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Bechdel Test- Gender Bias in Movies

Falvlun

Earthbending Lemur
Premium Member
There's a long way to go but at least it's improving over time.

Regarding classics vs modern, it's also important to remember that some of the "new" movies are rehashed old stories, or based off of books written a while ago.

So there's likely to be a bit of a lag effect as old-time gender roles still exist in older written material.
 

Aquitaine

Well-Known Member
As a phlebotomist, I always wince a little when I put a bandaid on a darker skinned person, because the bandaids are colored to blend in with the skin of a Caucasian. It just feels so rude.

Kinda reminds me of a picture I saw once of a Black kid and a White kid sat using crayons together at a table in Pre-school. The Black kid asks the White kid to pass him the "Skin coloured" crayon, and the White kid simply freezes - unable to decide what to do.
 

Revoltingest

Pragmatic Libertarian
Premium Member


Kinda reminds me of a picture I saw once of a Black kid and a White kid sat using crayons together at a table in Pre-school. The Black kid asks the White kid to pass him the "Skin coloured" crayon, and the White kid simply freezes - unable to decide what to do.
Easy.....skin color is yellow.
 

Penumbra

Veteran Member
Premium Member
It occurs to me that the most politically correct movie is Terminator 2:
- Heroes:
A brilliant scientist who is black.
A juvenile delinquent who is white
His plain looking incarcerated (mental issues) mother
A cyborg with poor social skills (Asperger's?)
- Bad guy:
A white bread looking male (also a machine)
- The innocent victims:
A biker gang in a bar
A dog named "Wolfie"
- None of the main characters had romantic entanglements, although the scientist was a married family man.

Now I feel shame at enjoying a weepie feminist chick flick!



Aw man Terminator 2 was my favourite childhood movie! I just to love the truck scenes ^_^

But the question is....... does it pass the Bechdel test? Hmmm............
Interestingly, Terminator 2 passes the Bechdel test while the newest one, Terminator Salvation, does not.

Terminator 1: Fail
Terminator 2: Pass
Terminator 3: Pass
Terminator S: Fail
 

Aquitaine

Well-Known Member
Interestingly, Terminator 2 passes the Bechdel test while the newest one, Terminator Salvation, does not.

Terminator 1: Fail
Terminator 2: Pass
Terminator 3: Pass
Terminator S: Fail

Out of curiosity, at which point in T2 do two Women talk to each other? Off the top of my head I can't rememb...... oh wait..... the female security guard at the Mental Hospital tells Sarah to calm down?

Miles' Wife pleads with Sarah not to kill her husband? :shrug:

 

Revoltingest

Pragmatic Libertarian
Premium Member


Out of curiosity, at which point in T2 do two Women talk to each other? Off the top of my head I can't rememb...... oh wait..... the female security guard at the Mental Hospital tells Sarah to calm down?

Miles' Wife pleads with Sarah not to kill her husband? :shrug:
Your last point is the best example. But this is where the test fails in discerning gender bias, IMO.
In T2, the male & female characters have roles & dialogue unrelated to gender stereotypes.
Moreover, it avoids the modern PC cliche that the small martial arts trained female can beat up
big guys. The movie carefully makes Sara's effective violence against guards look plausible.
 

Koldo

Outstanding Member
Part of what should be done about it is getting more people to realize (and in some cases admit) the issue. Which is what this thread is doing. Attempting to help some people see this from one female perspective, with the support of some interesting facts.

Perhaps i am being too naive. But i suspect nearly everyone knows about it already.
Most people just don't care (enough) about it.
 

Revoltingest

Pragmatic Libertarian
Premium Member


LOL @ the uploader of that video recording the scene using a Camcorder recording the TV set :biglaugh:
Anyhow "Get away from her you b1tch!" was always a classic line. ^_^
It is my favorite line of all time. There is so much history between Ripley, her daughter, Newt, the queen's eggs, & the queen herself. Plus, it's clearly a line designed to be a "line", rather than something a real person would say in that situation. It's as though the entire great story exists for the purpose of that moment. 90% of the movie is subtley interesting wordsmithery. Were it in iambic pentameter, Shakespeare would be dethroned.
 
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freethinker44

Well-Known Member
Interestingly, Terminator 2 passes the Bechdel test while the newest one, Terminator Salvation, does not.

Terminator 1: Fail
Terminator 2: Pass
Terminator 3: Pass
Terminator S: Fail

I'm pretty sure the first one should pass. I distinctly remember Sarah talking to her roommate and female coworkers.
 

WyattDerp

Active Member
The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

Which doubly sucks because in the books, easily the strongest characters are Trillian and Fenchurch. Ford and Zaphod are just irresponsible drinkers getting lucky all the time, Arthur is constantly worried, scared and frustrated... come to think of it, the only male person in that book who isn't a complete fool is Slartibartfast, at least from the top off my head, and he's not exactly a hero. Trillian on the other hand saves the whole galaxy from destruction by hugging a confused guy on Krikkit (while the rest of the group is apprehensive, she's bold and takes control, and not in a "repeating the worst mistakes of men" style either). I'd say it's mostly about mostly about insanity, pettyness, giving and receiving orders, greed and war... so of course it has mostly dudes in it.

I know this is about movies, but I felt the need to defend my precious, and I know I might be rationalizing haha :/ Maybe I should watch the movie again, but the book, as I recall it, has mostly little boys in it who play war and corporation.. the only grownups in it are women. Though admittedly they never get to talk to each other.
 
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dust1n

Zindīq
There's also a strange glib denial when whites are shown how normalization occurs with Caucasians so frequently: look at pantyhose for women sold at most any store, and "nude" colored stockings are always lighter-skinned. People with darker skin get it every single time how wrong it is. Lighter-skinned people shrug their shoulders and say "So? Doesn't really say anything. Why should I care about it? It's no big deal."

It really is difficult to get past looking at the world through a privileged lens.

Basically, yes. There are probably thousands of these things people have to deal with, even while I remain ignorant to most of them. :shrug: You just kind have to learn over time to learn from people their experiences, and not assume what those experiences are based your own. It's really easy to do. Kinda of the default setting of humanity. Just assuming everything and everyone has the same experiences as one's self, giving themselves credit for their incredibly wacky opinions.
 

Penumbra

Veteran Member
Premium Member


Out of curiosity, at which point in T2 do two Women talk to each other? Off the top of my head I can't rememb...... oh wait..... the female security guard at the Mental Hospital tells Sarah to calm down?

Miles' Wife pleads with Sarah not to kill her husband? :shrug:
From the website:

"Sarah Connor talks to Miles Dyson's wife about the future and humanity. Although also present in the conversation is John Connor, Miles Dyson, and the Terminator."

"She also talks to the guard about whether or not her escape will work."

"She also has a conversation with the Mexican lady (Juanita?) when they visit the gunrunners, though it is in the background and muted, from the context it is unlikely to be about men."

It looks like some people contest the rating of Terminator 1; that one may have a brief conversation too.

So it looks like the only one that clearly fails on that website is the fourth and newest one.

Perhaps i am being too naive. But i suspect nearly everyone knows about it already.
Most people just don't care (enough) about it.
My co-workers are a bunch of engineering guys that like Star Wars.

I pointed out once that in the entire original trilogy there are only three named female characters and none of them ever talk to each other, and they were surprised and shocked and had to think back to it and then say, "Crap you're right, there were almost no women in it! I though there were at least a few more than that..."

I think most guys would agree that most fiction is more about males, but the ones I'm familiar with don't seem to be aware of the magnitude of the difference.

Moreover, it avoids the modern PC cliche that the small martial arts trained female can beat up
big guys.
That depends on the level of training.

[youtube]Hn8Jrx6XKzU[/youtube]
Female Grappler Chokes Guy Unconscious with Rear Naked Choke - YouTube

[youtube]kBL7YUTRlpk[/youtube]
Girl Submits Boy - Amanda Leve vs Wyatt Sellers at Grapplers Quest UFC Las Vegas 2012 - YouTube

Also, I was present at a tournament where a woman entered a male expert division (which was allowed) and won.

Women can win fights against guys. That first video in particular shows a huge difference in size between the two fighters. Smaller people generally have a tougher time but skilled fighters (men or women) can often beat larger men, especially if they have an experience advantage.

In movies, both men and women action heroes are often depicted as being able to defeat multiple men with a small number of strikes, which is generally highly unrealistic.
 

dust1n

Zindīq
Agreed.

What I'm thinking about is what if the situation was reversed? Imagine things like these:

• Your favorite superheros are all females, the movies that feature them barely have any male dialogue that doesn't talk about females, and most characters in the story are female. At the very least, it'd be disappointing and underrepresenting of a large part of the audience who are males.

• Males are constantly portrayed in movies as dependent people who seek female companionship for protection, success, strength, and every other cliche there is. That'd be outright annoying and possibly even insulting (again, to a large part of the audience, i.e., males), not to mention unrealistic.

• Your favorite movie which has a deeply philosophical storyline and well-developed female characters who have thoughtful conversations throughout the story features a couple of male characters whose primary concern is whether they're loved by a specific female character(s), and they're always busy seeking the female character's companionship while the latter is engaged in all kinds of adventures and risk-taking.

Yeah, that would suck, and it'd suck even more because those portrayals would be absurdly inaccurate to any males I know.

I think the fact that such portrayals are considered palatable by many people and not even a concern points to a desensitization resulting from decades of movies doing this—the "What's the big deal? It's nothing new!" sort of desensitization.

That's an incredibly accurate description of how I see it, and it's just one many ways these things manifest.
 

dust1n

Zindīq
Easy.....skin color is yellow.

hibbert1.jpg
 

Me Myself

Back to my username
It occurs to me that the most politically correct movie is Terminator 2:
- Heroes:
A brilliant scientist who is black.
A juvenile delinquent who is white
His plain looking incarcerated (mental issues) mother
A cyborg with poor social skills (Asperger's?)
- Bad guy:
A white bread looking male (also a machine)
- The innocent victims:
A biker gang in a bar
A dog named "Wolfie"
- None of the main characters had romantic entanglements, although the scientist was a married family man.

Now I feel shame at enjoying a weepie feminist chick flick!

Hahaha awesome!
 

Aquitaine

Well-Known Member
I guess the solution is two things: more Women involved in the writing and direction of films, and less gender-specific stereotypical attitudes regarding each gender: e.g. "Men can't be stay-at-home Dads" "Women can't be Mechanics" etc.
 
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