I've said it before and I'll say it again
Dec. 24th, 2015 02:00 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
beccaelizabethThe Bechdel-Wallace test, blunt instrument that it is, is not there to measure if women act in a stereotypical way. When it says 'are they talking about something other than a man' it is not a test for romance. It's not even just to filter out characters playing The Mother and The Sister and The Daughter, though it does that pretty handily.
It's there to test whether we exist in our own right. Women, plural.
Because if the film only has one woman, or two women that do not talk to each other, or who only talk about men?
Then women in that film only exist when observing or observed by men.
Unacceptable.
Women are half the world. Women should be half the movie. Very simple.
Instead we tend to get 2:1 male to female.
And that 1/3? Talks to and about men. And exists only in relation to men.
It's very easy to fix this. And yet it doesn't happen.
Making women the protagonists is important, essential, really great
and not sufficient.
We are not the lone exception. We are half the world.
Women exist. Plural. We talk to other women, with no men around, about things entirely not involving men.
Until media reflects that, it will come up short on the Bechdel-Wallace test, and fail at this really basic component of realism.
A film can have many other virtues, but the only way to get women to exist independently is to have it pass the test. And failing the test is a great big minus that drags the whole thing down.
I realise this particular rant might work better in relevant comments threads, but I am just not feeling that confrontational, so I'll rant about it here where people will either agree with me or be quiet. *sigh*
I like it that people like their favourite movies, I just get really frustrated when people decide this test doesn't matter, because often they're saying it doesn't matter if there's only one woman if she's sufficiently cool. But it matters. Nobody is cool enough to make up for the numerical disadvantage. We need to exist, and we need to talk, and we need to talk to each other.
It's there to test whether we exist in our own right. Women, plural.
Because if the film only has one woman, or two women that do not talk to each other, or who only talk about men?
Then women in that film only exist when observing or observed by men.
Unacceptable.
Women are half the world. Women should be half the movie. Very simple.
Instead we tend to get 2:1 male to female.
And that 1/3? Talks to and about men. And exists only in relation to men.
It's very easy to fix this. And yet it doesn't happen.
Making women the protagonists is important, essential, really great
and not sufficient.
We are not the lone exception. We are half the world.
Women exist. Plural. We talk to other women, with no men around, about things entirely not involving men.
Until media reflects that, it will come up short on the Bechdel-Wallace test, and fail at this really basic component of realism.
A film can have many other virtues, but the only way to get women to exist independently is to have it pass the test. And failing the test is a great big minus that drags the whole thing down.
I realise this particular rant might work better in relevant comments threads, but I am just not feeling that confrontational, so I'll rant about it here where people will either agree with me or be quiet. *sigh*
I like it that people like their favourite movies, I just get really frustrated when people decide this test doesn't matter, because often they're saying it doesn't matter if there's only one woman if she's sufficiently cool. But it matters. Nobody is cool enough to make up for the numerical disadvantage. We need to exist, and we need to talk, and we need to talk to each other.