• Gries He Gries He
    Gries He ► Alison Bechdel
    8 years ago
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    What Happened After Swedish Theaters Introduced a Bechdel Rating for Its Movies?

    --Swedish films are now 2.5x more likely to pass the Bechdel test since the A rating's implementation. In 2013, only 30% of Swedish feature films passed the Bechdel test. The next year, that rate jumped to 60%, and in 2015, a whopping 80% of films earned an A rating seal.

    --The A rating system is now a feature in 30 movie theaters. In addition to the seal seen above, consumers are informed of a film's Bechdel test passage by a brief trailer that runs before the start of the movie. The A rating seal has also begun to appear on DVD covers.

    http://blogs.indiewire.com/womenandhollywood/what-happened-after-swedish-theaters-introduced-a-bechdel-rating-for-its-movies-20160217
    • Not Important
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      Not Important
      Editing … 80% is a good number. I was at a lecture where the professor estimated that around 92% would be the right amount. So there would be 8% dude bro movies and 8% dudette sistah movies. Sounds good to me.
      8 years ago
    • Rich .
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      Rich .
      Editing … Very few of my favourite films pass the bechdel test. In its defence, ##The Shawshank Redemption is set in a prison, they don't tend to be mixed gender.
      8 years ago
    • Rich .
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      Rich .
      Editing … Putting bechdel ratings in cinemas seems like a great idea for bringing change about quickly but I can't see it happening in the US any time soon and that's what it'd take to change Hollywood.
      8 years ago
    • Not Important
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      Not Important
      Editing … Yeah, a lot of my favorites fail, and even when they don't, many of them have very brief conversations of one or two sentences.
      8 years ago
    • Rich .
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      Rich .
      Editing … Looking at my top 10 Inception and Ferris Bueller's Day Off are the only two that pass comfortably.
      8 years ago
    • free fall
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      free fall
      Editing … But the Bechdel Test is totally meaningless.
      8 years ago
    • Rich .
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      Rich .
      Editing … I don't buy that. Try the reverse bechdel test for men (Two named male characters talk about something other than a woman) and look at how few films fail. By comparison a lot of films fail the actual bechdel test and considering it's a pretty low bar to meet that's kind of shocking. Yeah, individually a fair few films have perfectly good excuses for a lack of female characters (Shawshank's set in a men's prison etc) and some are pretty progressive in their depiction of women even if they technically fail (I was surprised V for Vendetta didn't pass) but as a test it's still pretty sound.
      8 years ago
    • free fall
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      free fall
      Editing … I mean it is true that more films would pass the gender swapped version. But passing the test is a worthless achievement because it ignores all context. It is all about the nature of the portrayals, it can't be quantified by a simple test. You could have two women talking about how the woman's role is to stay in the kitchen and it would pass with flying colors.
      8 years ago
    • Not Important
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      Not Important
      Editing … Of course there are loads and loads of movies that wont reach those qualifications just because they tell about something that is male dominated. Like war or prison. And obviously there will be a lot of "one room dramas" that don't have two women talking to each other.
      8 years ago
    • Rich .
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      Rich .
      Editing … No rule's going to replace intelligent evaluation of a film, especially a straightforward one you can assess quickly. I still think it's a good test for setting a minimum bar that a lot of films don't have a good excuse for failing to meet though.
      8 years ago
    • rockshard PhD
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      rockshard PhD
      Editing … I think bechdel test is a lie. If the movie stars a man and is written well, it's not going to pass, period. People translate it as movies being sexist, but passing the bechdel test simply means forcing scenes into the movie just to pass the bechdel test. It's already happened. To prove the bechdel test is a sham, consider that now even if your film includes strong female characters, and even if you have them talk to male equals, or male antagonists, or even try to rescue male characters, the movie is still treated as a conspiracy against women.
      8 years ago
    • Rich .
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      Rich .
      Editing … Inception stars DiCaprio, it passes easily. Ferris Bueller has Matthew Broderick as the lead, it also passes easily. It's okay for individual films not to pass it, it doesn't make them sexist. I do think the trend that most films don't pass reflects some sexism in filmmaking though.
      8 years ago
    • Sandvich
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      Sandvich
      Editing … The Bechdel test is not meant to be the be-all and end-all of determining sexism in a film. It is a thought experiment meant to highlight a TREND in film as a whole. It indicates that women are frequently marginalized in their roles in movies or excluded altogether, and highlights that movies constantly struggle to include the female perspective or discuss female problems. Nobody is expecting a woman-on-woman interaction to be crammed into Platoon to dispel its "sexism." Catwoman passing the test doesn't absolve it of its horrible portrayal of women. This nitpickery is an obvious strawman and it always has been.
      8 years ago Heart 3
    • Sandvich
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      Sandvich
      Editing … Oh, and just as an obvious ploy to seem super reasonable cuz LOL, @richardpale, I personally get really irritated when people suggest that Inception doesn't pass the test because Mal is a projection of a man's psyche.
      8 years ago Heart 1
    • rockshard PhD
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      rockshard PhD
      Editing … Here's a better bechdel test: have the protagonist be female. P.s. the idea of 80% of films passing the current test seems insane. Shouldn't the number hover around 50% at most? What now happens to all the movies about guys? Oh brother...
      8 years ago
    • free fall
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      free fall
      Editing … If it is meant as a thought experiment, and not just a throwaway comic strip gag, then it isn't a very successful or efficient one, since in my experience the overwhelming result of it has been to inhibit thought in young feminists. Rather than opening the door for conversation about women's role in film, all the Bechdel Test has done is give people a simple way to pass or fail a movie without having to apply critical thinking about the film's content.
      8 years ago Heart 1
    • free fall
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      free fall
      Editing … I agree that as a means of highlighting a trend, it has some merit. But this isn't how most people understand the test, including these Swedes.
      8 years ago Heart 1
    • Gries He
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      Gries He
      Editing … Congrats, free fall, you changed my view on the Bechdel test. oO I didn't expect that to happen, but you made some very convincing arguments. Kudos
      8 years ago
    • Not Important
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      Not Important
      Editing … But the Bechdel test is not "totally meaningless" sure it isn't the holy grail, but it's a fucking three step test. If you've got half a functioning brain, you will obviously understand how a movie represents women.
      8 years ago Heart 2
    • Sandvich
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      Sandvich
      Editing … @rockshard2 80% sounds perfectly reasonable. Fucking Die Hard passes the test, almost exclusively a story "about guys." Yes, if all the movies in that 80% were like Die Hard, we'd still have a representation problem, but the point of the test is that it should be easy to pass. It's a first step, and if we see the continuation 2015's trend of more female inclusive films like Fury Road, Inside Out and the Force Awakens, the Bechdel Test might prove redundant and more nuanced means of evaluation would be required. I'd say the other 20% leaves plenty of room for the Shawshanks and Platoons.
      8 years ago Heart 1
    • Sandvich
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      Sandvich
      Editing … @Free Fall The Swedish theater director who came up with the rating system says it is not meant to be a litmus test, and the article itself is aware of the limitations of the Bechdel test. I aint Swedish so I have limited means of determining just what kind of discussion this rating system has generated, but there ARE discussions being had in schools and elsewhere, and I'm skeptical they consist of "movie passes, discussion over!" I agree that I think it's a shame if this Swedish experiment could steer people away from excellent films like Platoon and Shawshank, but that hasn't necessarily been the case, and I think the outcomes are overall positive and interesting. As for how "most people" view the Bechdel test, I don't wish do be presumptuous, but I imagine I've had many more discussions of what passes and what doesn't, so believe me, I've encountered plenty of morons who can't grasp the nuance to the point that I wonder how they ever learned to operate a keyboard. But there are always TONS of people who correct them. And virtually everyone I've ever encountered who has any modicum of background or education in film theory who views the test positively understands the uses and limitations of it. If it has merit as a tool to highlight a trend, then it has merit. Those trends don't go away simply because a few or a lot of people misuse it.
      8 years ago Heart 2
    • Sandvich
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      Sandvich
      Editing … Not sure how much back and forth I want to do in these comment sections. Trying to edit and sift through walls of text with no paragraph breaks really hurts my eyes.
      8 years ago Heart 1
    • free fall
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      free fall
      Editing … But we can analyze trends in Hollywood by ourselves. We don't need the Bechdel Test for that and its usefulness does not outweigh its negative impact on the conversation as a whole. We both agree that it is flawed and has limited uses, but if this is really so broadly known, then why is it so omnipresent in feminist criticism? With so many other things to discuss about women in media, do we really need to fall back on this one, highly specialized tool so often? Do theaters really need to adopt it as a grading system?
      8 years ago
    • free fall
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      free fall
      Editing … The director may say it isn't to be used as a litmus test, but, well, it IS one, structurally. If the use of it as a litmus test is a misuse, it's because the test invites that misuse. It is, at its core, obfuscating. It obfuscates its own intentions, as well as the issue.
      8 years ago
    • rockshard PhD
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      rockshard PhD
      Editing … "the point of the test is that it should be easy to pass." no.. you fell for the allure of the bechdel test's supposed simplicity. It's a completely fringe requirement for a movie. They are just stories, not complete thesis of Western civilization. For you, allow me to restate the bechdel test in non gendered terms: 1) a movie must have at least 2 side characters, 2) the side characters must talk to each other, and 3) their discussion must be irrelevant to the plot. (As if that wasn't arbitrary enough, the scene can be only 10 seconds long, and it still counts.) Bechdel test is hardly fit to be a serious criterion for female representation in the medium. But the test just sounds so simple at first, and that probably entices people. It's highly memetic. Which might explain how a webcomic joke eventually became a grade for an entire country's film board.
      8 years ago
    • rockshard PhD
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      rockshard PhD
      Editing … Also how in just two years films in that country so quickly went from a 30% to an 80% rate of passing? So much for artistic integrity.
      8 years ago
    • Gries He
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      Gries He
      Editing … ^ exactly four Swedish movies got released in Sweden over the last three years. Two of them passed the Bechdel test, so naturally the percentage went up from 30% to 80%. It's just simple maths. Duh. Use your brain next time, dummie
      8 years ago Heart 1
    • Erektionsite
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      Erektionsite
      Editing … ^Our movie industry is not what it used to be...
      8 years ago
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