The Bechdel Test

The Rule, comic strip by Alice Bechdel

The Bechdel test, a benchmark test of sorts used to measure the female representation in films and television, was popularized in 1985 through an intended joke in Alice Bechdel’s comic strip The Rule. In this strip, two women discuss going to the movies, and one of the women says that she has a rule. She explains that she only watches a movie if it has at least two women in it who talk to each other about something besides a man. Though it was designed to be a joke about the lack of female representation in cinema and television, it soon captured public attention and was developed and dubbed into the Bechdel Test, sometimes also the Bechdel-Wallace Test. 

There are three surprisingly simple rules-(i) The film must have two or more named female characters, (ii) They must talk to each other (iii) They must speak about something besides a man.  Even though these rules seem to set the bar low, most films fail to pass it to this day, more than three decades after it was devised. Take the Oscar nominees for Best Film for instance. From 1985 to 2020 only 50% of the nominations pass the test. Most commercial Indian films and television content also fail the test, the numbers staggeringly low. For example, in the film Bhaagi 2, the only female character dies by suicide halfway through the film. This film fails the test and does nothing except but remind us that the Bhaagi 1 exists. But most films (especially commercial films) across the world pass the Reverse Bechdel Test- where the same rules apply, but to male characters.  

It is important to remember that the Bechdel Test is only used to evaluate and measure the presence and visibility of strong female characters. It is not an indication of that film's feminist leanings. Consider the Harry Potter series and the film Legally Blonde. The Harry Potter films feature multiple strong, funny, and fairly well-represented women, yet this film does not pass the test. But Legally Blonde passes the test simply because Elle and her friends talk about a dog in a scene or two.  

However, it stays relevant to this day due to the inability of most of the film industry to pass it. It is less than the bare minimum and the fact that it is still a hard test to pass is an indicator of how grossly unrepresented or misrepresented women are in contemporary film and television.