Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff you Should Know, a production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2: Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh, and there's
Speaker 2: Chuck and Jerry's here too, and that makes this Stuff
Speaker 2: you Should Know.
Speaker 1: The podcast that's right movie Crush adjacent. Today. I put
Speaker 1: this one together in big thanks to Mark Mancini of
Speaker 1: HowStuffWorks dot com. A great article in Vogue from Ridka Seth,
Speaker 1: really good article from a guy named Douglas Lamon from
Speaker 1: Collider and also Collider from Thomas Butt and the Mary Sue,
Speaker 1: Danielle Baranda, all good stuff about the Bechdel Test. And
Speaker 1: we would be remiss if we didn't mention right out
Speaker 1: at the gate that on our own iHeart Network, we
Speaker 1: have a great podcast called The bech Del Cast that's
Speaker 1: been around for a long time now, They've been with
Speaker 1: us for years. Yeah, and this is hosted by Caitlin
Speaker 1: Durante and Jamie Loftus and it talks all about movies
Speaker 1: kind of through the lens of the Bechdel Test or
Speaker 1: the Bechdel problem.
Speaker 2: Yes, and you can get that wherever you get podcasts.
Speaker 1: Very well done.
Speaker 2: So what are we talking about, Chuck? I mean, I'm
Speaker 2: sure there's a lot of people out there who know
Speaker 2: all about this still interesting. There's other people who maybe
Speaker 2: heard of it but don't quite know what it has
Speaker 2: to do. Maybe they're confusing it with a litmus test.
Speaker 2: And then other people are like, I've never heard those
Speaker 2: two words together in my life.
Speaker 1: Well, maybe I think it might be fun if we
Speaker 1: just sort of work through the Casablanca example, okay, and
Speaker 1: illustrate it and then give sort of the definition. Does
Speaker 1: that work for you?
Speaker 2: It works for me. I just have to find that.
Speaker 1: Page, okay, Can I start while you look?
Speaker 2: Sure?
Speaker 1: So, the movie Casablanca, one of the all time greats,
Speaker 1: is on the AFI one hundred years one hundred movie
Speaker 1: quotes list, with six different quote in trees, making it
Speaker 1: the most, you know, the most number of quotes from
Speaker 1: a single movie on that list. And I still have
Speaker 1: not seen all of Casablanca. I watched a lot of
Speaker 1: it not too long ago. Didn't finish it.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, I meant too.
Speaker 1: It wouldn't because I didn't like it. But I will
Speaker 1: say this, and I know we talked about it right
Speaker 1: after I saw it some but I thought it was good,
Speaker 1: but I wasn't like, oh my god, this is the
Speaker 1: best thing I've ever seen.
Speaker 2: Okay, yeah, I vaguely remember talking.
Speaker 1: Yeah, like plenty of movies from that era. I like
Speaker 1: much more. But I even know here's looking at you, kid, Louis.
Speaker 1: I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship.
Speaker 1: Will always have paris of all of the gin joints
Speaker 1: in all the small towns, or all the towns in
Speaker 1: all the world. She walks into mind like, these are
Speaker 1: all just in the sort of if you'd like movies,
Speaker 1: you've probably heard these, even if you haven't seen the movie.
Speaker 2: Yes, But as a little aside, no one actually says
Speaker 2: play it again, Sam in that movie. Nope, they say
Speaker 2: play it Sam, or play say play as time goes
Speaker 2: by a couple of other variations, but no one says
Speaker 2: play it again, Sam.
Speaker 1: They don't say that.
Speaker 2: The thing is the reason we're talking about this and
Speaker 2: how it relates to the Bechdel test is that Casablanca.
Speaker 2: It's a great movie. There's a lot of great lines
Speaker 2: in it. Some of them are uttered by Lauren Bacall,
Speaker 2: but none of them are between two women. If Lauren
Speaker 2: Becall's character ils Lund is speaking them, she's speaking them
Speaker 2: to a man, and then all the other men are
Speaker 2: speaking to other men or to ilsu Lund. There's no
Speaker 2: woman to woman conversation in Casablanca, which you might say, like, so, well,
Speaker 2: actually there's a big fat explanation to that. So we're
Speaker 2: gonna dive feet first into it. So open up patriarchy
Speaker 2: because we're coming in.
Speaker 1: A quick statistic for you just to sort of illustrate
Speaker 1: part of the problem is usc Annberg Annaberg Annenberg. I
Speaker 1: knew I'd get there. Their Inclusion Initiative did a study
Speaker 1: and there were a think tank that looks at diversity
Speaker 1: in arts, and they saw that just thirty three point
Speaker 1: one percent of speaking roles period in the top one
Speaker 1: hundred grossing movies of twenty eighteen, and that was, you know,
Speaker 1: thirty three percent, like seventy or sixty oh gosh, help
Speaker 1: me out. Sixty seven percent of speaking roles in the
Speaker 1: one hundred grossing films were men.
Speaker 2: Yes, that was a big increase though from two thousand
Speaker 2: and seven, where twenty nine point nine percent went to women.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I being facetious about three percent ish.
Speaker 2: And one of the reasons I saw is that that
Speaker 2: the majority of supporting roles, especially like one scene, like
Speaker 2: speaking part just a bit part just kind of like
Speaker 2: very quick roles. Those are almost always are very typically
Speaker 2: filled by men. Right. I saw it described as does
Speaker 2: your protagonist report a crime to a CoP's probably a man.
Speaker 2: Do they get stitched up? Doctor's probably a man. The
Speaker 2: President's probably a man, and the soldiers that he commands
Speaker 2: are likely men too. And that's really true. And I
Speaker 2: was reading an interview with a person named Kate Hagen,
Speaker 2: who is the director of community at the Blacklist, which
Speaker 2: is a place where if you're a screenwriter you can
Speaker 2: submit your stuff for like really good feedback, I believe.
Speaker 1: Well, you know the Blacklist is it's a list of
Speaker 1: the best screenplays in Hollywood that didn't get produced.
Speaker 2: Oh I didn't know that. I thought it was like
Speaker 2: a kind of a work shopping website.
Speaker 1: Well, they may have, like you know, made it into something,
Speaker 1: but the Blacklist is like, you're the ten best scripts
Speaker 1: that didn't get made into features.
Speaker 2: Oh that's cool, Okay. Well, she's the director of community
Speaker 2: there and she's like, once you see this, you can
Speaker 2: never unsee it. And she also points out that it's
Speaker 2: not just bit parts going to men, but crowd scenes
Speaker 2: are very typically mostly men, and mostly white men, which
Speaker 2: in some way cases like if the thing's set in
Speaker 2: rural Iowa at a men's club, sure that would make sense.
Speaker 2: But if it's like New York City, that doesn't really
Speaker 2: make sense. And the thing is chuck. It's so common
Speaker 2: that it's just really easy to look right past and
Speaker 2: not really think about. But what Kate Hagen is saying
Speaker 2: is like, once you do start to notice it, you're
Speaker 2: getting to notice it from that point on.
Speaker 1: Yeah, for sure. All right, So all that was a
Speaker 1: nice little build up to what is the title of
Speaker 1: this podcast, which is the Bechdel Test, named after a
Speaker 1: graphic novelist named Alison Bechdell who had this long running
Speaker 1: comic strip called Dykes to Watch Out For and in
Speaker 1: one of the entries in nineteen eighty five, so this
Speaker 1: is a long time ago, it was called the Rule
Speaker 1: and then subtitled with Thanks to Liz Wallace and in
Speaker 1: one of those panel In one of those panels, one
Speaker 1: of the characters says, I have this rule. See, I
Speaker 1: only go to a movie if it satisfies three basic requirements.
Speaker 1: One it has to have at least two women in
Speaker 1: it who too talk to each other about three something
Speaker 1: besides a man, and that was in this cartoon sort
Speaker 1: of lived quietly for many years, and then in the
Speaker 1: two thousands it really got spread around the internet, especially
Speaker 1: in feminist communities online, especially in film websites for film
Speaker 1: buffs and stuff like that, and it became known. Even
Speaker 1: though Alison Bechdeal likes to credit her friend Liz Wallace
Speaker 1: by calling the Bechdel Wallace Test, more people know it
Speaker 1: as the Bechdel Test.
Speaker 2: Right, and actually, later on, in a blog post from
Speaker 2: twenty thirteen, Alison Bechdel said, you know, I think my
Speaker 2: friend Liz Wallace actually might have gotten the idea from
Speaker 2: Virginia Woolf, who wrote, quote, all these relationships between women,
Speaker 2: I thought, rapidly recalling the splendid gallery of fictitious women,
Speaker 2: are too simple, And I tried to remember any case
Speaker 2: in the course of my reading where two women are
Speaker 2: represented as friends. Almost without exception, they are shown in
Speaker 2: their relation to men, and that really is kind of
Speaker 2: the basis of the Backfelt Test. It's kind of a
Speaker 2: little more refined and a little more stripped down, but
Speaker 2: the idea is that women characters typically are there to
Speaker 2: support the men, or are deferential to the men, or
Speaker 2: are subservient to men in some way, shape or form,
Speaker 2: even movies that feature like a female protagonist.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and we'll get to a couple of those in
Speaker 1: a minute. But if it wasn't clear enough from that
Speaker 1: comic strip, the very three basic rules are, it has
Speaker 1: to contain and this is whether or not it passes
Speaker 1: or fails. It's a past fail thing. Two female characters.
Speaker 1: And then later on it was added that they should
Speaker 1: be you know, named characters and not just like and
Speaker 1: we breeze by two women talking in a cafeteria. Briefly,
Speaker 1: that's rule number one. Rule number two is the characters
Speaker 1: have to talk to each other and just each other
Speaker 1: in a scene, and that their conversation has to be
Speaker 1: it can be about anything on planet Earth, except for
Speaker 1: a conversation about a man or a group of men.
Speaker 2: Even beyond planet Earth. They want to talk about galaxies
Speaker 2: that would count. Galaxies, you know, talk about the Big
Speaker 2: Bang that would count too.
Speaker 1: It seems so easy, and it's so amazing, And we'll
Speaker 1: get to statistics that so many films sorry, flunk this test.
Speaker 2: Right, that's the point, Like, it's it sounds really easy,
Speaker 2: but it's not. It's extraordinarily hard for Hollywood. It turns out. Yeah,
Speaker 2: And I think, Chuck, this is a pretty good place
Speaker 2: maybe for our first ad break. What do you think
Speaker 2: I say toats.
Speaker 1: And stuff with Joshua job.
Speaker 2: Stuff, you shine up? All right, So, now that we've
Speaker 2: explained what the Bechdel test is, I think it's a
Speaker 2: good time to say that we're totally aware of the
Speaker 2: irony of a podcast that doesn't pass the Bechdel test
Speaker 2: talking about the Bechdel test. But I hope you guys
Speaker 2: have been listening to us strong enough to not rake
Speaker 2: us over the calls for it.
Speaker 1: Well, you can't do that to a podcast.
Speaker 2: Though, I think you can in some way, shape or form.
Speaker 2: There's some sort of Bechtel tests that you could apply
Speaker 2: to podcasts, for sure.
Speaker 1: So then every podcast hosted by one or two people
Speaker 1: that are guys fail to test.
Speaker 2: Well, we'll get into that, Chuck, because a lot of
Speaker 2: people say the Bechtel test is great in theory, but
Speaker 2: it really kind of doesn't make sense sometimes.
Speaker 1: Yeah, all right, Well, let's go back in time, at
Speaker 1: least to the studio era where not a lot of
Speaker 1: films were passing the Bechdel test. We talked about Casablanca.
Speaker 1: Of course, huge movies like Citizen Kane did not pass
Speaker 1: the Bechdel test. And a lot of movies, as you
Speaker 1: might expect from the you know, the thirties and forties,
Speaker 1: may not pass this test because movies have gotten more inclusive,
Speaker 1: more progressive, and stuff like that over time in general.
Speaker 1: But this is not like a problem from the bygone era.
Speaker 1: AFI did a separate list one hundred movies American movies
Speaker 1: that is a release from nineteen sixteen to two thousand
Speaker 1: and one. That's a lot of movies, and seventy of
Speaker 1: I'm sorry, seventy of those one hundred, which is almost
Speaker 1: said seventy percent, it is seventy percent failed the Bechdel test.
Speaker 1: Only thirty percent of the top one hundred movies through
Speaker 1: two thousand and one passed.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and it kept going even beyond that though. I
Speaker 2: think that one of the examples they give is Thor
Speaker 2: colin Ragnarok, which is from twenty seventeen. It has a
Speaker 2: female villain, a female superhero, so you've got a hera
Speaker 2: in Valkyrie. I think it's directed by tai Ka Ytt,
Speaker 2: and it still fills the Bechdel test.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: I mean, if it was ever set up for success,
Speaker 2: that movie was set up for success, and it still
Speaker 2: didn't pass the Bechdel test because Hara and Valkyrie never
Speaker 2: speak to one another in that movie.
Speaker 1: Yeah, here's another study, and this is from twenty eighteen
Speaker 1: when they looked at so you know, you wonder about, like,
Speaker 1: what about quality films? I get it if you know,
Speaker 1: if some of these dumb, stupid, big action blockbusters may
Speaker 1: not be as advanced or progressive, but surely these Oscar
Speaker 1: winners for Best Picture are in. The twenty eighteen study
Speaker 1: from BBC found that less than half of Best Picture
Speaker 1: winners past the Bechtel test, and since twenty eighteen they've
Speaker 1: done much better. There have been six films since then.
Speaker 1: In five of the six passed it. So Nomadland, Coda,
Speaker 1: Everything That Everywhere, All at Once, and Parasite and The
Speaker 1: Shape of Water all passed and only Green Book failed.
Speaker 2: Tiss green Book, But also that's just Best Picture. The
Speaker 2: nominees did a little a little worse in twenty twenty.
Speaker 2: The Irishman nineteen seventeen and four versus Ferrari didn't come
Speaker 2: close to passing. Joker Marriage Story and Once upon a
Speaker 2: Time in Hollywood, which, by the way, Joker, dude, that
Speaker 2: was such a terrible movie. Did you see it?
Speaker 1: I did.
Speaker 2: I hated that movie.
Speaker 1: You did?
Speaker 2: I did? And I'm sorry anybody out there who yums it,
Speaker 2: I'm yucking it. I'm sorry about that.
Speaker 1: Now we covered this at your personal opinion.
Speaker 2: Once upon a time in Hollywood, you can make some arguments.
Speaker 2: Each one has something that's like, well, yeah, that kind
Speaker 2: of is, and then somebody can say, well, it's not
Speaker 2: really and then Little Women, Jojo, Rabbit, and Parasite all
Speaker 2: are definitely past the Bechdel test.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean there can be, and there often are,
Speaker 1: and I think it's meant to be debated. It's it
Speaker 1: can be as cut and dry as like, literally, do
Speaker 1: any two women speak right? Because people will say, like, well,
Speaker 1: there's that one scene where those two even though they're
Speaker 1: named characters, it was super fast. Like I think that
Speaker 1: the spirit of it is have a real sort of
Speaker 1: conversation of substance, even though and again this is it's
Speaker 1: a it's an online sort of movie test thing for
Speaker 1: people to argue over to a certain degree. Sure, so
Speaker 1: well what we'll get, like you said, we'll get into
Speaker 1: the ins and outs of it, and I know I'll
Speaker 1: start to get into that again.
Speaker 2: So one really roundly man. My brain just fell out
Speaker 2: of my ear about ten minutes ago, I think. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 2: one widely sighted movie that kind of shows like the
Speaker 2: Bechdel Test is not all encompassing. Is Jackie Brown?
Speaker 1: Yeah?
Speaker 2: Was that? Did Tarantino wreck that?
Speaker 1: Okay? Great? Great movie?
Speaker 2: It is a great movie. Well, it was adapted from
Speaker 2: Leonard Elmore? Right?
Speaker 1: Yeah?
Speaker 2: Okay? Or Elmore Leonard? It was adapted from Leonard Kamma Elmore.
Speaker 2: I mean, do you know how many people just went yeah,
Speaker 2: I know, I know, coolier jets everybody. So Jackie Brown
Speaker 2: has Pam Greer in it as the lead Jackie Brown
Speaker 2: and the whole movie, right, Comma, Pam, you don't forget
Speaker 2: the comma. Yeah, it's like the New Colon, but she
Speaker 2: plays Jackie Brown and Jackie Brown. The whole movie is
Speaker 2: about Jackie Brown just being this ba who I can't remember.
Speaker 2: She's like setting up this whole I think an arm
Speaker 2: steal or something to help somebody get out of something.
Speaker 2: Is that right? I haven't seen it in years.
Speaker 1: Let's just say she's always one step ahead of the
Speaker 1: man in the movie, right, So she's smarting them at
Speaker 1: every turn.
Speaker 2: Yeah, to use a very tired phrase. She's a she's
Speaker 2: a feminist icon in this movie, and yet throughout this
Speaker 2: whole movie, she never once has a conversation with another woman.
Speaker 2: So technically it fails the Bechdel test, although anybody who
Speaker 2: has any kind of feminist tendencies and watch Jackie Brown
Speaker 2: probably is very happy with that movie, including Alison Bechdel
Speaker 2: as well, who said, like, I love that movie, but
Speaker 2: it definitely fails a Bechdel test, but it's still a
Speaker 2: really great movie. And that's something really like too important
Speaker 2: to remember is just because a movie fails the Bechdel
Speaker 2: test doesn't make it a bad movie. And just because
Speaker 2: a movie passes a Bechdel test certainly doesn't make it
Speaker 2: like a feminist icon type movie.
Speaker 1: Yeah, for sure. I mean there have been movies that
Speaker 1: passed that you might be very surprised, like Goodfellas. That
Speaker 1: one is another debatable one, but technically that passes the
Speaker 1: Bechdel test, even though you're probably like, who else besides
Speaker 1: Lorraine Breco was even in Good Fellas as far as
Speaker 1: women go. But there are a few, And there's the
Speaker 1: one scene where all the mob wives get together and
Speaker 1: they're having conversations with one another, and they are named.
Speaker 1: But again it's still not like these great substantial conversations.
Speaker 2: Can I throw at another couple surprising examples? Sure, American
Speaker 2: Pie two. Yeah, Show Girls passes, and then my favorite
Speaker 2: example is Weird Science, where two horny teenage boys make
Speaker 2: a beautiful woman, literally objectify a woman, and yet two
Speaker 2: girls have a conversation about how beautiful that woman is,
Speaker 2: so it passes the Bechdel test.
Speaker 1: In some movies that are surprising that failed, Avatar James
Speaker 1: Cameron's first dive into whatever that world is. What's it called?
Speaker 2: I don't know. I still haven't seen.
Speaker 1: Oh I even saw the new one, even though I
Speaker 1: kind of bag on this movie CI World. One thing
Speaker 1: to remember about Avatar is that it had a couple
Speaker 1: of really strong female leads. It was zoe's Aldona's character
Speaker 1: and of course Sigourney Weaver's character, and James Cameron historically
Speaker 1: writes strong female leads from the Terminator to the Abyss,
Speaker 1: and you know, he just says a strong history of
Speaker 1: working with strong female leads, and that certainly was a
Speaker 1: case in Avatar. But Zoe Seldona and Sigourney Weaver don't
Speaker 1: talk to each other. Pandora. That's it on Pandora. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's the name of the world. And there are some
Speaker 1: women kind of here and there talking to each other,
Speaker 1: but it sort of falls in the category of like
Speaker 1: they're not named characters.
Speaker 2: Yeah, another handful of examples that don't pass, but really
Speaker 2: are still you know, they have very strong female characters
Speaker 2: and well defined ones La La Land. Oh yeah, Arrival.
Speaker 2: I think that's Amy Adams, right, Yeah, great movie. Yeah,
Speaker 2: it really is. Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. Gravity didn't
Speaker 2: talk to anyone though, No, that's true, but Gravity. Yeah,
Speaker 2: that whole movie is just basically Sandra Bullock trying to
Speaker 2: figure out what the heck to do in space. Yeah,
Speaker 2: and the reason why is like that it doesn't pass
Speaker 2: the Bechdel test because there's basically no other female characters.
Speaker 2: But there's almost no other characters at all anyway.
Speaker 1: Yeah, just clooney basically.
Speaker 2: Yeah. So it's not exactly like a perfect measure, but
Speaker 2: the point is is to say, like, again, this is
Speaker 2: a really low barrow we're setting here, and yet most
Speaker 2: movies don't pass this test, So what are we doing here? Everybody?
Speaker 2: That's really ultimately the point and purpose of the Bechdel test.
Speaker 1: Yeah, can I name a couple of others?
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, this is one of the fun parts for sure, since.
Speaker 1: We're just naming movies. A movie that passed two movies
Speaker 1: that pass one is Hitchcock's Rear Window. Hitchcock, on the
Speaker 1: other hand, of James Cameron, is known for having very
Speaker 1: problematic relationships with his leading ladies off screen. Oh yeah,
Speaker 1: that you know, border well on that border on, that
Speaker 1: delve into psychological abuse of these women, you know, to
Speaker 1: try and get a performance out of them. He has
Speaker 1: has cast a lot of female leads, but I wouldn't
Speaker 1: necessarily say that he has ever been known as like
Speaker 1: a feminist filmmaker. But Rear Window has a pretty good
Speaker 1: like subplot of Grace Kelly's character Lisa and Thelma Ritter
Speaker 1: Ridder's character Stella, who's the nurse to Jimmy Stewart, sort
Speaker 1: of getting together to investigate this crime. You know. The
Speaker 1: whole premise of Rear Window is that they have witnessed
Speaker 1: a crime out of the window looking into another window
Speaker 1: of these like New York apartments where you can kind
Speaker 1: of everyone sees each other all the time, right, and
Speaker 1: so they kind of team up as investigators, which you
Speaker 1: know wasn't the most common thing back then.
Speaker 2: No, And I think that's another thing that the Bechdel
Speaker 2: Test reminds us is that things are more complicated and
Speaker 2: nuanced and layered than something like past fail pro feminist
Speaker 2: anti feminists like things. Things are often a lot more
Speaker 2: wrapped up in a lot more wax than it appears
Speaker 2: on the surface. And also, I think one of the
Speaker 2: other things that reminds us is like, just say, because
Speaker 2: of the person Alfred Hitchcock was off screen, doesn't mean
Speaker 2: that the movies that he made didn't have strong female
Speaker 2: characters and can't be enjoyed for that reason too, you know.
Speaker 2: And also I want to go on record, I'm just
Speaker 2: going to put myself out there. Weird Science is a
Speaker 2: great movie.
Speaker 1: I haven't seen in a long time. I loved it
Speaker 1: back then.
Speaker 2: I saw a couple of years and it's I think
Speaker 2: better now than it was when I was a kid.
Speaker 1: What was that weird deal in that movie? Though? Where
Speaker 1: the uh the guy from the Hills have Eyes and
Speaker 1: the bikers crashed that party.
Speaker 2: I think they they left the little thing that brings
Speaker 2: whatever they want to life. I think on some mad
Speaker 2: or something like that or maybe on the movie.
Speaker 1: So that was explain Yeah, I think I just don't
Speaker 1: remember that.
Speaker 2: It's not explained. They just show what's happening and then
Speaker 2: those guys show up and I don't remember where they
Speaker 2: came from. But it wasn't just out of.
Speaker 1: The blue, all right. I think I kind of remember that. Now,
Speaker 1: Now do you like the movie? It's perfect? Well. I
Speaker 1: had had a big thing for.
Speaker 2: Kelly Lebron.
Speaker 1: Kelly Lebron, dude, did not. I mean if you're if
Speaker 1: you were a boy in the eighties, and I'm sure
Speaker 1: plenty of girls in the eighties and you saw Weird
Speaker 1: Science and the Woman in Red, the great Gene Wilder movie,
Speaker 1: then you probably had a thing for Kelly Lebron.
Speaker 2: Yes, agreed.
Speaker 1: The other movie I wanted to mention that passed that is,
Speaker 1: I guess sort of surprising is Guardians of the Galaxy.
Speaker 1: Because Marvel has sort of long been known in the
Speaker 1: Marvel or rather the Marvel cinematic universe, as not really
Speaker 1: being super inclusive as far as women go. It's gotten
Speaker 1: better in recent years. There are plenty of Marvel characters
Speaker 1: from the comics that were overlooked when it came movie making. Time,
Speaker 1: but they have since like kind of been working those
Speaker 1: into the rotation. But and Guardians the first Guardians, and
Speaker 1: I think one of the most sort of complex relationship
Speaker 1: arcs in any of the MCU is between Gomora and
Speaker 1: Nebula for sure, really rich, good emotional character arcs and
Speaker 1: interactions for them.
Speaker 2: I have no idea what you're just talking about, but
Speaker 2: I'll take it on face that you know what you're saying.
Speaker 1: I do, and it's I'm not going to ruin in
Speaker 1: case anyone hasn't seen those, but the basis for the
Speaker 1: emotion of their relationship. But it's real stuff.
Speaker 2: Okay, great, I've even seeing Guardians of the Galaxy and
Speaker 2: I still have no idea what you're talking about. But again,
Speaker 2: way to go, Chuck, I say, Also, what do you
Speaker 2: think about taking a second break?
Speaker 1: Yeah? Why not?
Speaker 2: Why not.
Speaker 1: Learn and stuff with Joshua John stuff Fu, shine up.
Speaker 2: Josh Si.
Speaker 1: All Right, So now we're kind of done just talking
Speaker 1: about movies and whether or not they passed or failed.
Speaker 2: Yeah, let's talk about the background, the backdrop, the context.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and whether or not it's an outdated test and
Speaker 1: are there better ways to go about this? There have
Speaker 1: been people that have written about sort of the time
Speaker 1: period in nineteen eighty five when the Bechdel test was
Speaker 1: invented in this cartoon, and nineteen eighty five wasn't the
Speaker 1: most feminist pro woman time in the United States history.
Speaker 1: At some point, we're going to do podcast on feminism
Speaker 1: in general in the different waves. But it just kind
Speaker 1: of ebbed and flowed over the years as far as
Speaker 1: its popularity and just visibility in the zeitgeist. And the
Speaker 1: seventies was a time where it was kind of happening
Speaker 1: feminist wise. There were a long list of really good
Speaker 1: female centric movie dramas that were made, and that was
Speaker 1: not the case in nineteen eighty five at all.
Speaker 2: I take issue with that. You've got nine to five
Speaker 2: from the early eighties. There's one Working Girl with Melanie
Speaker 2: Griffith in like eighty eight two, Diane Keaton Baby Boom,
Speaker 2: and like maybe eighty six, eighty seven three. I could
Speaker 2: go on. That's just literally off the top of my head.
Speaker 2: It's not like I researched like feminists or strong female
Speaker 2: lead movies in the eighties. I like, that's off the
Speaker 2: top of my head, all right, So I disagree. I
Speaker 2: get that, like that's the that's the way it's thought
Speaker 2: of is like, yes, it was much stronger in the seventies,
Speaker 2: and yes they probably were a little more, had a
Speaker 2: little more depth, but that's just because everybody was on
Speaker 2: so much cocaine in the eighties. No one had any depth.
Speaker 1: Than that decade, more depth than Baby Boom.
Speaker 2: That was a good movie.
Speaker 1: Oh like Baby Boom. I love Dyane Keith oh Man.
Speaker 2: How could you not?
Speaker 1: But the point is, except for you, most people agree
Speaker 1: that the mid eighties wasn't you know, high time for
Speaker 1: women in film, and so that's when the test was created.
Speaker 1: So kind of keep that in mind. And you know,
Speaker 1: like you mentioned the past fail thing, there have been
Speaker 1: plenty of people that said, you know, there are all
Speaker 1: kinds of other issues with women in film that have
Speaker 1: real meat on the bone that we should really look
Speaker 1: at then whether or not, you know, there was just
Speaker 1: a scene with two women talking to each other, right,
Speaker 1: not about men. There was this one writer, what is
Speaker 1: her name? It is Martha Lausen from San Diego State
Speaker 1: University's Center for the Study of Women in Television Film,
Speaker 1: in an article called Moving Beyond the Bechtel Test, where
Speaker 1: she basically says, like uses gravity as an example and saying,
Speaker 1: you know, a movie like that fails because you know,
Speaker 1: she didn't talk to other women in the movie. But
Speaker 1: American Hustle Will Pass, which has very sexualized portrayals of women,
Speaker 1: And she's right about all this. The only thing that
Speaker 1: I will say is that to me, I think she
Speaker 1: diminishes a little bit the value of just sort of
Speaker 1: how a test like this can be become really popular
Speaker 1: and get the conversation going.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I was surprised that she was taking shots at it.
Speaker 2: She's saying, like the test that's the lowest possible bar
Speaker 2: for assessing the quality of portrayals of female characters. It
Speaker 2: does the point. Yeah, it's exactly saying like here, everybody
Speaker 2: like you can anybody can step over this, and yet
Speaker 2: everybody can keeps tripping up on it. And then yeah,
Speaker 2: I think that's a really great point. Like we're we
Speaker 2: have a we're releasing an episode on this. Without the
Speaker 2: Bechdel Test, I'm not sure we would have found some
Speaker 2: entry point into this. You know, we might not have
Speaker 2: been thinking about it in any real way at least me.
Speaker 2: I don't know about you, but like, I have never
Speaker 2: really noticed crowd scenes like that before or that the
Speaker 2: doctor is always a guy. And now that this that
Speaker 2: I've heard of this and done this research and talk
Speaker 2: to you about this, I'm fully aware of it and
Speaker 2: I can't wait to see my next crowd scene in
Speaker 2: a movie, and I can be like, oh, man, what
Speaker 2: is this crud?
Speaker 1: What is that a Rush concert?
Speaker 2: So, yeah, man, that is so true, and yeah, Rush
Speaker 2: is a great band.
Speaker 1: Well, you know, to me, the idea is that it's
Speaker 1: a conversation starter, and then it leads to the conversation
Speaker 1: of like, hey, maybe let's look at how women are
Speaker 1: really portrayed in a movie. Let's look at the fact that,
Speaker 1: you know, scenes of sexual assa are just and it's
Speaker 1: getting better, but like, historically, we're just sort of routinely
Speaker 1: tossed in there as plot devices or like, you know,
Speaker 1: Lloyd Dobbler standing outside of ione Sky's window with a
Speaker 1: boombox after he's been told to leave is stalking, right.
Speaker 1: I know, it's a romantic comedy and that's people might say, like, oh,
Speaker 1: don't take it that seriously, but stalking historically in movies
Speaker 1: is portrayed as like, you know, the guy that just
Speaker 1: won't say no because it's so romantic.
Speaker 2: Right, it's true. And then also like in the actual
Speaker 2: like casting of older women, that it gets harder and
Speaker 2: harder after a certain age to like get work.
Speaker 1: And then it's like older than thirty one.
Speaker 2: Right, And if you do get work, it's very stereotypical work.
Speaker 2: You're probably tired or beat or maybe bitter from having
Speaker 2: been left by her husband. There's a lot to be
Speaker 2: left to be desired with how women are portrayed and
Speaker 2: treated in Hollywood. And so to just raise everyone's consciousness
Speaker 2: about this, that's it's it's a great tool for that.
Speaker 2: There's one other thing, Chuck, that I ran across in
Speaker 2: this research that I wasn't aware of before. Geena Davis,
Speaker 2: who I thought was one of the most charming people
Speaker 2: I've ever met. I actually haven't met her. I don't
Speaker 2: know why. I just said that one of the most right.
Speaker 2: And it's funny, like if you go back and look
Speaker 2: at the fly and then you just watch like interviews
Speaker 2: with Jeff Goldbloom and you watch interviews with Geena Davis,
Speaker 2: they're the same person, one in the same They're like
Speaker 2: two sides of the same coin. It's very interesting to see,
Speaker 2: what do you mean they they talk the same way
Speaker 2: they behave, the same way, they think, the same way
Speaker 2: they really Yes, they're very similar personality wise, interesting, very clever,
Speaker 2: very smart, very funny, very self deprecating. She yes, she is.
Speaker 2: So I was watching a talk that she gave at
Speaker 2: Rutgers in twenty twelve that I was tipped off to
Speaker 2: by Kate Hagen in a five thirty eight.
Speaker 1: Article I mentioned Davis.
Speaker 2: No the opposite.
Speaker 1: Oh okay, she found it.
Speaker 2: She founded a study or an institute that studies gender
Speaker 2: and media. And she's walking around like telling people like hey,
Speaker 2: and talking to producers like she's she's going to the
Speaker 2: source and saying like, have you ever noticed like all
Speaker 2: doctors are men? Or my institute did a study and
Speaker 2: of the six thousand films that were released between two
Speaker 2: thousand and six and two thousand and nine, not a
Speaker 2: single one of them showed a woman in any actual
Speaker 2: like position of power, like a president or something like that.
Speaker 2: Like she founded an institute that studies this and then
Speaker 2: is actually trying to do something about it. So it's
Speaker 2: a pretty charming talk. It's only like a half hour long,
Speaker 2: but it's it's I can't remember. Just look up Geena Davis,
Speaker 2: Rutgers twenty twelve and you'll see it. But she really
Speaker 2: points out some really surprising stuff. So she's out there
Speaker 2: pointing this out too and studying it. And like, I think,
Speaker 2: the more you can come up with like statistics, right,
Speaker 2: the more you can convince people to kind of open
Speaker 2: their eyes. And the more they open their eyes, the
Speaker 2: more you just again, like k Hagen said, you can't
Speaker 2: unsee it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, boy, I'm glad it went that way. The way
Speaker 1: you set it up, it sounded like you were like,
Speaker 1: Geena Davis was someone I thought I loved until.
Speaker 2: No, you thought you loved her, and even more now she.
Speaker 1: Was on our buddy Jesse Thorn had her on his
Speaker 1: great interview show Bullseye with Jesse Thorn, and he said
Speaker 1: that asked her was like, oh man, what was Geena
Speaker 1: Davis like? And he said she was like the coolest
Speaker 1: aunt you've ever had, And he said the whole office
Speaker 1: was just like in love with Geena Davis by the
Speaker 1: end of the day.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you told them, and I have to follow it
Speaker 2: up every time I've heard that she bakes cookies and
Speaker 2: brings them to meetings.
Speaker 1: Wow, is there anything she can't do?
Speaker 2: I don't think so.
Speaker 1: So in twenty seventeen, there was so you know, basically
Speaker 1: the idea of like should we come up with something
Speaker 1: better than the Bechtel test has come up plenty of times.
Speaker 1: In twenty seventeen five point thirty eight, the website had
Speaker 1: a campaign where they said, maybe let's try and come
Speaker 1: up with something new. Let's get a dozen women in
Speaker 1: the industry in here to talk about this stuff. And
Speaker 1: some of the things that are said, like are surprising,
Speaker 1: but it's like, really, is it that hard to cast
Speaker 1: a movie, for instance, where there is a black woman
Speaker 1: who is the lead in a movie, that has a
Speaker 1: position of power in the movie and that has a
Speaker 1: healthy relationship, and this is what Emmy winner. She's a
Speaker 1: writer named Lena waithe said, can like we just do that?
Speaker 1: Another actor named Rory Uphold said, you know what about
Speaker 1: these film crews? Can we have film crews that are
Speaker 1: fifty percent women? That's a lot tougher, I think you
Speaker 1: and I've been on film cruise. Film cruise historically.
Speaker 2: There's sausage parties.
Speaker 1: Well, there are departments that are just sort of historically
Speaker 1: one or the other, Like you know, hair and makeup
Speaker 1: is almost always women. A script supervisor for some reasons.
Speaker 2: Always one, yeah, you know who established that hitchcock?
Speaker 1: Yeah? Probably? So what else? Casting is usually women are
Speaker 1: casting directors, which is interesting. There's a lot of departments
Speaker 1: that are sort of split, like the art department. A
Speaker 1: lot of times you'll have men and women camera department.
Speaker 1: More and more it used to be very historically male,
Speaker 1: but a lot more women in the camera department now
Speaker 1: in production departments, and then you have like the grip
Speaker 1: and electric departments transportation that are ninety five percent men.
Speaker 1: Every once in a while, I would work with a
Speaker 1: woman that was like a grip or a key grip
Speaker 1: or a gaffer or something, and it was always like,
Speaker 1: oh wow, that's super awesome. And it was like super noticeable,
Speaker 1: that's how rare it was. And it's just, you know,
Speaker 1: it's interesting when I thought about this one specifically, like
Speaker 1: fifty percent women on film crew. It's sort of that
Speaker 1: problem of like you can't get the job unless you
Speaker 1: have the experience, and you can't get the experience unless
Speaker 1: you have the job.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's a terrible catch. Twenty two.
Speaker 1: It's a terrible one.
Speaker 2: I saw that five point thirty eight article and they
Speaker 2: basically took the dozen plus women their suggestions, and they
Speaker 2: could break them down into four categories. Behind the camera,
Speaker 2: which is what you were just talking about, intersectional, which
Speaker 2: is saying like a black woman protagonist, or the protagonists
Speaker 2: themselves they just having a woman protagonist, and then the
Speaker 2: supporting cast things like the doctor being a woman or
Speaker 2: the president being a woman. And some passed more than others,
Speaker 2: but the one that did the most dismally was behind
Speaker 2: the camera. Oh sure, like in the actual act of
Speaker 2: making movies, it is. It's just not They're just women
Speaker 2: are not well represented at least right now. But I
Speaker 2: think the fact that we're talking about it, things change
Speaker 2: when people talk about stuff, you know.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and it has been changing on film crews, you know,
Speaker 1: little by little, especially in more recent years. You see
Speaker 1: more women directing movies than ever before. Still percentage wise,
Speaker 1: way low, obviously, but it is getting better.
Speaker 2: And when that happens, when women direct movies, they found
Speaker 2: that female speaking characters jumped to forty seven point six percent,
Speaker 2: up from thirty three point one percent for alles overall. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah. There are some more tests that have popped up
Speaker 1: online that are some of these are just kind of
Speaker 1: fun and funny. The Maco Moriy test from Pacific Rim.
Speaker 1: One of the characters in Pacific Rim is all films
Speaker 1: have at least one female character who has her own
Speaker 1: narrative arc and doesn't exist only to support a man's story,
Speaker 1: So that one's just a little more robust. I think
Speaker 1: the cut and dryness of Bechtel, And then I thought
Speaker 1: the sexy lamp test was very funny. This is from
Speaker 1: a writer named Kelly Sue Deaconic and said if you can,
Speaker 1: if you can remove a female character from your plot
Speaker 1: and replace her with a sexy lamp and your story
Speaker 1: still works, then you're a hack.
Speaker 2: It's pretty great.
Speaker 1: I love that one.
Speaker 2: So there are some things that you can do if
Speaker 2: you want to kind of help move this along, and
Speaker 2: one is vote with your feet where if you are,
Speaker 2: if you're a woman or a man and you're concerned
Speaker 2: by this kind of thing, and just don't go see
Speaker 2: movies that don't pass some tests that's important to you,
Speaker 2: whether it's a Bechdel test or something else. Hollywood will
Speaker 2: get the point very quickly in that respect. And then
Speaker 2: apparently in some movie theaters in Sweden they actually assign
Speaker 2: ratings to films based on gender bias. If it has
Speaker 2: an a. It means that it passed the Bechdel test
Speaker 2: at least. And I think that's good. I think that's
Speaker 2: very cool that the idea of like kind of plucking
Speaker 2: women out of this bizarre non person status that they
Speaker 2: often find themselves in in movies, or they're meant to
Speaker 2: like move the plot along for or the man or
Speaker 2: something like that. Like, how could we not benefit from that?
Speaker 2: It just make everything a lot richer. It make movies
Speaker 2: a lot richer too.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, I mean one of the great things
Speaker 1: about movies has seen perspectives of people that aren't like
Speaker 1: you right exactly, you know, But it's.
Speaker 2: Just trying it out too, in the privacy of your
Speaker 2: own home, so you can try it on for size
Speaker 2: and see if you like it without making a commitment.
Speaker 2: That's the great thing about it.
Speaker 1: I did mention that, you know, there are more women
Speaker 1: directing movies these days than ever before, which is true.
Speaker 1: But here's some some final statistics for you, again from
Speaker 1: the us c's and Enburg Report, and this one was
Speaker 1: from twenty twenty three, talking about twenty twenty two, and
Speaker 1: out of the one hundred highest grossing movies of twenty
Speaker 1: twenty to nine, percent were directed by women and two
Speaker 1: point seven percent by women of color. And this is
Speaker 1: you know, this has changed some over the years. I
Speaker 1: think there was one statistic that showed one hundred percent
Speaker 1: increase from twenty five years ago, but it's still less
Speaker 1: than a fifth of the biggest movies are directed by women.
Speaker 1: And you know, the Bechdel test is, if you apply
Speaker 1: this to independent film, then numbers skewed pretty differently because
Speaker 1: independent film is where you're going to find more quality
Speaker 1: scenes of dialogue between women, and in fact, a lot
Speaker 1: of independent films are all about that, and a lot
Speaker 1: of independent films are directed by women. So this is
Speaker 1: sort of the big Hollywood movies that we're mainly talking about.
Speaker 2: Right, Yeah, which makes one more point to make two.
Speaker 2: That makes a huge difference because those are the movies
Speaker 2: that most people see. And if you're raising kids on
Speaker 2: this unconscious idea that doctors are men, presidents are men,
Speaker 2: soldiers are men, then that's what they expect reality to
Speaker 2: be too, and that makes reality that way. It's it's
Speaker 2: life imitating art, but in a really negative way.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and for better conversations in this, go check out
Speaker 1: the bech Del Cast. Yes, well, put Chuck, it's great.
Speaker 1: And by the way, we should just mention that we
Speaker 1: don't have to get into it. But TV, historically and
Speaker 1: still has always done a much better job at this
Speaker 1: kind of thing than movies.
Speaker 2: Yeah, have you seen One Day at a Time.
Speaker 1: There's been a lot of great TV shows from back
Speaker 1: then that were, you know, very female centric.
Speaker 2: You got Alice, Got Alice, that's it, Alice in One
Speaker 2: Day at a Time Carol Burnett's show.
Speaker 1: Oh, she's great.
Speaker 2: Well, since Chuck just sighed heavily, it shows that he's
Speaker 2: ready to be done, which means that it's time for
Speaker 2: listener mail.
Speaker 1: That was a wistful Carol Burnett's side.
Speaker 2: Okay, good, thanks for specifying.
Speaker 1: So in lieu of listener Male today because a bunch
Speaker 1: of people that write in we just want to acknowledge
Speaker 1: the passing of Gordon Lightfoot.
Speaker 2: Oh nice work, Chuck passed.
Speaker 1: Away got the news today actually on recording day ironically,
Speaker 1: just what five days before we're going to be performing
Speaker 1: in Canada at wouldn't it Gordon Lightfoot's home theater.
Speaker 2: Yes, Massey Hall is his home away from home.
Speaker 1: That's right, So I knew. I still don't like the
Speaker 1: song The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald. But Gordon Lightfoot
Speaker 1: certainly meant a lot to a lot of people, certainly
Speaker 1: a lot of Canadians, and we didn't want to let
Speaker 1: this let this one go without saying rest in peace, Concer.
Speaker 2: Rest in peace, Gordon Lightfoot. Very nice, Chuck. I think
Speaker 2: that's a great stand in for a listener mail.
Speaker 1: Great.
Speaker 2: Do you want to send us a listener mail? We'd
Speaker 2: love to hear from you. You can send it via
Speaker 2: email to stuff podcast at iHeartRadio dot com.
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