The Bechdel-Wallace test is - you know what? I'm just going to quote from TV Tropes here;
The Bechdel Test or the Bechdel-Wallace Test is a sort of litmus test for female presence in movies and TV. In order to pass, the film or show must meet the following criteria:
it includes at least two women,
who have at least one conversation alone
about something other than a man or men.
Now, by limiting yourself to shows/movies that pass the test, you'd be cutting out a lot of otherwise-worthy entertainment; indeed, a fair number of top-notch works have legitimate reasons for including no women (e.g. ones set in a men's prison or on a military submarine or with no conversations at all or with only one character). You may even be cutting out a lot of works that have a feminist tone. But that's the point: too little fiction created today, particularly in TV and movies, has independent female characters. Things have improved since the test was first formulated (the strip in which it was originally suggested was written in 1985), but Hollywood still needs to be prodded to put in someone other than The Chick.
The Bechdel test, or Bechdel-Wallace was first suggested in the webcomic Dykes to Watch Out For, and you can see the specific strip here.
After reading that page, a question began to torment me. Just how many of my movies (as in, the ones I own on DVD) pass?
Well, let's see. Below is a list of the movies I own - in alphabetical order, because that's how I role - with comments as to how well they do on the Bechdel-Wallace test. What I'm going to do is, watch all of these films over again, in alphabetical order, and add in comments as I do (I have a lot of knitting/rugmaking/studying to get done, and movies help a lot). Fail will be a sharp red colour, while a pass will be green. When the film only just scrapes through, it will be a lilac-y blue shade. I generally include conversations about children as being "about men", but I'll normally note when I've done this. If you disagree, comment, and we can discuss it.
I did not realise that I owned this many films. This isn't even including TV series'.
Title
Comments
Pass/Fail
10 Things I Hate About You
Passes within the first ten minutes, when Kat and the guidance counsellor talk about Kat's attitude. If that's not enough, Bianca and her friend manage a talk about being "whelmed" before Joey interrupts.
Later, Kat and Bianca have a talk about their respective attitudes and their mother.
17 Again
Failed miserably.
No, wait! I just remembered that little conversation at the beginning, with the girls congratulating Wendy on her promotion! Half-pass, since they weren't main characters and Mike was standing just behind them.
America's Sweethearts
I was only half paying attention, but I'm pretty sure this failed, unless you want to count Kiki haranguing the waitress about butter (she doesn't reply, so it's not really conversation).
American Pie
Well, Vicky and her friend do talk about orgasms, but they're also talking about Kevin, so I'm going to call it a fail.
American Pie 2
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American Pie 3
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American Beauty
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Anastasia
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Another Cinderella Story
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Battle Royale
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Battle Royale II: Requim
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Before Sunrise
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Big Daddy
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Bridge to Terabithia
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Bruce Almighty
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The Butcher's Wife
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Children of Men
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Cruel Intentions
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The Dark Crystal
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Definitely, Maybe
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The Devil Wears Prada
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The Doll Master
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Drop Dead Gorgeous
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East is East
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Enchanted
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Evan Almighty
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Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children
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The Ghost
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The Girl Who Leapt Through Time
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The Handmaid's Tale
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Happy-Go-Lucky
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Hard Candy
Hailey calls her friend to discuss plans for after her "date". Although she does mention Jeff in that conversation, it may just scrape through.
He Loves Me, He Loves Me Not
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Heathers
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Howl's Moving Castle
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Into the Mirror
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Juno
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The Lake House
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Legally Blonde
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Life or Something Like It
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Love Me If You Dare
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Mr Magorium's Wonder Emporium
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Mean Girls
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Memoirs of a Geisha
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Minority Report
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The Mummy
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The Mummy Returns
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The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor
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Mona Lisa Smile
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Not Another Teen Movie
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The Orphanage
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The Other Boleyn Girl
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The Others
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The Parent Trap
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Persepolis
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Priscilla
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Saved!
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The Shawshank Redemption
Instant fail - there aren't two female characters.
Shrek
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Shrek 2
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Shrek the Third
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Sister Act
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Sky High
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Sliding Doors
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Slumdog Millionaire
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South Park
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Son of Rambow
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Strings
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The Swan Princess
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The Truman Show
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A Very Long Engagement
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Where the Heart Is
Passes when Sister and Novalee talk outside the Walmart.
I've seen up the Madonna episode (15/22), so there may be spoilers for anything up to that point. We're taking about Glee, by the way.
So, Will Schue. Here are the facts as I know them, to illustrate exactly why I believe Will Schue has never grown up.
Will Schue stills work at the High School he attended during his own school days. He (presumably) left to obtain a degree and Qualified Teacher Status, and then came back - as if he'd never left.
He took control of the Glee Club in a self-confessed attempt to bring them back to the glory they enjoyed when he was a student. He often joins in with the students while rehearsing, rather than taking more of a back seat as a director.
For much of the series, he was still with his high school girlfriend.
When she wished to distract him from her non-existent pregnancy, she knew that the best way to do that was with a replica of the car he owned as a teenager.
In his new relationship, he used the exact song as he had at the beginning of his old one.
He is currently having essentially the same relationship as Rachel Berry, a student more than a decade younger than he is (with regards to new partners and virginity issues).
Some of you may have noticed the lack of a set of Unlimited stats for this month. It's not that I've forgotten to record which films I've seen - it's that I haven't seen any.
April's been an interesting month. I got a new job, worked crazy hours for just over a week, then quit. It was a wonderful atmosphere, the coworkers were brilliant, but when it came right down to it, it wasn't a job I wanted to do. On the other hand, it left me enough confidence to walk away, knowing that I can find a job I'll love. At the moment, I'm still clearing tables once or twice a week, as well as mystery shopping, which is turning out to be awesome.
Anyway, I haven't really had time to visit the cinema, not with uni as well. I've barely had to watch my Lovefilm stuff - I've had a copy of 500 Days of Summer sitting on my desk for well over a week, and I only just got around to watching it. I did finish watching all thirty-seven episodes of Death Note. I don't think the ending was as good as the beginning, really.
I just watched 500 Days of Summer, as I think I mentioned, although it's now several hours after I wrote the first few paragraphs.
Honestly, at the minute, I'm a little bit of afraid of reading or watching anything that will make me really sad. That will make me care about the characters, and then hurt them. I just don't want to feel that way. I don't want to rewatch My Sassy Girl or read anything by Jodi Picoult. I don't want to get too involved with these characters.
I really couldn't tell you what's up with that.
So, in short, I watched 500 Days of Summer while concentrating on my Welsh textbook.
One thing that did strike me is just how much Joseph Gordon-Levitt looks like Heath Ledger now. The first film I saw him in was 10 Things I Hate About You (with Ledger), and he was tiny then. He still had a baby face, and was quite physically small. Now he's filled out a little more - although he's still very lean - and looks like an adult. In fact, he looks like a cross between Ledger and Keanu Reeves.
See? Maybe not around the eyes, but around the jawline and the cheekbones.
Don't agree? How about this?
This?
Honestly, I think the major difference is in the ears. It's not as apparent in still pictures, but sometimes, while he's moving, Gordon-Levitt looks exactly like Ledger.
Over the last week, I saw two films - Edge of Darkness and Precious. Precious is generally listed as 'Precious - Based on the Novel 'Push' by Sapphire', but I'm not going to type that out every time so let's just pretend I did.
For the sake of comparison, Edge of Darkness had a budget of $87,000,000, and has made $21,029,253 at the box office since opening. Now, I only just got up, so correct me if I'm wrong, but that pretty much means it didn't open. Precious, on the other hand, had a budget of $10,000,000 and has since grossed $46,896,564 in revenue. According to IMDB, it holds the record for averaging $100,000 per screen in fewer than 50 US cinemas.
Edge of Darkness, which stars Mel Gibson, opened in US and UK cinemas on the 29th of January. Precious, which had no advertising budget and starred the unknown Gabourey Sidibe in the titular role, premièred at Sundance and Cannes in 2009, after which Oprah Winfrey's production company began to promote it. It's currently on limited release in cinemas throughout the UK.
I saw Edge of Darkness because...well, it was a Sunday afternoon in Southampton, and at the time we got there, it was that or Astroboy. I had pretty much no idea of what it would be about, and, to be honest, didn't really care.
For those who do care, it's about a policeman whose daughter is killed. His coworkers assume that he must have been the target. He starts searching for whosoever might have wanted to murder him. Trailer below.
I saw Precious because I was in the mood for a film. I checked out what was on at Birmingham Broad Street, read a few descriptions, and remembered that we'd seen the trailer for Precious before Edge of Darkness. I also remembered that I thought it seemed interesting, so I decided to go see it.
Precious is the story of an obese sixteen-year-old, pregnant by her father for the second time, and living with her abusive, manipulative mother. Again, trailer below.
The two are very different films. Edge of Darkness is an action film, based on an old British TV series. Precious is more of a drama film, and was based on a novel. You can see the difference in the production budgets, too. Edge of Darkness is very slick, very well put together, while certain scenes in Precious seem to have been filmed on a handheld.
The important difference, however, is in how much one cared about the characters. You know the way you flinch when something horrible happens to a character in a film? You clutch your throat if theirs is slit, or you place a hand on yourself wherever the bullet hit them. That happens because you're empathizing with and caring about the character - people don't usually get that reaction from watching a plate of meat being sliced. So, it probably says quite a lot that I giggled at most of the violence in Edge of Darkness. It's not that it looked bad - it was, I suppose, technically rather gory and well-orchestrated. I just really couldn't bring myself to care.
Several of the actors have wandering accents in this film, too. Plus, the relationship between Gibson's character (*googles*) Thomas Craven and his daughter (I'm not even going to bother to look up her name, actress or character) looked creepy and incestuous. To be quite fair, so did the one in Precious, but, on the other hand, that one was supposed to be creepy and incestuous. I think here, they may have been going for caring. It didn't work. It was creepy and incestuous. I got hysterics at the bit where he was holding his daughter's body and breathing heavily. Creepy and incestuous.
While watching Precious, on the other hand, I flinched at every tiny blow. I wanted to take all the characters home with me, and take care of them. Or beg someone to impregnate me, so I could have my own child, to raise in a loving and safe environment, and never ever expose them to anything so horrible. And that's not like me at all.
Although Precious did have some famous actresses in it, that didn't distract me at all - unlike in Up in the Air, Sherlock Holmes and 17 Again, which got very odd at some points - Chandler Bing turns into Zac Efron and tries to seduce the Hooters doctor from Big Daddy while fending off Dawn from Buffy?
Anyway, yes. With Precious, I actually cared about the characters, instead of just coming up with triva about the actors. I didn't even recognise Mariah Carey, in her role. I had to double check it was the same Mariah Carey, then find a youtube clip of her scenes to compare with her pictures.
One criticism levelled at the original book was that it seemed unrealistic for one character to face so much hardship. I haven't read it, but although Precious' life does seem to keep hitting her with the trauma stick, I didn't find it unrealistic at all. Probably because it all kind of went together - if her mother hadn't also been abusive, her father's abuse wouldn't have gone on for so long, and so on. It's not like a series of unrelated unfortunate events.
In short; Precious made me cry. Edge of Darkness made me laugh. To be quite fair, I'm not a huge fan of action films, so maybe someone who is wouldn't find it quite so hilarious. However, I'm not the only one who prefers Precious - the average ratings on review sites such as Metacritic, Rotten Tomatoes and even IMDB is around 7-8 out of 10 for Precious and 5 out of 10 for Edge of Darkness.
Edge of Darkness has yet to be nominated for or to win any awards. Precious, on the other hand, has been nomated for six Academy Awards, four BAFTAs, ten Black Reels, five Critics Choice Awards, two Chicago Film Critics Awards, one Costume Designers Guild Awards, one Directors Guild of America Award, one GLAAD Media Award, two Golden Globes, one Golden Trailer, ten Image Awards, five Independent Spirit Awards, one ALFS, two Online Film Critic Society Awards, one PGA, three Satellite Awards, two Screen Actor's Guild Awards, one Bronze Horse from the Stockholm Film Festival, five WAFCA award, and one WGA. That makes sixty-four.
Precious has also won two BSFC Awards, one Critics Choice Award, one Capri Award, one CFCA Award, one Chicago International Film Festival Award, two from the Dallas-Fort Worth Film Critics Association, one from the Deauville Film Festival, two from the Florida Film Critics Circle, one Golden Globe, one from the Hawaii International Film Festival, one from the Kansas City Film Critics Circle, one from the Las Vegas Film Critics Association, one NBR Award, one NSFC Award, one PGA Award, one from the Palm Springs International Film Festival, two from the Phoenix Film Critic Society, one from the San Francisco Film Critics Circle, two from the San Sebastián International Film Festival, one from the Santa Barbara International Film Festival, two Satellite Awards, two Special Achievement Awards, one Screen Actors Guild Award, one SEFCA Award, one from the St Louis Film Festival, two from the Stockholm Film Festival, three from the Sundance Film Festival, one from the Toronto International Film Festival, and two WAFCA Awards. That makes forty.
Again, to be completely fair, remember that Precious was actually released in 2009, so Edge of Darkness still has a chance in the 2010 awards.
Also remember that those awards won't make you personally more or less likely to enjoy either film. I just really like it when the world shares my opinion.
