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[bhtooefr]

Then we could have a lively debate about whether Tai and Claire talking about Dora passes the Bechdel Test and--if it does--is it feminist (yes and yes, of course, but that's because I said so and I'm always right).

To pass the Bechdel test, a work must:

• Have at least two women in it
• Who talk to each other
• About something besides a man

There's only one interpretation of a scene of Tai and Claire talking about Dora that doesn't pass the Bechdel test, and it's the transphobic one, which isn't valid.

Now, whether it counts as feminist is something that might actually be a legitimate debate, and likely depends on the content of the discussion. I could see Tai saying something misogynist in frustration, for instance.

[TheCaffeinatedPanda]

1. I really want a fedora...

2. By the gods, the Bechdel test pisses me off. Twilight passes it, for gods' sake.

3. I want Marten to go tell Dora off, but at the same time, I recognise that maaaaaaybe that wouldn't be the best idea. Maybe in reality he should have stayed or said something, but his reaction was classic QC, and I loved this strip for it.

[ReindeerFlotilla]

To pass the Bechdel test, a work must:

• Have at least two women in it
• Who talk to each other
• About something besides a man

There's only one interpretation of a scene of Tai and Claire talking about Dora that doesn't pass the Bechdel test, and it's the transphobic one, which isn't valid.

Now, whether it counts as feminist is something that might actually be a legitimate debate, and likely depends on the content of the discussion. I could see Tai saying something misogynist in frustration, for instance.

Do you think legitimacy defines what is debatable? Because, if adopting a discriminatory viewpoint actually prevented on from engaging in debate, the Republican party would implode, and there wouldn't actually be a Bechdel Test, because it would never have been necessary. Additionally, you don't have to be transphobic to debate whether the scenario would pass the test. You just have to adopt a view point one what was meant by woman, verse what Bechdel was trying to illustrate. It's sort of like the King-Burwell case, and "what did Congress mean by 'the Exchange.'" I can see a lot of different logical frameworks that one can construct to argue that if a situation isn't strict, it isn't playing by the test's rules. Which then leads into arguments about what strict means.

They'd all be wrong, but that's me not even trying. I imagine someone with strong belief in a particular point of view could invoke something not so easily dismissed.

It's also been my experience that feminism embraces misogyny rather often. So being mysogynist isn't actually anti-feminist, as paradoxical as that seems. What makes this debatable is that it would be two women talking about 'girly' stuff, which has been the argument advanced against certain fluff flicks that pass the test not being feminist. It's a conflation (which actually exists, but also one I introduced to the subject) of the test and promoting feminism. It depends on one's point of view what it is valuable to talk about, and what is good to be seen talking about. Does the context and framework in which the scenario occurs bear on the evaluation or not?

And, lastly, there was a more than a bit of tongue in cheek going on there. I kind of assumed that, being a story mostly populated by women, QC would have no issue passing the test on a majority of occasions, and that ought to be enough.

BUT...

It occurs to me now, that this is exactly that. An assumption. And brings me, unexpectedly, to the actual purpose of the test: To set an extremely low bar and illustrate how film (and by extension, other fiction formats) fail to clear it. My assumption remains on the side of QC clearing the bar, but there's only one way to be sure...

[Schwungrad]

The Bechdel test isn't a valid tool to judge the quality of a particular work, but the sheer amount of works that don't pass it speaks volumes about the limitedness of female roles.

[bhtooefr]

Well, I'd say that failing the Bechdel test is a sign that the work definitely doesn't uphold feminist principles. Passing it isn't a sign that it does, but failing it is a sign that it doesn't.

It's kinda like the A+ certification for computer repair. Having it doesn't mean that you know what you're doing, but being unable to get one means that you shouldn't be allowed within 10 feet of a computer and a screwdriver at the same time. (Lots of people who know what they're doing don't have one, though, which is why I said "being unable to get one".)

[ReindeerFlotilla]

Well, I'd say that failing the Bechdel test is a sign that the work definitely doesn't uphold feminist principles. Passing it isn't a sign that it does, but failing it is a sign that it doesn't.

It's kinda like the A+ certification for computer repair. Having it doesn't mean that you know what you're doing, but being unable to get one means that you shouldn't be allowed within 10 feet of a computer and a screwdriver at the same time. (Lots of people who know what they're doing don't have one, though, which is why I said "being unable to get one".)

Pacific Rim.

Not the smartest film ever made, but it inspired the creation of a test claimed by some to be superior to the Bechdel test.

It fails the Bechdel test.

Does Mako Mori fail to uphold feminist principles? Does her role in the film undermine those principles. I'd say no. Avengers might have the same issue, and with less cause (having two major woman characters), yet it is difficult to reduce Black Widow and Maria Hill to eye candy. Nor are they Token (in fact, making Hawkeye the damsel in distress was a nice touch). Black Widow and Agent Hill also play strong roles (strong with depth and impact) in Captain America 2, but I don't think that film manages to pass the test either.

These three movies are failing on technical terms--Pacific Rim, because they didn't hand out many supporting roles to women, the Marvel films because the supporting characters were supporting. But the key point in their favor is that there was nothing in any of the movies (other than branding) that required women play those roles. The real point against them is that they fail to acknowledge that the population of Earth is mostly women.

Taking it to the extreme, you could formulate a film like Cast Away, but change only the main character to a woman and her romantic prospects to men. So long as the plot elements remained the same, the resulting film would certainly be feminist but also fail the test.

The Bechdel test doesn't say anything about the feminist quality of any single film. It can't. It's too simple. As Schwungrad suggests, it does is point out a simple thing to demonstrate a truth (and the three films I chose defy that truth, which is why I picked them): That fiction regularly fails to treat women as people in their own right. Often their personhood elements are contingent upon their relationship to a man. It points out a pervasive misogyny. Defeating that misogyny would only be a start, not a solution.

To circle back to the comic, that's why I'm trying to test my assumption. It's slow going, but as of strip 138, the QC is failing miserably. Part of me wonders if it's even fair to count comics before 500, but it's early going yet. It's an interesting question, to me: can a comic with cast dominated by women manage to pass the test most of the time.

[ReindeerFlotilla]

And now for something completely different:

In Bechdel test news QC is still running a strong F. This points out an odd weakness of the test. Several good conversations where two or more women are being people are ruined because they are about music and musicians who are men. I've been liberal here and not taken references to a band, but only points where a conversational arc leads to one or more statements about a person or persons identified as a man or men. Now at 338 and the girls now out number the boys after a long sting of parity.

The strongest arc, so far, was Amanda's drama bomb. However, with Raven working at CoD there has been a sharp up tic in the frequency of passing strips.

More information to follow if I feel like sharing.

[Gladstone]

In Bechdel test news QC is still running a strong F. This points out an odd weakness of the test. Several good conversations where two or more women are being people are ruined because they are about music and musicians who are men.

I always assumed that the third requirement of the Bechdel test merely referred to the men that the two or more named women personally knew; i.e., Dora and Faye talking to each other about Marten was failing (part of) the test, but Dora and Faye talking about male musicians or pop culture figures was fine.  But I could be wrong.

[ReindeerFlotilla]

I read it as "a law means what it says." Taking the simplest logical interpretation that doesn't contradict itself. Something other than a man is quite a lot. The girls could discuss relativity, but not Einstein, Cosmos but not NDT or Carl Sagan, the Presidency but not any particular President.

Unless there's an author intent somewhere stating that Allison Bechdel meant only men who are characters in the story, I have to go with the rules as written. (Also considered: does "a man" create an out when discussing groups of men? Generally, I say no. The use of the indefinite article is an issue here, but it would also be clumsy to use other phrasing to specify either case. So I default to the most conservative interpretation.)

[jheartney]

I read it as "a law means what it says." Taking the simplest logical interpretation that doesn't contradict itself. Something other than a man is quite a lot. The girls could discuss relativity, but not Einstein, Cosmos but not NDT or Carl Sagan, the Presidency but not any particular President.

I don't believe it's a requirement of the test that the entirety of the conversation be devoid of references to males. The conversation in 279, for example, is clearly about goth fashion, and about if it's intelligent or authentic. The offhand reference to a male as a part of a pair used as an example is secondary. The test is looking for conversation between named female characters that is not "about a man" or men. This conversation is about fashion, not a man or men (except incidentally), so I'd say it passes the test.

[ReindeerFlotilla]

The purpose of this conversation was not discuss Raven's band, therefore I judged that strip to pass. Raven's statement was a digression and not a natural progression of the topic. This gets tricky, but I try to be fair and consistent. For example, 304 counts despite most of the content being Dora talking to Marten.

Ellen and Faye discuss octopi and connect four without connecting those topics to a man or men.

Also counts if two women talk and any third person introduces a man. However, I don't count 258 because, despite the fact that no man is spoken of, the intent and action in that strip is about Marten, even though Vicky is unaware of that fact. There is a danger, here, of allowing infinite regression--Faye discussing her injury without context could be linked to her father, but the proximal cause and intent of 258 were about Marten and his relationship to Vicky. I judged this one on the meaning of the interaction, which is clearly, "Fuck you for doing that to Marten."  Returning to the scar, one could say that Faye's thing unsaid eventually lead back to her father, but it's not direct. The direct, implied statement is "I am not comfortable explaining the full details of this."

That's debatable, I know, but my memory of QC suggests it doesn't come up often that a script is about a man, while not involving a man in any direct way. If this turns out to be wrong, I will evaluate more literally.

[Wildroses]

Can I just thank this forum for getting me curious enough about the Bechdel test to do some research on it? Quite fascinating. I was surprised people were saying QC failed it as I thought the three stages were sequential, meaning QC passes because it has more than two female characters, and if you have more than two female characters the Bechdel test doesn't care if they talk to each other or what they talk to each other about.

But I ended up not caring about that question in my fascination with discovering the original comic which inspired the Bechdel test, my discovery it was originally intended for movies and all the other tests it inspired.

[jwhouk]

<snip>
That's debatable, I know, but my memory of QC suggests it doesn't come up often that a script is about a man, while not involving a man in any direct way. If this turns out to be wrong, I will evaluate more literally.

Y'know, RF, you could start a separate thread on this - "QC and the Bechdel Test".

[Tub]

Tai must be pretty desperate to seek relationship advice about Dora from someone who couldn't make a relationship with Dora work. Instead of doing what Marten would have done, she should do what she would do - it's her relationship, after all.

In Bechdel test news QC is still running a strong F. This points out an odd weakness of the test. Several good conversations where two or more women are being people are ruined because they are about music and musicians who are men. I've been liberal here and not taken references to a band, but only points where a conversational arc leads to one or more statements about a person or persons identified as a man or men. Now at 338 and the girls now out number the boys after a long sting of parity.

There's more than one odd weakness in that test.

The reason single comic strips keep failing the test is mostly because a single comic strip is short: usually there are only few characters, and only a single conversation. Assuming a non-biased work: the chance of two talking characters being both female is statistically no higher than 25%. Even then, as soon as the topic includes someone human, there's another 50% to fail the test - a higher chance if the topic includes multiple humans, like a conversation about artists. By the test, as stated, the following sentence fails: "Hey, I like <female artist 1>, <female artist 2> and <female artist 3>. I hate <male artist 1>." So, by chance alone, an unbiased comic would have a less than 10% chance of passing the test. Now consider that the comic deals heavily in romance (with mostly hetero relationships), and those chances sink even lower.


IMHO, the metric is useless as a test of gender-bias unless it is compared to the reverse Bechdel test: are two man talking about something other than a woman?

So let's try this. Counting both trans people and robots as the gender they identify as.

We're at #2913.
The most recent comic where two males are talking is #2896, 17 comics ago. If you count wordless looming as conversation. Fails the third test though, since it's about Claire.
The second last male-male-conversation I can find is #2858, 55 comics ago. If you count a conversation where a woman is present. Also, fails the third test, they're talking about Emily. A few other comics in the arc have conversations involving Clinton and Marten, but they're all about Emily.
Further back, we're at #2766, 147 strips ago. Marten and Pintzsize talk about.. Emily.
#2756, 157 strips ago, Steve and Sven about.. Faye.
The most recent comic I could find that might pass the reverse Bechdel test is #2743, 170 comics ago, but only if that elf robot identifies as male. The comic doesn't say.
Finally, at #2667, we can see two males talking about beers and poetry! 246 comics ago, we finally passed the reverse Bechdel test!


In other words: a low passing rate of the strict interpretation of the Bechdel test implies nothing interesting. Certainly not any of the things the Bechdel test was designed to imply.

[TRVA123]

In other words: a low passing rate of the strict interpretation of the Bechdel test implies nothing interesting. Certainly not any of the things the Bechdel test was designed to imply.

I don't really think the bechdel test is a good one to apply to a daily comic.

It was meant to apply to movies, to show just how difficult it is to find movies that show women in multiple roles that aren't centered around a man. In my opinion the goal of the bechdel test is to show how low that bar should be to pass, and to vote with your dollar to try to ensure that more movies are made that meet those very basic criteria.

A lot of movies are like "hey, we gave you one woman, and she's like totally strong and tough! What more do you want?" A token woman, essentially, and she is rarely the main character. Luckily this has been changing recently, but there is still farther to go.

To evaluate a comic by the bechdel test, I think you'd have to go on a weekly basis... or maybe a monthly basis.

Even then, I'm not worried about QC. The bechdel test asks for multiple female characters who aren't centered wholly around men. As a whole QC passes this easily.

[ReindeerFlotilla]

Y'know, RF, you could start a separate thread on this - "QC and the Bechdel Test".

I will if the results are interesting.

the behaviour displayed by the character tai is motivated by selfishness and a lack of any regard for marten's experiences with dora.

Describe a human behavior not motivated by selfishness.

Okay, trick challenge. No such behavior exists.

In other words: a low passing rate of the strict interpretation of the Bechdel test implies nothing interesting. Certainly not any of the things the Bechdel test was designed to imply.

I don't really think the bechdel test is a good one to apply to a daily comic.

...snipped, length...
The bechdel test asks for multiple female characters who aren't centered wholly around men. As a whole QC passes this easily.

Sure, but you may have missed the point of this exercise. The test isn't about earning your feminist approval badge. It's about showing how easy it is to write women as marginally autonomous beings and how rarely this happens.

One can assume that QC does treat women as such, but does it? Consider the source of the test. It derives from an observation by Virginia Woolf (iirc) on how women in written fiction tended to exist only in relation to men. That is (until Jane Austen, in Woolf's account), women existed to service, relate to, or discuss men when they appeared in fiction.

Like I said, you can assume this is not true of QC, but you can also test it. And I believe it is a fair test. Tub points out the way. In a simple off hand, he says there's only a 25% opportunity for any fiction to even have two women talk to each other (there are, on average, twice as many male characters in movies than female, so Tub's number is wrong, but the idea is sound... Also, in the real world there should be a roughtly 27.04% chance that two women talk to each other, assuming a gender binary and equal odds that any pairing will occur. Women out number men). But with QC, and the wiki, it is possible to not simply count the ratio of genders, but the number of times they appear. This is amenable to scientific investigation. You can set a baseline and then compare QC's performance. And you can do so in a manner that allows concrete examination of your logic. Such level of detail is definitely fodder for another thread.

Any way, tl;dr--I'm not trying to prove anything about QC or the Bechdel test. I realized, shortly after making a joke about it, that I assume the test is valid at all and that I assume QC passes. I don't have to assume either of those things. QC has nigh 3000 samples and there is a lot of data on films with respect to the test. The assumptions can be tested by counting.

Why not keep cliff's notes on the phone? A 200GB microSD has been announced not too long ago, surely that's enough to keep track of everything xD

Sir, there are still terabytes of calculations required before an actual flight is attempted.

[Zebediah]

Let me point out a weakness of the Bechdel test, using a Star Trek: The Next Generation episode as an example. TNG passes the test less often than I'd like, but there's one episode that technically fails the test in a situation where I think it should succeed: the episode "Ethics".

For those of you who aren't hard-core Trek geeks who know every episode by title, it's the one where Worf gets paralyzed in an accident and they bring in an outside specialist neurosurgeon to examine him. The neurosurgeon is female, as is Dr. Crusher, the ship's chief medical officer. These two doctors have several long conversations about Worf. Technically that makes the conversations fail the test, since Worf is male. However, the conversations have nothing at all to do with the fact that Worf is male, or the fact that both doctors are female - it is entirely two physicians discussing (and frequently disagreeing about) proper treatment of a patient. The gender of the physicians and the patient are both immaterial; you could change the genders of everyone involved and not have to change anything in the script except a few pronouns. That, in my opinion, is the way it should be done - the women aren't there as romantic prospects for the man but as the actual protagonists of the episode (Worf is arguably a secondary character in the episode even though its events revolve around him.)

[TRVA123]

That is a good point, but the bechdel test isn't just critiquing how women are often written to be focused on men romantically, but to showcase how often the focus of a story is on a male, period.

How often do two women discuss another women in stories? how likely is it that a woman would be injured as Worf was and treated and discussed?

I'm not saying that it never happens, but it is rare enough to be remarkable.

How often do two men discuss another men in stories? and in a context not related to jealousy because that man is the romantic partner of a powerful or desirable woman?

[LeeC]

Wait, so the conversations where Faye and Dora talk about Penny looking like pizza girl, drinking on the job, pursuing an art career, or talking about pint size cause the comic to fail the bechdel test?

[ReindeerFlotilla]

Wait, so the conversations where Faye and Dora talk about Penny looking like pizza girl, drinking on the job, pursuing an art career, or talking about pint size cause the comic to fail the bechdel test?

I don't follow the logic. The only failing conversation in that list is about Pintsize (yes, he is a man).

By the simple rules of the test QC passes because there has been one conversation between two women that was not about a man. QC earned the Bechdel test seal of approval at comic 46.

The interesting question isn't pass fail (it never was in the case of the test itself, IMO). The interesting question is "how often does it pass verse how often would it be expected to pass, all things being equal." That applies to film in general and can be applied to serial fiction because it comes in countable packets

[vidugavia]

Let me point out a weakness of the Bechdel test, using a Star Trek: The Next Generation episode as an example. TNG passes the test less often than I'd like, but there's one episode that technically fails the test in a situation where I think it should succeed: the episode "Ethics".

For those of you who aren't hard-core Trek geeks who know every episode by title, it's the one where Worf gets paralyzed in an accident and they bring in an outside specialist neurosurgeon to examine him. The neurosurgeon is female, as is Dr. Crusher, the ship's chief medical officer. These two doctors have several long conversations about Worf. Technically that makes the conversations fail the test, since Worf is male. However, the conversations have nothing at all to do with the fact that Worf is male, or the fact that both doctors are female - it is entirely two physicians discussing (and frequently disagreeing about) proper treatment of a patient. The gender of the physicians and the patient are both immaterial; you could change the genders of everyone involved and not have to change anything in the script except a few pronouns. That, in my opinion, is the way it should be done - the women aren't there as romantic prospects for the man but as the actual protagonists of the episode (Worf is arguably a secondary character in the episode even though its events revolve around him.)

But that is no weakness, as I see it. The Bechdel test quantifies the absence of independent female conversation. It doesn't necessarily say anything big regarding a singular work but it tells a lot about story-telling in general. Somehow men tend to be the main thing women can talk about regardless of how interchangeable their genders could be, plot-wise. In recording that tendency it is a good idea to use the Bechdel test rather stringently.   

[LeeC]

The interesting question is "how often does it pass verse how often would it be expected to pass, all things being equal."

Oh, I thought you meant the comic overall and was presenting instances where it passed so to say that the comic overall passes.

[Nomad90]

So much of the conversation on this thread has passed over my head, that I am considering declaring a no fly zone.

[ReindeerFlotilla]

Nothing goes over my head.


My reflexes are too fast. I would catch it.

[tywren]

Y'know, RF, you could start a separate thread on this - "QC and the Bechdel Test".

I will if the results are interesting.

Interesting or not, it needs to be done, because it's pushing the point of becoming a thread hijack. By my count there are roughly 2 pages worth of posts on the subject; and as this is something that encompasses QC as a whole it's kind of beyond the scope of the weekly discussion thread.

[TheEvilDog]

Y'know, RF, you could start a separate thread on this - "QC and the Bechdel Test".

I will if the results are interesting.

Interesting or not, it needs to be done, because it's pushing the point of becoming a thread hijack. By my count there are roughly 2 pages worth of posts on the subject; and as this is something that encompasses QC as a whole it's kind of beyond the scope of the weekly discussion thread.

In other words, start a proper thread discussing the effects of the Bechdel test as a whole, rather than keep talking about it in a WCDT.

[vforvancouver]

The most recent comic I could find that might pass the reverse Bechdel test is #2743, 170 comics ago, but only if that elf robot identifies as male. The comic doesn't say.

It took me some time to figure out who that elf robot was. Then it hit me: you were talking about C.E.R.E.A.L.

[mustang6172]

Nevermind QC getting an F.  How does anything get a letter grade on the Bechdel test?  Isn't it supposed to be pass/fail?

[ReindeerFlotilla]

Woah, now. Taking it to too seriously

You can't evaluate the underlying question the test is asking with a pass fail, and the test is only useful if you can find some other means to employ it.

The point of it is to demonstrate that movie industry doesn't treat women in the same manner as men.

Early QC seems to fail (get an F) at least up to the point where Raven becomes a regular. This easy to prove. In the first 45 strips not one passes the Bechdel test. 26% pass the reverse Bechdel. Two men speak to each other about something other than a woman. Most of the other strips either fail the Reverse test on counts 1 (the majority being Marten and Faye talking) or 2 (Marten and Steve/Pintsize discuss Faye). At this point in the strip, Faye is mostly playing cypher to Marten's interest in her, so the time they spend together could be argued to count against passing the test. But that's not in the rules, and on the individual strip level (just like the individual movie level when applying the test to Hollywood) you either pass, or you fail.

At a certain point I expect the ratio to change radically. Marten barely hangs out with any men through the latter half of the run.

I'm reviewing the first 400 strips because it only occurred to me yesterday that I could calculate the Reverse Bechdel in parallel and get a real time comparison.

[pwhodges]

It seems to me that the Bechdel test inherently penalises having women talk about relationships; this strip is about relationships, so is the test really worth spending this much effort on here?

[ReindeerFlotilla]

The Death Star II.

The second Death Star would have been larger than first. Incomplete the total mass of this 160,000 meter sphere was comparable to first.

It was constructed, deployed, and destroyed in close orbit around an inhabited moon known as Endor.  While the destruction of the Death Star was highly energetic, pulverizing much of the material that made up the battle station, several chunks tens of kilometers in length, are observed being ejected from the explosion. None of these debris is seen moving with enough velocity to escape Endor's gravity.

The battered rebel fleet would have been hard pressed to stop them from striking the moon in an extinction level event.

But let's assume they did. That doesn't account for the pulverized debris, which would be enough to cover the entire surface of the forrest moon to a depth of 2 meter. Atmosphere being what it is, most of probably didn't make it to the surface, but most of the moon was likely covered in several centimeters of fine metalic dust, and the atmosphere itself poisioned by having the rest of the battle station vaporize during entry.

This analysis is not mine. It's nigh on 20 years old. While I'm old enough to have made it, I was a big fan of math 20 years ago. It's not really fair to the story tellers. It's not going to become canon, in all likelihood.

Someone put a fair amount of effort into it--identifying and tracking debris suspects in the explosion VFX to determine their speed, calculating the density of the Death Star, judging the size of Endor to determine it's surface area.

The answer to your question is found in the fact that this was calculated.

John Cleese has a fantastic bit on creativity. I was on the web, but the DMCA struck, so this is no longer a thing you can watch, easily. One of the bits in it is extremely serious and extremely important. I will summarize it thus: Serious is not solemn. It's a mistake to conflate the two. If you want to have a productive anything, it's very important to realize that trying to force solemnity on to something because it is being treated seriously is just going to suck the life out of it. In his words, he went on invoke the funeral of a friend (not naming anyone, but as there is video of it, it is safe to assume this friend was a Python) which was one of the most hilarious events of his life.

This is not even serious. But why does it have to be. I invite you to examine the tag line for this section of the forum. The part after the "Hannelore and Claire squee factory."

Try to assign an objective value to anything that goes on in here. You will fail. It's all subjective.

This Strip is about relationships. What kind?

Romantic? In 3000 strips there have been seven of note, and five between minor characters that didn't really constitute an arc.

The first 500 strips were absolutely about how a boy and girl were not going to get together, and--by word of god--represented the whole plan for the strip. It was supposed to end at that point.

During the period where the male to female regular ratio was effectively at parity the strip managed to pass the inverse of the Bechdel test over a quarter of the time without passing the actual test once.

Not once.

The inherent penalty you postulate applies to the inverse test, as well. During a period where the comic's limited scope and major focus was stacked against it passing either formulation of the test (the majority of the focus being the interactions of a boy and girl) it still managed to pass the inverse test 11 times before it passed the basic test once.

I think that illustrates that the test can be administered fairly: by pitting the comic against itself. Being about relationships is not really a factor--or in scientific terms, it is controlled for by applying the inverse test as the meter. Worth this much effort is a subjective question. Nothing that happens here is worth this much effort, objectively. Think of all the cancer not being cured because for the attention and effort devoted to ruminations on a thing that is, as the tag line says, just a comic.

tl:dr; Yes.

[Khazgar]

I never heard about the Bechdel test before and have been doing some reading.

Very interesting idea and a valuable test on how some Hollywood people see the world, or at least think the world should be seen.

But...

http://www.vox.com/2015/2/16/8046157/fifty-shades-of-grey-feminism

Possibly the most anti-feminist film in a very long time, and a story that encourages men to trample RIGHT OVER the rights of women passes the test.

So I would use it with caution and certainly not as a be-all-and-end-all. Passing or failing the test is an indication of the way the film treats women, not a verdict.

And as has been said before, applying it to a comic where the characters (as we all do in real life in a circle of friends) talk about relationships is unrealistic.

I would argue that QC certainly passes the test in spirit with its strong female characters. And why can't feminists talk about men sometimes anyway?

[Aziraphale]

The Bechdel Test is a blunt instrument, not a scalpel. I think it was meant more as a conversation-starter and a quick-and-dirty way to point to a broader issue in pop culture, but it fails as a hermeneutical tool because, whether by accident or by design, it leaves out as much critical information as it includes (as others have pointed out).

[Thrillho]

So basically the Bechdel Test is the BMI of feminism.

[Aziraphale]

Well put, and yeah, that just about nails it.

[chaospersonified]

So basically the Bechdel Test is the BMI of feminism.

I'd say that's an apt interpretation. It's just a warning that something MIGHT be messed up, not proof that it IS.

[explicit]

There's lots of reasons why it's not the greatest test. I think it's most useful for movies and books that aren't romantic in nature.

Like how every superhero or action movie fails the test... That is to say, movies with little meaning beyond "blowing stuff up and doing ninja kicks" are generally not very feminist in nature, even when a female is in a position of badassery.

[ReindeerFlotilla]

There's not really a lot to say at this point, because there's not enough data. I will reiterate that if apply the inverse of the test (Are there two men; do they speak to each other; about something other than a woman) to romantic work you control for any influence of romance. If romance is a factor then the piece of fiction should fail both tests. If it passes the inverse test but not the original, you have a problem and that problem is related to women.

This thread isn't my doing. I wouldn't have gone this direction with the data I currently have. It's sitting out here because the Admins did admin stuff. I made a joke and then realized that there was an interesting unanswered question behind the joke. But I don't know if the answer to the question is interesting. It might turn out to be nothing. There's only one way to find out.

[explicit]

There's only one way to find out.

Gladiatorial combat?

[ReindeerFlotilla]

Nope. That never solve anything.

Take off.

Nuke the site from orbit.




It's the only way to be sure.

[explicit]

How do you nuke the internet? Do you RAM its database or something?

[ReindeerFlotilla]

How do you nuke the internet? Do you RAM its database or something?

goat.se

[Aziraphale]

There's only one way to find out.

Gladiatorial combat?

As long as it's not gladitorial combat over a woman (if between men) or over a man (if between women). 

[ReindeerFlotilla]

Found the Cleese clip on vimeo. No saying how long it will last, so if you are interested https://vimeo.com/89936101.

[Thrillho]

It's already saying I can't watch it.

[jwhouk]

Today's strip, by the way, passes the Bechdel Test.

[ReindeerFlotilla]

It's already saying I can't watch it.

Works for me. It might be that the uploader disabled access to the UK in an attempt to avoid a take down notice. I do see the settings won't allow the BBcode embed to work, but I can click through to it

Today's strip, by the way, passes the Bechdel Test.

If someone's going to note every time the daily strip passes the test, this thread's going to get weird. There's a point to this exercise--though perhaps not one of interest to anyone but myself. I do not approve of this thread, though.

I'm probably going to end up saying that a lot, too. But it looks like I started the thread, and I didn't, so that just the way it is.

[pwhodges]

Don't fuss.  You wrote the post, and even noted in the first sentence that it was off-topic where it was.  It is commonplace to divide topics into their own threads, though we actually take less trouble to do that here than in most other forums I know.  If people don't want to discuss it further, it will quietly die.

EDIT - I missed some earlier posts, and the first post of this thread is now not by ReindeerFlotilla (though it was prompted by RF).

[ReindeerFlotilla]

Well that came off rather snide.

You're the administrator. You got admin stuff to do. Did you see me saying you were wrong?

I don't know if the forum software makes impossible to divide/move a post without making it look the post author started the thread, and I didn't ask. It's done. But I did not start this thread. I wouldn't have. I don't like that it is displayed as if I did. I think I'm entitled to say so.

So, please skip the condescension. I'm not questioning anyone's authority. I'm exercising my right to an opinion, and I don't see any rules saying this particular opinion is bad form.

[diogeneticist]

Hmm looking through the first few strips shows that comic 46 isn't the first pass on the Bechdel test, comic 15 is.

"It has to have at least two women in it, who talk to each other, about something besides a man."

There are two (unnamed) female characters who talk to each other (they don't hold a conversation but they do talk to each other) about something other than a man. It passes even if by technicality!