40 Fun Facts About Bechdel Test

Under the Bechdel test, two women in a film must talk to each other about something other than what?

A man is the one topic that does not count, and a single short exchange about anything else is enough for a film to pass.

In the 1985 comic strip that introduced the Bechdel test, which film is the last one a character was able to see?

Alien is the strip's punchline: a character says it was the last film she could see, because its two women talk to each other about the monster.

Which country's cinemas began giving films an A rating in 2013 if they passed the Bechdel test?

Sweden saw four cinemas launch the scheme, among them Bio Rio in Stockholm, and a cable channel soon planned a whole Sunday of films that pass.

Comic writer Kelly Sue DeConnick's test asks whether a female character could be swapped for which household object?

A lamp is the measure in her 'sexy lamp test': if the story still works with the object in the woman's place, the script needs a rewrite. DeConnick later consulted on the film Captain Marvel.

Which space survival film fails the Bechdel test even though its lead actress carries nearly every scene?

Gravity has only two main characters, and the other is played by George Clooney, so Sandra Bullock's astronaut has no second woman to talk to.

Which 1992 rap hit has been described as passing the Bechdel test thanks to its spoken introduction?

Baby Got Back opens with two young women chatting about a third, so critics use it to show how little passing the Bechdel test can mean.

Which New York-set TV series highlights its own Bechdel test failure through a lead character's complaint?

Sex and the City has one of its four heroines protest that the group's conversations never stray from their love lives.

Critic Katha Pollitt named the trope of a lone female in an otherwise male cartoon cast after which character?

Smurfette inspired the 'Smurfette principle', coined in a 1991 New York Times essay that opens with Pollitt giving her three-year-old daughter a video of The Little Mermaid.

Which Thelma & Louise star founded an institute in 2004 to study how film and television portray women?

Geena Davis set it up after noticing how few female characters appeared in the children's television her toddler daughter was watching.

A 2024 spin-off of the Bechdel test, first applied to Oscar nominees, checks whether a story acknowledges what?

Climate change must exist in the story's world and a character must know it: just two conditions, in the spirit of the brief original.

A stricter, widely used version of the Bechdel test adds that the two women must both have what?

Names were not part of the original 1985 wording; the stricter version is the one the BBC used when it tested every Best Picture winner.

The Bechdel test first appeared in which long-running comic strip by cartoonist Alison Bechdel?

Dykes to Watch Out For ran from 1983 to 2008 and was one of the earliest ongoing portrayals of lesbians in popular culture.

Alison Bechdel says she took the idea for the Bechdel test from which friend, now often credited in its title?

Liz Wallace has her name on the cinema marquee in the original strip, and Bechdel herself prefers to call it the Bechdel-Wallace test.

Alison Bechdel traced the thinking behind the Bechdel test to which British writer's work from the 1920s?

Virginia Woolf complained in 1929 that fiction almost never showed two women simply as friends.

Which major reference work added an entry for the term 'Bechdel test' in June 2018?

Oxford English Dictionary editors admitted the term 33 years after the strip appeared, proof of how far a one-off comic joke had travelled.

Which 2013 monster blockbuster failed the Bechdel test and inspired a rival test named after its heroine, Mako Mori?

Pacific Rim prompted a blogger to ask instead whether a female character has her own story arc, one that does not just prop up someone else's.

Which organization created the Vito Russo test, a Bechdel-style check on LGBTQ characters in studio films?

GLAAD introduced the test in 2013 and named it after Vito Russo, the film historian who was one of the group's own founders.

A 2016 Bechdel-style test asking whether minority characters have full lives on screen is named after which director?

Ava DuVernay lent her surname to the 'DuVernay test' when New York Times critic Manohla Dargis proposed it in January 2016.

The Riz test, modeled on the Bechdel test and named after actor Riz Ahmed, examines how screen stories portray whom?

Muslims are the focus of the five-part test, which grew out of a speech on diversity that Riz Ahmed gave at the House of Commons in 2017.

The Finkbeiner test, a cousin of the Bechdel test, guards against gender bias in profiles of women in which field?

Science journalist Ann Finkbeiner inspired it by vowing to write about an astronomer simply as an astronomer, without the 'as a woman' angle.

What is the title of the 1985 Alison Bechdel comic strip in which the Bechdel test was first set out?

The Rule predates the comic's regular cast: lead character Mo arrived two years later, so the old nickname 'Mo movie measure' is a misnomer.

The Sphinx test, a Bechdel-inspired checklist from a London company, was written for people working in which art form?

Theater makers were its target: the checklist answered research showing that only 37% of stage roles were written for women.

Tech executive Laurie Voss proposed a Bechdel test for which kind of work, later tried by a US government agency?

Software code passes if a function written by one woman calls a function written by another; the federal agency 18F ran the check on its own projects.

Which bestselling medieval novel fails the Bechdel test simply because of its monastery setting?

The Name of the Rose, Umberto Eco's mystery about monks, shows that a fail need not signal bias: the setting itself leaves little space for female characters.

Which 2022 gay romantic comedy drew a tweet invoking the Bechdel test, prompting a joking reply from Alison Bechdel?

Fire Island reworks Pride and Prejudice with gay Asian American leads; Bechdel replied by inventing a tongue-in-cheek corollary so that it passed.

A 2014 FiveThirtyEight study of 1,615 films found that those passing the Bechdel test tended to get what?

Smaller budgets were the pattern, with a median 35 percent lower, yet passing films returned slightly more for every dollar spent.

The 'women in refrigerators' trope, coined by writer Gail Simone, takes its name from a story in which superhero comic?

Green Lantern Kyle Rayner returns to his apartment to find his girlfriend killed and left in the fridge, a scene Simone saw as part of a wider pattern.

Which graphic memoir by Bechdel test namesake Alison Bechdel became a Broadway show that won the Tony for Best Musical?

Fun Home takes its title from the family nickname for the funeral home her father ran, and its Broadway version won five Tony Awards in 2015.

Which Iraq War drama fails the Bechdel test, though it made its director the first woman to win the directing Oscar?

The Hurt Locker was among the Best Picture winners that a 2018 BBC analysis found failing, alongside Gladiator and Slumdog Millionaire.

A cinema director who launched a Bechdel-based film rating in 2013 said every film in which blockbuster series fails?

The Lord of the Rings headed Ellen Tejle's list of failures, which also took in The Social Network and Pulp Fiction.

A 2017 National Review critic called the Bechdel test as meaningless as asking whether a film contains what?

Cowboys were Kyle Smith's comparison; he argued that Hollywood favors stories about cops, criminals and superheroes, and his column drew sharp rebuttals.

Alison Bechdel, namesake of the Bechdel test, was appointed Cartoonist Laureate of which US state in 2017?

Vermont has been her base since the 1990s; she was the third cartoonist to hold the title and works with the local weekly Seven Days.

Alison Bechdel knew the friend who gave her the idea for the Bechdel test as a training partner in which activity?

Karate fits a pattern: her 2021 memoir The Secret to Superhuman Strength chronicles an era of fitness fads, outdoor sports and martial arts.

Which European film fund began asking its script readers to supply a Bechdel analysis of each project in 2014?

Eurimages, the Council of Europe's co-production fund, wanted the analysis as a way to gather data on gender equality in the films it backs.

Which screenwriting program added a Bechdel-style gender analysis tool with its version 11 in 2018?

Final Draft 11 joined Highland 2 and WriterDuet among the screenwriting programs that began letting writers analyze gender representation in their scripts in 2018.

The Ali Nahdee test, a Bechdel-inspired check created by a blogger, looks at how stories treat which characters?

Indigenous women must be main characters, must not fall for a white love interest and must not be raped or killed for a story to pass.

Which of these is the stressed first syllable of the surname in 'Bechdel test' when it is pronounced correctly?

BEK is the stressed first syllable: the surname is said BEK-dul, with a hard 'ch' and a short, unstressed ending.

Critic Nathan Rabin coined the term 'Manic Pixie Dream Girl' in his review of which 2005 film?

Elizabethtown gave him Kirsten Dunst's character as the model; by 2014 he was arguing the term had become a cliché and should be put to rest.

The Mako Mori test, an alternative to the Bechdel test, was first proposed by a user of which social platform?

Tumblr user Chaila proposed it, asking whether at least one female character gets a narrative arc of her own rather than a supporting one.

Writer Charles Stross noted that about half the films passing the Bechdel test do so by discussing marriage or what?

Babies and marriage, he observed, account for about half of all passes, a reminder of how low the bar sits.