1-04 Cyberwoman	8	4	50%	3	37.5%	pass	pass?	pass
1-05 Small Worlds	19	10	52%	2	10%	pass	pass	more fail
1-06 Countrycide	11	4	36%	1	9%	more fail	pass	near total fail
1-07 Greeks Bearing Gifts	28 (10+18 minds)	13 (4+9 minds)	46%	5 (3+2 minds)	18%	pass	more fail	more fail (group)
1-08 They Keep Killing Suzie	11	4	36%	5	45%	pass	pass	pass
1-09 Random Shoes	17	5	29%	2	12%	fail	pass	more fail
1-10 Out of Time	16	7	44%	3	19%	pass	pass	more fail (group)
1-11 Combat	11	3	27%	2	18%	fail	pass	more fail
1-12 Captain Jack Harkness	15	6	40%	1	6.6%	more fail	pass	near total fail
1-13 End of Days	15	7	46%	3	20%	pass	more fail	pass

 

Season one Average 37% women and 17% people of color.

 

 

Season Two

 

Episode	Speaking characters	Women	% Women	People of Color	% People of Color	Bechdel test	m&m talk not-f	PoC talk not-white
2-01 Kiss Kiss Bang Bang	13	4	30%	2	15%	more fail	pass	more fail (recording)
2-02 Sleeper	19	8	42%	2	10.5%	pass	more fail	more fail (group)
2-03 To The Last Man	12	4	33%	2	16.6%	more fail	pass	more fail
2-04 Meat	14	3	21%	1	7%	more fail	pass	near total fail
2-05 Adam	11	3	27%	2	18%	more fail	pass	more fail
2-06 Reset	13	5	38%	3	23%	pass	pass	more fail? (cameras, group)
2-07 Dead Man Walking	14	8	57%	3	21%	fail	pass	more fail (group)
2-08 A Day in the Death	11	4	36%	3	27%	more fail	pass	more fail (group)
2-09 Something Borrowed	17 + 2 shapeshifters	8 + 1? shapeshifter	47%	4	21%	pass	pass	more fail (group)
2-10 From Out of the Rain	18	10	55%	1	5.5%	more fail	pass	near total fail
2-11 Adrift	14	6	43%	4	29%	pass	more fail	more fail
2-12 Fragments	20 + 4 UNIT + 1 voice	9 + 0 UNIT + 1 voice	45% + 0% + 1 voice	4	20% + 0%	pass	pass	more fail (group)
2-13 Exit Wounds	13	5	38%	4	31%	more fail	pass	more fail

 

Season Two Average 39% women and 18% people of color.

 

Bechdel pass (green) means two women talked to each other without men around, and they talked about something other than men.

Bechdel fail (orange) means two women talked to each other without men around but they talked about men.

Bechdel more fail (red) means there was no scene where two women talked to each other without men around. [There's probably better ways to name this!]

Thankfully there's always at least two named women, they just don't always get to chat alone.

If they talked as part of a group conversation, a conversation including men, then I called that a more fail, but others might count differently.  I now want to distinguish between 'didn't talk because never met' and 'talked while observed by other speaking characters' so I might go back and check.

more fail (group) is where they met and there was talking but other people around, so it was not specifically to each other.

 

For the inverted Bechdel, two men talk to each other without women around about something other than a woman, same wording but blue for pass and pink for fail due to having women around all the time.

 

Near Total Fail on the people of color Bechdel means there was only one person of color.

If there were zero from that category that would be a Total Fail.

Most of that chart is blank because I haven't checked yet.

 

The question marks are where I'm not quite sure.

1-04 has Tanizaki and Ianto talking alone, the only scene with no women involved, but all they say is hello and this way.  It's a very brief pass if it passes.

2-06 has Martha, Toshiko, and the Tester at the Pharm.  Martha and the Tester are in the room together, Tosh is txting her on comms.  But there's a lot of white people watching and talking on Toshiko's end.  So is it a pass, because two black women talk about health, or a more fail, because they're watched and advised by white people through cameras?  Or a fail because as far as I could find the black lady at the Pharm didn't get a name? 

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beccaelizabeth's original research. posted 28th March 2009