Women in film

It’s the day after the Oscars so the papers are full of the usual film industry celebration and analysis of the female attendees frocks.

So I thought I’d share a video I came across on Sociological Images looking at this year’s Best Film nominees and seeing if they pass the Bechdel test. For those who are unfamiliar with it the Bechdel test is used to assess how meaningful the women’s roles in a film are, and goes like this:

  1. Does the film have at least two named female characters
  2. who talk to each other
  3. about something other than a man?

Only 2 of this year’s 9 Best Film nominees get a straight pass and 2 more pass by the barest of margins and should probably be a fail. 

It’s important to reiterate the point made late in the clip that the test is not a measure of how good a film is. Lots of great films fail the test and lots of absolutely awful ones pass. It also isn’t necessarily a measure of whether a film has any substantial roles, as True Grit fails, in spite of being a film that centres primarily on a girl. However, it is interesting to use it to assess how few mainstream films do focus on relationship. The role of women in many Hollywood films is merely to further the plot of the male characters - supporting roles at best. 

Enjoy the clip. 

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