![]() The LGBT activist organisation GLAAD proposed the Vito Russo test, named for the author of the 1981 book The Celluloid Closet: Homosexuality in the Movies. Even if the bar is set deliberately low, it only describes one way in which on-screen representation is lacking, and ignores factors such as race, class, sexuality, gender identity, or disability. Other tests have been proposed to make up for the unintentional limitations of the Bechdel Test. The daughter in question has so little agency or personality that she may as well be a lamp, sexy or otherwise. Once Mako is introduced, the plot is less about the apparent protagonist Raleigh (Charlie Hunnam) moving on from his brother’s death, and more about Mako avenging her family.ĭirector Guillermo Del Toro revealed that if he had been able to direct the sequel, it would have been the Mako Mori show from the beginning, but sadly it was not to be.įrameborder="0" allow="accelerometer autoplay clipboard-write encrypted-media gyroscope picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen>Ĭonsider the Taken series (2008, 2012, 2014), which follows one man’s inability to prevent his daughter from being, well, taken. Robots and sea monsters aside, Pacific Rim is primarily a film about grief. On the other hand, Pacific Rim (2013), a film about giant robots fighting giant sea monsters, fails the Bechdel Test but gives us a terrific female character in the form of Mako Mori (Rinko Kikuchi). I’m cheating a little, as a man’s name is brought up, but his role in the conversation is so negligible that he may as well not exist (sorry, ‘Josh’, nobody cares about you). Scary Movie 3 (2003), which dances on the line between parodying and reinforcing horror’s often not-great attitude toward women, passes the Bechdel Test in the opening scene when two named dumb blonde stereotypes, Becca (Pamela Anderson) and Katie (Jenny McCarthy-Wahlberg), fail to complete a crossword. It is also worth noting that a film passing or failing the Bechdel Test says little about the roles women play in the narrative. Scrolling through the website does offer some encouraging trends, with the proportion of green ticks increasing over the last 15 years. The Bechdel Test Movie List is a website that applies the test to every major film release on a pass-fail basis, marking each film with either a green tick or red cross. Google search trends suggest that the test has been declining in relevance ever since a peak in 2017. But is it still relevant? Or is it less exciting now that everyone’s heard of it? The Rule, By Alison Bechdel, in Dykes to Watch Out For.įrom its humble beginnings as a joke in a comic strip to its status as an obstacle in a comedy series, it’s clear the Bechdel Test has reached a level of mainstream saturation. She reveals that she will only see movies that meet a certain set of standards, and these standards have since been immortalised as the Bechdel Test. ![]() In that comic, one friend suggests seeing a movie, and the other expresses frustration at how many movies depict women as nothing but accessories to the male protagonist’s character arc. ![]()
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