Women in film
Screenwriters: Think back over the scripts you’ve written, and ask yourself three questions about each one:
- Are there two or more female characters with names?
- Do they talk to each other?
- If they talk to each other, do they talk about something other than a man?
This is the Bechdel test, first articulated by cartoonist Alison Bechdel and amended by others over the years.1 You’d think it would be a very low bar to climb over. You’d be surprised.
Let’s be clear: many, many great movies don’t pass this test, and many terrible movies do. It’s not even a particularly good gauge for determining a film’s feminist content; Transformers 2 meets the requirement because Megan Fox receives a compliment on her hair.
So if this rule doesn’t necessarily speak to quality or content, what’s the point? My friend Beth, who took all the women’s studies classes I never did and therefore yawns at the mention of this old axiom, would argue it’s meaningless checkbox-marking.
But for screenwriters, I think it’s still fascinating. After all, we’re the ones who ultimately put characters in scenes together.
Looking back through my movies, I’m struck by how rarely the female characters actually do talk to each other. In Big Fish, it’s only a brief moment with Sandra and Josephine. In Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, it’s a throwaway moment between Violet and Veruca. Titan A.E. fails the test unless you know that the alien Stith is technically female.
In each of these cases, I had to spend a few minutes just to come up with these (admittedly slight) examples.
Also, I find it fascinating that the Reverse Bechdel Test is almost meaningless. Pretty much every movie made includes two named male characters talking about something other than a woman.
Does acknowledging the situation change anything? Maybe. I’ll certainly ask myself these questions about future scripts. For now, my upcoming projects all seem to pass, but they have a familiar paradigm: a single main female who mostly interacts with the men in the story.
- The origin of the test is complicated, and very Googleable. ↩
Articles
June 1st, 2010 at 2:58 am
Oh so a film (Titan A.E.) credited to the supposed feminist Joss Whedon did not pass the test.
June 1st, 2010 at 3:06 am
This post came at a great point during my insominia. I think it all boils down to writers out growing “the girl and a gun” mentality and giving female characters real meaningful objectives.
June 1st, 2010 at 4:10 am
I find this very interesting, and over the last few years I have been irked by how underrepresented complex female characters are in movies. I recently saw How to Train Your Dragon and Kick Ass, both of which featured characters that had no reason to exist other than having boobs and making out with the hero at the end. But would these films be better if another token female was added to talk about something other than the hero? Probably not. It’s a tricky issue, to be sure!
June 1st, 2010 at 5:14 am
Hurrah! Thank you for talking about a much neglected issue in film-making; I’d never come across this test but I have been asking similar questions about movies for years. To be honest, in most movies I’d settle for ONE named female character who isn’t raped and who doesn’t have to be saved by a man. Still pretty hard to find.
June 1st, 2010 at 6:39 am
While I agree that the test is meaningless check-boxing, that makes the results even more outstanding. (Dare I say) a large majority of pop movies don’t pass such a banal test. That’s a big deal.
June 1st, 2010 at 6:39 am
I think there’s a danger here too though. A bunch of male screenwriters trying to write convincing female characters just to appease some sense of guilt about not including them in the past isn’t likely to improve the situation much (and I do recognize that you said as much at the end there).
So I think the key to improving the situation (of which I’ve become more aware of since having daughters) is more about encouraging more female screenwriters. Men write about men because, well, that’s what they know. If we want convincing women on the screen, we need women to write them.
Also, Erik’s comment reminded me of Joss Whedon’s Equality Now speech, which seems appropriate to link right about….
Now.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cYaczoJMRhs
June 1st, 2010 at 7:40 am
Yes, even flawed the test is something to consider. Thank you for a thoughtful response to the issue. Meanwhile, over at Movieline.com, Brett Easton Ellis is making the case against female directors. Truly appalling.
June 1st, 2010 at 8:13 am
just crap! even reservoir dogs in list. are you serious?
June 1st, 2010 at 8:23 am
The Wire, Lost, Heroes, Bones, Treme, True Blood, Dexter, Californication, United States of Tara, House, Battlestar Galactica, V, Friends, The Simpsons, Northern Exposure, Six Feet Under, Gilmore Girls, and many more.
All these TV shows pass the test easily, and all are -or were- very successful with wide audiences. Of course, ensemble casts and the fact that most tv shows are more character oriented than films makes it easier to include at least two women, name them and let them talk about something other than men. Still, there’s no real difference in the nature of feature films that makes them unsuitable to comply with these simple requirements, so I guess the test says more about the film industry than about the people who watch movies.
It would seem that everytime I compare TV with movies, TV just keeps getting better and better. I also hear they don’t treat writers like schmucks.
June 1st, 2010 at 8:50 am
This is one of the things that really bugged me about The Dark Knight, especially regarding the ending. Barbara Gordon, the future Batgirl, is only referred to as “your sister,” and the most we see of her is the top of her head.
June 1st, 2010 at 8:53 am
I think often men just don’t notice it. I made a comment the other day that I wish Deadliest Warrior would explore a woman warrior or two, and my boyfriend was like “Oh man, they haven’t have they?” It’s the same way white people don’t always notice when minorities are completely missing.
June 1st, 2010 at 9:05 am
I’d never heard of this test, but I’m glad there’s some attention being given to the issue. I don’t know what the solution is — this test, more female screenwriters, etc. — although I would guess it’s probably some combination of all these measures.
And it’s something us prose writers have to keep in mind too.
Related: I really enjoyed this post about “Strong Female Characters” and how Hollywood really isn’t understanding that term:
http://www.overthinkingit.com/2008/08/18/why-strong-female-characters-are-bad-for-women/
June 1st, 2010 at 9:06 am
As an aspiring female screenwriter, I’ve actually had people suggest I write less female-driven stories to make my scripts more sellable (and I never even thought my scripts were that female-centric). It’s nice to hear that people already in the industry are thinking about these things.
June 1st, 2010 at 9:49 am
The same oversight exists in our nation’s public and independent high school English classes. Last year the most taught books in America were: Romeo and Juliet, Macbeth, Huckleberry Finn, Julius Caeser, To Kill a Mockingbird, Hamlet, The Great Gatsby, Lord of the Flies, Of Mice and Men, and The Odyssey (as reported by the Eric Digest). Ironically it’s the oldest and most ancient text on this list that contains the most “modern” and most powerful women: Athena and Penelope, in Homer’s The Odyssey. Unfortunately, their roles often get “cut” to focus on Odysseus’s exploits in chapters 9-18. All of these texts fail the Bechdel test, too. Except for The Odyssey. Go figure.
June 1st, 2010 at 10:15 am
When Harry Met Sally stuck out for me. It’s a supposed “chick flick” (and also one of my favourite movies), but it’s all about relationships. I don’t know if ANYONE has a conversation that isn’t about the opposite sex, including men.
That said, I think every single one of my scripts I’ve written pass this test, but I’m probably more of a feminist that my wife.
June 1st, 2010 at 10:31 am
Isn’t it really just an extenuation of the personal pronoun issue? That from the moment we first learn to speak a generic person is referred to as “he”? When creating stories, isn’t the first thing we look at the function of the character rather than the sex? We then assign all non-obviously female characters with “he” since the language has shaped our thinking.
It’s not so much it’s a conscious decision to under represent women, but it’s that the language has shaped our thinking of the generic person.
In contemporary stories, couldn’t most roles (all?) be played by either sex? Unless the protagonist is going to get romantically involved, does it even matter? And in some instances, should even that be an obstacle? Well, maybe since then the story is going to be perceived as being about “that” even if it’s not, but does it really matter in the long run if Dumbledore was gay? I don’t think so.
What is the function of a storyteller? Is it to represent the diversity of culture or is it simply to tell a story? I’m pretty sure I’m never going to write a story with the express goal of representing every minority, giving all of them equal screen time and importance. I don’t think that can even be done and still have a story worth watching because it simply misses the point of why people are shelling out money to go to the theater.
Story first.
June 1st, 2010 at 10:36 am
That said, yes, I will look at every character and see if it might work for the story as female.
June 1st, 2010 at 10:54 am
@Thorsmark – It’s been a while but I’d be very surprised if To Kill a Mockingbird failed the Bechdel test.
June 1st, 2010 at 11:00 am
I would addend rule three to “talk about something other than a man or the stresses of being a mom”
June 1st, 2010 at 11:08 am
I imagine this is related to that other phenomenon regarding the life expectancy of a capable female character in an action movie who is not the star. Will Michelle Rodriguez ever live to see the end of a movie?
June 1st, 2010 at 11:10 am
“Looking back through my movies, I’m struck by how rarely the female characters actually do talk to each other.”
Yeah, but you’d think you’d receive a free pass after Charlie’s Angels…
June 1st, 2010 at 12:15 pm
Once again, Aliens holds the torch.
June 1st, 2010 at 12:42 pm
I sort of “woke up” all of a sudden to this inequality a few years ago, and now I notice it with everything. But Transformers 2 really takes the cake in terms of utter hatred and objectification of the female gender. I’ll honestly never pay for a Michael Bay movie ever again.
Unfortunately, good movies are often clueless about women too. Roger (#10) mentioned The Dark Knight. Great flick except for poor Rachel: they revive the ugly, decades-old comics cliche of the female getting brutally murdered in order to provide motivation to the male.
June 1st, 2010 at 12:51 pm
Has Go been mentioned yet? I love Go and looking back, the female characters interact and not simply to speak/discuss men.
June 1st, 2010 at 1:13 pm
@Erik -
While I have a number of problems with Whedon, I think the track record speaks for itself. Buffy, Dollhouse? Yeah, plenty of works that overwhelm this one single item.
June 1st, 2010 at 1:20 pm
I like to slightly rewrite the third question.
Just a personal pet peeve, perhaps, but when the women aren’t talking about/being defined by a man they are instead involved in a storyline that revolves around a pregnancy or a child.
June 1st, 2010 at 1:24 pm
I was talking about this very thing this weekend!
Apparently if you have a script with a predominately female cast and they DON’T talk about men, studio and agencies don’t understand it and ask, “but who is the audience?”
Because… you know, women don’t go to see movies.
June 1st, 2010 at 1:34 pm
I’d like to point out what’s been mentioned in one (or more) of the above comments. It is about story first. And there are quite a few films that have female centered stories; Aliens was pointed out which is a good one. In fact, it’s the Alien series. Alien, Aliens, Alien Resurrection (3 excluded).
Another series I would like to point out is The Silence of the Lambs and Hannibal. Very strong female lead (Clarice Starling), which throughout both tales she is fighting against the feminist nature around her. Despite that, she becomes a very strong character and succeeds where the men around her failed. But what about 300? It has one female in the film, but she is one of the strongest characters in the picture. Her story and her arc makes the film compelling as a story and not just a visual-action fest. Tim Burton’s latest Alice in Wonderland is very female centered. But even an earlier film of his, Batman Returns features another very strong and capable female character in the form of Catwoman. True, there aren’t any additional female characters in Returns or a variety of films for that matter, but that doesn’t mean that the females in these pictures are weak.
I am in favor of more female centered roles that aren’t rom/com’s, but I think female characters are a lot stronger because of it.
June 1st, 2010 at 1:35 pm
From the film examples shown, perhaps this is a litmus test for success at the box-office. If your film doesn’t meet the aforementioned criterions, then it will make a lot of money.
On a more serious note, I am editing a screenplay at the moment (my own), and am going to rewrite some of the female characters so that it passes the test. I think it will be more interesting that way and will be given new depth. The things we don’t think about when writing! Thanks for this post. :-)
June 1st, 2010 at 2:09 pm
If nobody else will say it, I guess I will: Is it possible that audiences (male and female) just aren’t interested in hearing two women talk to each other in a lot of movies?
June 1st, 2010 at 2:24 pm
It is about story, of course. But if everyone who read this little test now gives it some thought when developing their next script, isn’t that a good thing? Adding women characters just to check a box or relieve guilt won’t make a better story. But the idea of assigning all non-obviously female characters with “he” (@Quade) really strikes me as a particularly male way of looking at it. thanks for opening the discussion. I think the solution is just this – more awareness. And, of course, encouraging women screenwriters. Also @thorsmark – To Kill A Mockingbird – Scout talked with Calpurnia, the maid, about lots of things.
June 1st, 2010 at 2:26 pm
Here’s another test:
How many scripts out there have two or more black characters with names?
Do they talk about something other than how white people put them down/The Black Experience?
Are they a judge?
June 1st, 2010 at 2:31 pm
What’s interesting is that my initial forays into writing would universally produce male protagonists, and a dearth of true strong female characters.
But lately, I’ve found that most of my newer concepts/ideas incorporate either female protagonists and supporting characters.
What changed? My daughter was born in 2007.
June 1st, 2010 at 3:17 pm
I’ve tended to skew female with my writing; I think of a story, and then I think it would be more interesting with a female protagonist. However, I did just write a detective script with a male lead, and I don’t think it would pass the test, so there you go.
@Kevin Arbouet
Very good point, and I would also apply it to other racial and ethnic groups. If you write a script set in Los Angeles (as most movies are), it’s especially ridiculous to make almost every character white.
June 1st, 2010 at 3:18 pm
@Pat and @writenett — Harper Lee never gives Calpurnia’s last name. Plus, like Jim in Huck Finn, Calpurnia is a straw-figure for liberal white guilt, hardly a fully-formed character. But I’ll grant you that Mockingbird passes the test. Barely.
June 1st, 2010 at 3:38 pm
@ Michael:
“Roger (#10) mentioned The Dark Knight. Great flick except for poor Rachel: they revive the ugly, decades-old comics cliche of the female getting brutally murdered in order to provide motivation to the male.”
not really, though. batman was motivated way before rachel got killed. also, doesn’t that scene totally subvert the damsel-in-distress cliche? that part is crucial because it shows how the joker is always a step ahead of everyone (by using batman’s anger against him and tricking him into going after harvey when he thinks he’s saving rachel) and because it shows that batman’s existence has very real consequences.
contrast that with dexter, where for FOUR SEASONS we were teased with tiresome “will he or won’t he get caught!?” bullshit and “oh no, dexter is so going to get found out this time!” only to have everything totally resolved by the end of the episode and his “dark passenger” kept secret. it wasn’t until the finale of season four that he had to face any real consequence for his lifestyle. at least tdk is honest enough to show that for every action (introducing batman into the world) there’s an equal and opposite reaction (letting the “mad dog” off the leash).
June 1st, 2010 at 3:46 pm
Quote Miller: Is it possible that audiences (male and female) just aren’t interested in hearing two women talk to each other in a lot of movies? End Quote.
1)
If men could dig into a woman’s brain and understand what they understand, would there ever be any wars? Of course not, women are way too caring and subtle and intelligent to fight wars.
So naturally men can’t write “women” (or even different cultures) realistically. Women sit down and discuss all parts of a situation. They laugh, they cry, they get upset and in the end give each other a hug and it’s all good.
Any story with two women as the leads and talking to each other would be resolved in some sitting down and a discussion. Where’s the fun in that? It only gets interesting as soon as they’re bitchy (That’s when all the gays come running to the theaters – not women, women go and see Titanic and Mamma Mia and Twilight, which are about romance).
2) With women talking way more than men seem to do it’s damn hard to keep your screenplay within the acceptable amount of pages. Plus: You want a bit more characters (men) running around like idiots so you can have a lot of twists and turns. Fighting, betrayal, excitement, you name it.
3) I used to work for a movie magazine. After that I’ve done the digital marketing for a major movie company. Research shows: Girls don’t mind watching girls or boys. Boys just want to watch boys. So what’s your safest bet? Exactly.
4) I’m writing a script at the moment and I’m a guy. Two of the leads are women. They have about four minutes of dialogue with each other. What I caught myself doing is having two men as the supporting characters next to these two; through which I “really” tell the story. I didn’t figure out that I had done that until way into my script. Am I going to change it? No I’m not. I’m writing it the way I think it’ll make a fun movie for as many people as possible. I’m not checking any boxes. But I say – Women step up and write “women”. Because sorry, I really can’t. I’m just a guy (and a gay one at that).
June 1st, 2010 at 3:47 pm
I’m not sure of the second and third criteria’s pertinence. Why do two characters have to interact with one another to be thematically resonant?
That’s also why I never understood Asimov’s Laws of Robotics. Much cybernetic hell can be raised without any direct harm done to a human. Ask Will Smith.
June 1st, 2010 at 3:56 pm
Ah, the sweet satisfaction. I’m several chapters into a novel, and I already have instances of one woman talking with another, and not about a man (except in one case a derogatory, eye-rolling reference to an absent third party male). ..bruce..
June 1st, 2010 at 5:07 pm
Jon, I’m really glad you posted this — it’s a majorly important issue that I have been trying to look into more recently– awareness around it needs to be raised. Essentially, the voice of women in film is at best, marginalized. At worst, completely missing. I think you/your readers will find this interesting: http://www.kidinthefrontrow.com/2010/05/missing-voice-of-women-in-film.html
June 1st, 2010 at 5:09 pm
Dang… here I am, a guy, writing a science fiction screenplay where the three principal characters are women, none of them aliens (though one is a clone). And no discussion of shoes, hair, or guys, either. The only male onscreen is the villain…how did that happen?
June 1st, 2010 at 5:11 pm
Erwin, that’s a cop out.
I write men all the time, and even gay men, and they’re all fully fleshed out characters in a story. Know how to learn to write women? Same way you learn how to write anybody: listen to them.
June 1st, 2010 at 9:09 pm
Emily: Amen to you. Erwin: Wake up
It appears that the only dialogue where men are not mentioned between female characters is on Television.
There was a brief scene in Iron Man 2 and even then, they were on the phone speaking to separate parties. I saw Sex and the City today… unfortunately, it got better as the movie emoted on. Why not experiment and write dialogue for a guy then cast then for women and remove the fart jokes? I’m sorry, was that rude?
June 1st, 2010 at 9:13 pm
Emily: Amen to you. Erwin: Wake up
It appears that the only dialogue where men are not mentioned between female characters is on Television.
There was a brief scene in Iron Man 2 and even then, they were on the phone speaking to separate parties.
I saw Sex and the City today… unfortunately, it got better as the movie emoted on.
Why not experiment and write dialogue mean but then cast women in the roles, and remove the fart jokes… gross assumption, but i could not resist. Erwin, you went there with the crying and women getting upset thingy.
June 1st, 2010 at 11:37 pm
@Eido: and why couldn’t female characters make fart jokes?
June 1st, 2010 at 11:54 pm
I saw this a few days ago and have been trying in vain to apply it to a screenplay I am writing, which (simplifying here) deals with a love triangle. How could I possibly give the two female characters a chance to talk about anything other than the man in their lives? How does that possibly propel the plot or develop character?
June 2nd, 2010 at 12:03 am
While it’s more difficult to get a movie made with a female star, they’re infinitely easier to cast because there are so few roles of substance written for actresses.
I try to make as many of my characters female as possible without drawing notice to my tactic. If you TRULY can’t write women, then flip the gender of a character or two after the script is finished — but if you’re serious about this a career, an inability to write roles for half the world’s population would seem to be a handicap you’d want to overcome.
June 2nd, 2010 at 12:12 am
I passed the test! Hooray ; ) But they also talk about men/husbands.
June 2nd, 2010 at 4:18 am
Ripley was originaly written as a male character in Alien, or at least that’s what I seem to remember.
June 2nd, 2010 at 5:03 am
Erwin writes: Any story with two women as the leads and talking to each other would be resolved in some sitting down and a discussion.
In theater, there’s a sort of running joke that there’s no such thing as a good lesbian play, because they’ll just sit down and talk everything out– no conflict.
My sister has her PhD in family theories and structures, and she told me once, “I know it sounds cliche, but research backs this up: Men base success in life on WHAT they have in their lives (the things they’ve accomplished and the material things that represent those successes) and woman base their success on WHO they have in their lives, their relationships.” So men (you know, the people who pretty much run the entire movie industry) are pre-wired for conflict and climactic structure and would be more agreeable to stores in which people DO things, accomplish things.
And that’s a shame. It’s a wonder beautiful films like You Can Count on Me (which has, like, maybe 3 plot points) ever get made.
June 2nd, 2010 at 9:00 am
@Erwin,
So women never have any conflict between each other, while in real life straight and gay men are always punching and shooting and blowing things up? There are plenty of women (I know a bunch) who would disagree with the notion that they “talk through all their problems.” It’s safe to assume you did not attend a high school (like the one I did) where girls were fist-fighting regularly. It may just be a Southern thing.
And I’ll second Emily’s assertion re: learning to write different types of people. Unless you’re Sam Peckinpah, it might behoove you to learn how to write well crafted female characters.
@Everyone else,
One thing to not lose sight of in this video is the idea that the under-representation of women and minorities is SYSTEMIC. Checking off these boxes is a good writing exercise that can certainly give your work texture, but ultimately studios are still hesitant to make female-centric films. Mama Mia had a hard time getting made because the conventional wisdom is that women can’t open movies. I know a writing team who wrote a comedy and attached Anna Faris to star, only to be told that nobody wants to see women in comedies. I’ve been told the same thing when I pitched a female-driven comedy. Are the studios right? I personally don’t think so. But the studios can only base their opinions on past box office numbers, which, with the exception of a few breakout hits, buttress their opinions.
It’s great to strive to write strong, multi-dimensional female characters. But to focus too much on that makes selling a spec even more of an uphill battle. Execs still want “The same, but different,” because that’s where they think the money is.
June 2nd, 2010 at 9:50 am
The women in your audience need something they can plug into, natch. It has nothing to do with guilt or feminism, whatever they’re supposed to mean besides “bad” in an AM radio sense.
See also: realism.
June 2nd, 2010 at 2:33 pm
@ Elmore (#51):
“I know a writing team who wrote a comedy and attached Anna Faris to star, only to be told that nobody wants to see women in comedies.”
I hope that was before The House Bunny. (But I wouldn’t be surprised if it was after.) Because that movie barely had any men in it, AND it didn’t even look very good, but it turned out to be a surprise success, which destroys every “theory” about moviegoers not attending female-driven comedies.
June 2nd, 2010 at 7:26 pm
@Michael,
It was after. Sadly.
June 2nd, 2010 at 10:48 pm
Herb, (post #29) gets what I got out of this. There are lots of ways to make a script different and more interesting. Changing a male to a female, or adding some color if you will, can make for more interesting dynamics or at the very least surprise people who still expect doctors, judges and generals to be straight white males.
Story first, always, and this post begs the question, “What if you make a male character a woman.”
I have a worry for my script that has a few strong female characters. None of them fall in love with or out of love with or ever were in love with or even slightly even glance at any of the men. And other than one slimy guy, the men are just as non-interested. I’m not doing it on purpose, it just doesn’t suit the story. I wonder how long it will take someone who reads it to say, “What if she falls in love with him?”
Assuming this amateur can get anyone to read it, then what?
June 3rd, 2010 at 4:20 am
Hey, how does Almodovar fare on this test? He’s got lots of female leads…off the top of my head, I can’t really recall if he passes this test.
June 3rd, 2010 at 7:22 am
Women cater to these movies where women only talk to each other about a man. They love it because the reality is that’s what most women do. Really, do you think a girl or a woman can go an entirea day without talking about her husband, boyfriend, or son to someone.
Women love talking about men. Especially if they are in a relationship. They want everyone to know, and it might not always be possitive stuff. She could be complaining about how he always leaves the toilet seat up. lol. Also anytime a man meets a woman, and she has a boyfriend. Guarentee she somehow manages to drop in a line that tells you she has a boyfriend even if you are not even hitting on her.
Where a man can easily go a day or even a few days without evening mentioning their significant other. lol. If stuff like this really bothered the majority of women they would stop going to Sex and the City and Valentines Day and horrible Jennifer Lopez romantic comedies on opening weekend.
It’s kind of like how Men support mindless action movies with big explosions, a hot girl, and not much story. I mean guys are excited about the Expendables. Why???
June 3rd, 2010 at 7:35 am
Neil Marshall’s The Descent is a standout for me for characters I want to watch in an engrossing, if horrific situation. That female gaze of mine loved it.
June 3rd, 2010 at 7:58 am
Here’s my tests for other minority characters–
Black characters
Hispanics
Asians
June 3rd, 2010 at 8:22 am
Also–
Indian
Middle Eastern
June 3rd, 2010 at 8:32 am
Oh, forgot Gay–
June 3rd, 2010 at 10:41 am
Ahhh…entrenched misogyny…@ BWeb and others who say “All chicks do is talk, or talk about their relationships”. And my personal favorite, “If more women wrote, then the problem would go away.” Classic blaming the problem on the proverbial “victim”. (Please, no response to that word…it’s just used as a convenience.) OH! and another, “I can’t write a chick ’cause I’m a guy.” Are you an alien? are you in prison? did you ever get so drunk/drugged you couldn’t remember your weekend? how do you write anything at all then? The weakest argument ever. The key thing missing from this discussion is THE MALE CENTERED HIERARCHY of the decision making tree in Hollywood won’t produce female centered scripts, or even scripts written by women (on a large enough percentage of the time…so keep your examples to yourself…weighed against the other side it is a meaningless percentage.) So where does that leave the scriptwriter? Do you give up and yield to the status quo? You can…go for it, wuss. Or you can try to change your own perceptions, (heaven forbid challenge yourself), challenge your own writing. And when pitching make strong arguments why your story works this way. Why that character is important. Why women have ACTUAL lives where they do stuff. Change the producer’s mind…then you’ve done something. off soapbox onto another
@ Erwin It is also ridiculous to say that if women were in power there would be no wars…apparently no one has heard of Marget Thatcher (look her up ‘yungins) There have been women leaders for decades now…wars are still fought a’plenty…this is a major part of the problem OVERSIMPLIFICATION of humanity (in this case, women). Women, just like men, are flawed, vain, heroic, pathetic, engaging creatures…that’s why we still write.
June 3rd, 2010 at 11:00 am
I may be way off here, but I would think that one strong female lead has a lot more value than a few ancillary female characters who happen to talk to one another.
Also, Zuckerman, What often gets lost in that whole WHO/WHAT dynamic is that many women consider the value of the WHO in their lives to be dependant on WHAT that WHO has. So they’re both looking at the WHAT, just a matter of perspective.
June 3rd, 2010 at 12:19 pm
I think of the Bechdel test every time I see one of those Activia commercials with Jamie Lee Curtis discussing irregularity and yogurt with a woman and her daughter.
June 3rd, 2010 at 1:00 pm
I’m still trying to figure out where in the Dark Knight Barbara Gordon is mentioned, and who’s sister she is.
June 3rd, 2010 at 1:03 pm
If you’re referring to Gordon’s kids, why would anything other than a brief mention of someone who’s probably a child matter? How does that pertain to the current argument?
June 3rd, 2010 at 1:22 pm
Man, what a heated discussion.
For the record, I agree with everyone (anyone?) who said that this is a pretty arbitrary test. Though, if it gets one thinking about (and possibly reconsidering) how they write women, this Bechdel lady’s lame test has had some genuine(ly positive?) effect.
For those of quick to chirp in with racial equivalencies — please, spare us all the big words you learned in that sociology class. What percentage of characters in the majority of scripts have their race or ethnicity specified? Just because the casting director (or, ahem, you) presume characters are written white hardly means they were.
Everyone needs to lighten up.
Write, into your script, what you want and hope to see in the movies (and if that doesn’t work blame producers and directors, not your fellow wielders of the pen.)
June 3rd, 2010 at 5:49 pm
You wrote the story and tell us they’re fleshed out. Are they really? Who told you, a couple of friends? Did you think they are because you got a first writing assignment? And that made you better than a lot of the produced and paid for bull that has been out already?
I would go so far as to say – Yours is a naive remark. Sitting down and just listen will ultimately not make you that much more than a parrot. It can mimic the sounds a human makes, but does it understand the undercurrent? I think not. Sure we are all humans and similar in a lot of the same – and different – ways, but you can’t really understand someone else unless you’ve lived their lives.
You assume too much. Who says I can’t? What I’m saying is that I can’t really fathom the spirit of someone’s past, current and potential future without truly having lived their lives. You didn’t read my stuff, when writing that reply maybe I was comparing myself to the all time greats and thought – Damn I could never write a woman like that. Whereas in my script maybe it would still be ten times better than the usual stuff you see in movies (it’s not, but you don’t know that).
That doesn’t make any sense. That’s men vs. women. Not women vs. women. Thatcher had to be a bitch to survive in a men’s world.
I do agree somewhat on another level though – Apparently women do not want other women in the workplace to succeed more than they themselves do. Research shows that a career bitch really hates other career bitches and would go through lengths to have the other woman fail. (Go and write!)
Here’s a thought: Men are not women and women are not men. Entertainment as a whole has certain values and demands. As per one example: men are more physically violent than women. There are other differences between us. Like how we present ourselves, how we act, what our interests are… There’s a general rule of thumb that women are not as funny as men – and they look at live in different ways. They are often serious in other ways than men are. We are in the Entertainment business. Would that not, by default, make it more difficult to insert women in there as much as we do men? Maybe entertainment is just not that much of a women’s thing and are we just not that much interested (men and women alike) in seeing women as much as we are men.
Everyone wants to be “equal”. But we’re not really, are we? They researched women with careers, what did they want? They weren’t really happy, secretly they wanted to have children and mainly be at home and watch and help their babies grow up. Men and women are inheritently different (and they are the same, but in different ways). Do we really need to be equal in every way on an emotional level just because of a political “rights” or a “feminist” thing? Or should we learn to accept that we are different and be okay with that. Maybe women are just not meant to be represented equally on an entertainment level. Does that make them less then men? No it doesn’t. It is just them being different than men, perhaps being better than men, in a different way.
Entertainment, even when dealing with serious issues, ultimately just is entertainment. Why would women want to demand equality in our nonsense. Maybe they’re so focused on political equal rights that they forgot that they actually aren’t that interested in the entertainment representation, but just turned into a principle. And maybe men have guilt for not writing as many women in there, but without really knowing why. I say to the men: Don’t put the women in there out of guilt. Put them in there because it makes sense.
Let me conclude with: I think we are all equal concerning political rights (Men, women, minorities alike). And I respect every single person on earth as much as I do the other. But on an emotional level? We are different. Just be okay with that. And (this also goes for men) just be okay with not having equal representation on every level, because ultimately… that is the one thing that wouldn’t make any real sense.
Women should laugh for being under represented in movies and go on to do the stuff that really interests them. We don’t want you hanging out with the boys, drinking beer and making fart jokes. And you really don’t want to be there doing that, do you?
Oh by the way, what’s the difference between regular crap and diarrhea? You can gargle with diarrhea.
June 3rd, 2010 at 10:31 pm
Thanks for great post. Shame about a couple of the commenters who are completely stone-age stupid, but that’s beside the point. Systematic biases are a system problem. Organisational change is possible but requires many levels of work.
For example, it’s very well known that for last 30 years the percentage of women in the computer, IT and engineering area has been declinining, and it was never high to start off with. (This isn’t unsubstantiated, this is national taskforce and World Bank data.)
Surprisingly 1 or 2 companies and countries stand out as exceptions. Each has put in to place a range of practices from top to bottom over a long period of time and consistently maintained them. I’m talking about IBM, Cisco, Malaysia and Norway. Atleast 3 out of 4 of those decisions were based on financial future proofing.
June 4th, 2010 at 1:05 am
Point number 3 is the real kicker: “do they talk about something other than a man?” Last time I checked men are everywhere, and usually the source of most of the worlds problems. You cant have a good drama without… drama.
June 4th, 2010 at 9:33 am
@Erwin,
You have my permission to not write female characters. In fact, PLEASE do not write female characters. Thanx.
June 4th, 2010 at 10:09 am
It is all too true that it is harder to make your way with a script with a female protagonist. It is also true that films with female protagonists tend to make more modest returns than, say, a tentpole movie with a male protagonist (which is the tacit comparison people make since it’s obviously true that many films with male protagonists also underperform). There are some notable exceptions (Nancy Meyer movies, Nora Ephron movies, the Twilight series…). That many movies with female protagonists perform modestly SHOULD mean that these films are made for a budget that’s in light with projected performance, not that these films shouldn’t be made at all. When a film with a female protagonist underperforms, we attribute it to the femaleness of the lead. When a film with a male protagonist underperforms, we shrug it off and make another. So it’s worth being aware of the deeply ingrained and reflexive sexism that informs the way we see and analyze reality.
It’s noteworthy that the character of Ripley in Alien was originally written for a man, if the above commenter is correct. This reminds me of how all the best roles for black male actors are the ones that were originally written for “white” actors (by which I mean that the race of the actor was not specified in the script). I have a strong personal interest in seeing this issue handled through color-blind casting rather than writing. That’s an uphill battle also, but we tend to look at women and people of color through such a narrow prism that when we write them, we tend to turn them into cliches. A few examples bear mentioning. Denzel Washington in Man on Fire. I can’t imagine anyone else in that role. It wasn’t written for him or for anyone black. The only change I can see that’s a nod to his race is the line that the young girl Pita delivers, asking him if being black is an advantage or disadvantage in doing his job. My other favorite example is Morgan Freeman in The Shawshank Redemption, where he plays a character named red, whom the movie tells us is an Irishman. When I heard that, it didn’t throw me. In fact, I didn’t even notice. I was so engrossed in this man, who was clearly not an Irishman at all, that it just didn’t matter.
My point: Women, blacks, etc are PEOPLE above and beyond all else people. We might all be better served if we let go of the idea that women, blacks, etc are so inherently different and instead just write people and then open our minds during the casting process. Over time, this will result in writers who will have an easier time writing characters on the page who are female or black or another non-white ethnicity without defaulting to cliches and narrow representations. And for those of you who can already do that, I’d love to see a female action hero with children because I do think that dynamic, which IS tied to female specificity, could be an interesting contribution to the genre (but please don’t do the woman/child in jeopardy version as that’s just too cliche :-).
June 4th, 2010 at 1:04 pm
Thanks for posting this, John August. I usually just lurk at this interesting site, but thought this might be relevant. Richard Zanuck, when discussing “Alice in Wonderland’s” BILLION dollar success said: “So I think that is what Tim meant when he said that he didn’t want Alice, as in the original story and the many versions that have done of this, to just walk through and meet a bunch of strange and curious characters but be virtually the same person.
So that was the big grounding, so to speak, that Linda Woolverton provided and that Tim gravitated to and I think that’s what’s made it all around the world a success. It’s a female empowerment story really, that’s the basic underlined theme of it and young girls have responded to it all around the world by going back to it repeatedly, particularly in the Far East, by the way. This Japanese business we’ve done, over $100 million in Japan alone, it’s become a cultural thing for young girls to see it and to see it more than once because it empowers them with great strength and the idea that they can do it on their own. Their lives don’t have to fit a formula prescribed by others. So it’s all those things. That’s the long answer to your question but that’s what made it a success and that’s what Tim really honed in on.”
Just repeating “Alice” made a BILLION, yeah it was 3D, but still. Go Japanese girls. So if this is a global business, maybe it makes sense to conclude that “Alice’s” huge success shows that globally there is a hunger for women to be the stars of their own stories.
And Erwin, look up Indira Gandhi and Golda Meir, you not only don’t know about women you don’t know about recent history. [resuming lurking]
June 4th, 2010 at 6:30 pm
Oops, sorry, forgot the link for that quote from Richard Zanuck http://www.movieweb.com/news/NEloMoor46e4nt
June 4th, 2010 at 7:20 pm
@ Erwin: In all of your examples of the differences between men and women you conveniently leave out any mention of socialization, societal pressures, or environmental factors…the entire “man’s world” argument is bollocks when looked at in the complete light of data. The world we live in is formed by many, many, things. Societal pressure ended slavery, gave women the vote, etc…(just as it made those things acceptable…unless you believe that we as a species have slavery built into our genes) if your argument was to hold ANY water THERE WOULD LITERALLY BE NO CHANGE because people “are the way they are”. Not to say that there are plenty of women with your limited world view…there’s aplenty’…it just isn’t the end of the argument like you so conveniently think it is. And finally the use of the “they did research” argument…to what study are you referring? or are you spouting random bs? Please do let us know, as I will counter with opposing, actual, research.
My conclusion…of course people are different, and not just along gender lines…just don’t make the argument so simplistic as “women are weak and wanna have babies!” that’s just naive. And representing women in film (or anywhere) isn’t about guilt, its just about repping real freakin’ life…art’s actual job (and yes, I paid attention to your “its just entertainment” spout…and think that’s rubbish as well…it’s actually ALL culture…and there’s varying degrees of that as well).
Parthian shot: “There’s a general rule of thumb that women are not as funny as men – and they look at live in different ways.” YES, they look at life in DIFFERENT ways, genius…therefore they have a DIFFERENT sense of humor. Who says these things? you do realize HUMOR is subjective right? RIGHT?
June 4th, 2010 at 8:39 pm
Leigh – thanks for the link to the Bret Easton Ellis comments. He seems to think that men make better directors because only men respond to pornography — which is both absurd and untrue. Tests have shown that most women respond to an even broader range of pornography than most men. Maybe we just don’t talk about it as much. I won’t dignify the rest of his assertion with an argument.
BTW, I recently read the latest Bret Easton Ellis script. It made a good case AGAINST Bret Easton Ellis. :-)
June 4th, 2010 at 8:55 pm
Erwin, sweetie.
One might be inclined to listen to your comments if you had not already admitted to writing — and refused to alter — a script in which the story only happens to the supporting characters. Male vs. female is not your problem; fundamental script structure is.
June 5th, 2010 at 10:20 am
@Christopher Morrison: I never said anything was the end of the arguement and I’m not saying every result is definite. Maybe you chose to think that because it makes it more convenient for you to write your reply. I can’t mention every single detail, I pick out the ones that make sense within the context of what I’m trying to say (Just like you only mentioned Thatcher). I’m not saying I’m right, I’m putting stuff out there to reflect and see what others have to say.
I love women, more power to them. As you can see in my two earlier replies there’s a load of positive stuff as well. I think women should penetrate the typical higher up men’s positions in politics and (larger) companies more than they do now (they are already more represented than men on medium level positions), so in the end everything will be more balanced out. Same goes for different cultures (and minorities) that are under represented in the respective locations they live in.
Will the average woman be happy by doing that? Maybe some do. But possibly a lot don’t. Does that mean I don’t want them there? Ofcourse not, by all means go ahead. I’m talking about the average female, not every single female as an undividual. As for research, here’s a pretty solid one showing female happiness and its decline:
http://bpp.wharton.upenn.edu/betseys/papers/Paradox%20of%20declining%20female%20happiness.pdf
And yes there’s a multitude of factors, but declining quality time with family over increasing career opportunities is a pretty strong one. There’s lots more to be found on the interwebs if you look for research on female hapiness. Ofcourse I take into account all the generics you mention. It’s nonsense to say I have a limited world view based on this. I’d say when reading your reply yours is not more or less limited than mine.
You write: Parthian shot: “There’s a general rule of thumb that women are not as funny as men – and they look at live in different ways.” YES, they look at life in DIFFERENT ways, genius…therefore they have a DIFFERENT sense of humor. Who says these things? you do realize HUMOR is subjective right? RIGHT?
There’s a point I’m trying to make, keep it within the context (although I do give you that I might’ve been not clear enough): The topic is called “Women in film”. I see that as: 1) the quantity of women in film 2) the way we write women in film and 3) women writing and directing.
1+2) Maybe women’s humor has less entertainment value for the masses than humor in general. The masses might consider it less funny and might be less interested in it. Does that mean there shouldn’t be a Twilight or Sex and the City? Ofcourse there sould. But the main thing I’m saying here is: Maybe just write a story for women or else write general entertainment and accept that women will be represented less in there, because the general masses might not be that interested in seeing it (including women, I don’t see too many women complaining about the multitude of women or the typical women characters. Does that mean no one’s complaining? Ofcourse not, but they seem to be few. And I’m not saying this is a fact).
It seems we want niche to be as popular as, well, the popular. I am okay with writing niche that is loved by few. And I’m okay with resorting to stereotypes for the masses. There’s no use in forcing niche upon general masses.
3) There are great women writers who are very popular with (men and) women. Their books would probably often not make great films though (as with a lot of books in general). It’s a different branche. So little women are stand up comedians. There’s a couple, but compared to men it’s way less. Not because we just don’t allow them, in our modern western society they’re getting the chances. Maybe women themselves are not that much interested in it? How many women (or girls) do you see that really want to be comedians? Do I say there’s none? Ofcourse not, there are, but they seem to be few. Does that mean I think they’re not allowed to, or shouldn’t be in that branche? Ofcourse not, they should. I’m saying – the more the merrier, but they might have to resort to stereotypes just like men do, because:
Conclusion) Maybe either go with the stereotype or else write for niche. It is entertainment, not the facts of life. The general masses just seem to be not that interested in it. And if you do write a general masses’ women’s film it’ll probably be about romance because that’s what most of the women like to see. And if you write a general masses’ woman character it’ll probably be to an extent stereotypical.
I’m not in any way trying to be demeaning to women but my mere mention of different men- and women’s mindsets, the way they interact and that maybe not everything is meant to be equal seems so upsetting to a lot of people. Why? I think maybe many people got so focussed on equalness in rights (which is a very good thing) that they forgot to think whether or not we should even want to be equal in the entertainment bussiness of big popcorn movies. It just got turned into a princple. Do I think that’s a fact? No. It’s just a thought.
June 5th, 2010 at 10:43 am
Happy to say all three of my spec scripts and the feature I’m shooting ultra-low-budget this summer for web distribution pass the test with complete flying colours.
In fact, I have more trouble when writing male characters. I’m always drawn to write female-led films (currently a couple of horrors, and, I guess supernatural drama would be the best tag for the other two) and if men get a look in, they’re either bouncing off the female characters, or it’s a more ensemble piece.
By the way, Erwin, your original 3) about research showing “boys only want to watch boys”? Clearly those researchers never spoke to anyone like me. Love women, want to write for women, want to watch women kick-ass (both dramatically and literally) on-screen.
June 5th, 2010 at 2:45 pm
This is kind of bullshit.
A screenwriters job isn’t to make everything created equal.
It’s to think of a story and tell it on the 120 blank pieces of paper.
If your story demands female presence for it to be told successfully..then by god do it. But there’s no need to force strong intelligent female characters into your story just for the sake of having those characters to almost please a demographic.
I rather read a screenplay with lack of female characters then one with female characters tacked on just to have a female presence.
What next do you “need” to have in your writing? Once you become pressured into adding elements in your story that don’t necessarily need to be there to almost appease everyone, then writing stops being a free, creative outlet.
If someone feels there needs to be more stories told with strong female characters then hop behind the keyboard and write one.
If I flipped it around and read a screenplay with only female characters that was compelling and told a great story, I wouldn’t say, “you need more males to balance this dynamic..”
A story regardless of how much men or women are involved is either compelling, and well told or it is not.
June 5th, 2010 at 3:41 pm
@Simon: The movie company I worked for researched international demographics bi-yearly: gender, age, and a couple of other things. “Boys watch boys” would be the average boy, especially at a younger age (up until 11, some decline up until 18).
Love The Descent, would your script be anything like that? Also a big fan of Alias (at least the first half of the series). Jennifer Garner can play the lead in my movies anytime.
Any insight as to how you find it easier to write female characters?
June 5th, 2010 at 7:08 pm
@Christopher Morrison
I am not blaming women totally. But they are part of the problem. When it comes to this issue. I think it is ridiculous that people would deny that. I know guys are not going out in droves to see these crappy romantic comedies. Women support these films that fail this test. Almost every romantic comedy would fail this test and who is the main audience for that genree…
Prime example is TWILIGHT. The story is cliche, the characters are cliche, and the bookseems to be horribly written from the little I’ve paged through of my ex girlfriend’s copy of the first book, and from what most reviews have written about it. Yet women love this franchise. Have undying loyalty to it. Smart, intelligent women that I know go crazy for these books and films.
In all seriousness women do talk about men a lot. Just for a week observe your female friends or co workers. And see how much they talk about their boyfriends, husbands, or significant others. Even if there are single it’s why they are single and they need to find a man or their friends are trying to hook them up with someone. Or how they went on this horrible date last night with this guy.
Yes women talk about other things than men but talking about men is a big part of what the majority of women talk about. Just like a majority of men in this country talk about sports. That’s not all men talk about, but Men talk about sports probably as much as women talk about men. lol.
Personally I’m writing a script right now with two lesbians that are deeply in love as major characters in my film. I thought it would be an interesting twist in the genre I’m writing in. I made that decision to serve the story. Hopefully I can make it work.
Also Christopher be careful about throwing words around like Mysogyny. My comments did not express any contempt or hatred for women. I just made a generalization about a majority of them and as I also made a generalization about men in this post and my previous post. So were those comments I made about men “entrenched Mysandry”.
June 6th, 2010 at 12:54 am
@BWeb: I’ll throw any word around I see fit…we’re all writers here, and, I assume, choose our words carefully. It’s also why I chose the word “entrenched”…as in, dug in, as in, hard to detect. You even admit that you are GENERALIZING which is mostly my point. When you break a gender, a race, just about anything into generalizations you are supporting stereotypes…a bias…in this case purporting that “Women talk a lot about men” implying that they talk about men as a defining characteristic, something that MAKES them women. They also talk a lot about their hopes and dreams, they talk about their car, they talk about their computers, their jobs, their families…if you don’t get my point by now (and maybe start to question your own perceptions, I got nuthin’). As for critiquing the taste of one half of the entire population of the globe for a book series you haven’t even read (full disclosure, I’ve never read those books, nor seen any of the films) seems just like a silly argument to me.
Again, this is a battle of perception…BWeb you seem to think you are on safe ground because you are writing about a lesbian couple…you’re the one that may want to consider being careful when you break down the gender lines as “Men talk about sports” and “Women talk about men”. There’s simply more to humanity than that…and yes, if that’s your main take on men (that they talk about sports to the exclusion of other topics) then that is Mysandry (but I doubt you actually think that…but fully believe that you think that women mostly think about men as a DEFINING CHARACTERISTIC…that’s the problem…get it?)
@Ryan and others: The point of this (the Bechtel test, my various rants) isn’t to “make things equal”. It’s to raise an awareness, a consciousness, to have artists look at their work and see who and what they are representing. My hackles raise when people refuse to see what’s in front of them…again, write any story you damn well please…just be aware that your story, your voice as an artist MAY be limited. It is the point of these “tests”, and these discussions, to raise awareness…not fix the problem (that is a whole other barrel of monkeys).
@ Erwin: not done here, son…’nother post coming shortly…
June 6th, 2010 at 4:31 am
@Erwin
I actually had to think about your question overnight (plus it was nearly 1am here!)
The disappointing answer is I really don’t know. Ever since I started writing screenplays at 17 (I just turned 30 last week) I’ve almost without exception gone for female leads. Now, some of that is undoubtedly down to my first couple of specs being pure horror. It’s somewhat traditional to have female leads, and I didn’t see any reason to break that.
But to be honest, I think it was a formatively youung path. Ever since I was 7 and fell in love with Jennifer Connelly in Labyrinth, I’ve be drawn towards adventure films with girls up front. There was also a brilliant children’s BBC series called Moondial at around the same time, again with a teenage girl hero, and that captivated me.
I’m not saying I can’t or will never write something with a predominantly male cast or lead, but aside from two books I’ve always wanted to adapt, my original ideas are all girl-centric, though the subject matter isn’t always. The one male lead I feel I’ve really written well (and though I started scripting at 17, I don’t think I became anything approaching good until about 24) only works because he’s constantly bouncing off the female lead, whose film it really is.
Insight into writing females? This is what I thought about the most before typing this. Late last night I read through one of my half-finished specs. I only toy with it now and again because it will never ever be made for a number of reasons. (Rights issues to a character that films have already been made about, rights issues to real life people involved in the story, massively expensive period recreation and action sequences all for a story I love but many people would probably go “wuh-huh?” at.) But I’m so happy with the characters in it. They live and breath in a way even the best of my could-get-made-and-find-an-audience specs don’t. Two girls and the friendship between them, principally, but there’s also a journalist father, a nightclub owner, a decent cop and also the Dastardly Villains. But writing them, I just know who they are. I don’t know what they were like growing up or how their school life was, but I know how they feel about things now, how they react, how they go about solving problems…my basic tact with every character in every script is just to know how they’re feeling and what they want, regardless of sex, race, intent…I just think them up and let them play out their story.
Sorry, that’s an awful lot of waffling crap with no punchline. All I can say about writing anyone is I try to know how they feel and how they react, and the rest comes with it.
I love The Descent, but my films so far aren’t like that. They’re more character dramas with a load of blood flying around in back. The film I’m actually making this summer is different. I have no money for anything other than equipment and expenses, so no action, so it’s allllll talk, but hopefully funny, sad, interesting talk. I need to rewrite though because since the first draft in 2007 (when it collapsed because I lost my intended lead actress to university), a couple of things have come out like The Lovely Bones, and more importantly an excellent (too excellent for my liking really!) UK series called Being Human, which are thematically quite similar to my story, so the 2007 script is being redone to push the unique pieces of mine forward in the mix. It will hopefully go up in 9 or 10 parts on all kinds of video sites by the end of this year, early next. Provided I don’t majorly fuck it up.
June 6th, 2010 at 5:12 am
@Christopher Morrison:
Your resentment is delicious.
June 6th, 2010 at 6:26 am
Few films have a female protagonist. Is this less than ideal? Surely, yes: the stories we get, in sum, largely miss half the human experience. But it would be silly to classify a specific male-protagonist film as a fail.
I think the Bechdel test is similar. It says something that so few films ‘pass’ such a basic test. But the sceptics are right to reject the idea that all films ‘failing’ it are crap. It’s about the numbers, not case by case judgements.
Still worth thinking about, though. I think half the problem is that the default for a character is white and male. And young.
June 6th, 2010 at 8:54 am
The key thing missing from this discussion is THE MALE CENTERED HIERARCHY of the decision making tree in Hollywood won’t produce female centered scripts, or even scripts written by women (on a large enough percentage of the time…so keep your examples to yourself…weighed against the other side it is a meaningless percentage.)
The person writing this post, if he/she wanted to get to the true problem, should have written THE ‘WHITE’ MALE CENTERED HIERARCHY. I hate when people forget to use the white adjective because saying simply “male” makes it seem as if all males, regardless of race, were equal in Hollywood and played an equal role in the limitation of female roles. Wrong. Hollywood is a white male’s playground, plain and simple. I recall reading a newspaper article a year or two ago which dealt with how male roles far outnumbered female roles (which is true). But for the photos to go along with the article the editors chose four snapshots. Two of them were of white male stars. The other two were of Denzel Washington and Will Smith. And the article itself repeatedly mentioned Denzel’s and Will’s names. The problem with that was that in a way it suggested black male actors were on an equal footing with white male actors in terms of getting roles and that black men had it easier than women (and thus by default : white women) in getting big parts in movies. Of course the reality was that of the 50 biggest Hollywood stars at that time Denzel and Will were probably the only two that were black so it was misleading in the first place to have them represent half of the pictures chosen and to have the article focused on them so much because black actors have a terrible time getting quality roles. In fact they have a much tougher time than white women do and you can tell that just by counting the roles given to each group at the end of the year (it goes without saying that black women have had a tough time too all these years). So the issue comes down to how white men don’t share the wealth in Hollywood. The vast majority of films are made by white men and are about white men. So why do people refuse to be more specific and accurate by making the point its white men who dominate the movie business? Saying men dominate the biz doesn’t give us a true picture.
June 6th, 2010 at 3:47 pm
Aw heck, I’ll lend someone a helping hand here. Certainly, Hollywood, in broad terms, is dominated by a white, male (and culturally quite conservative) decision making hierarchy.
Since racial minorities have been dragged into the debate, let’s look at the oscars as a point of comparison: 8 decades of apparent discrimination against African Americans in front of the camera (1 supporting win for Hattie McDaniel, 1 leading win for Poitier, and 199 white actors winning in the first 5 decades, taking into account the tie between Streisand and Hepburn), which slowly declined when the 80’s and 90’s allowed a few more black actors to win supporting oscars: Louis Gosset Jr., Whoopi Goldberg, Denzel Washington, and Cuba Gooding Jr (10% of the acting oscars in those 2 decades, which is in the ballbark of being proportional to the African-American population in the states). Then in the last decade the “door was opened” with lead role wins for Halle Berry, Denzel Washington, Jamie Foxx, and Forest Whitaker, as well as supporting wins for Mo’Nique, Morgan Freeman, and Jennifer Hudson, or 35% of the oscars this decade went to African-Americans). We can’t really do this comparison for men vs. women, since those are seperate categories, so it’s always going to be 50-50.
Now let’s look behind the camera: No. of women nominated for best director: 4. No. of African Americans nominated for best director: 2. That’s women underrepresented by a margin of about 50-1, and African Americans by about 1-30, although I’m only estimating by the last census, so historically their percentage of the U.S. population might have been much greater or smaller; it still wouldn’t be less than 0.5%. For the sake of being comprehensive, no. of African American women nominated for best director… okay, seriously, name me ONE remotely successful African American female director…
Part of the problem is a vicious circle: many roles in blockbuster films are written with certain actors in mind, and most established b.o. stars are often men, and more often white. It makes it even harder for non white males to establish themselves as bankable stars. There’s also the problem that this leads to characters being written as white and male. African American AND female characters are often stereotypes, at least to a degree, and also often bunched together in chick flicks or black films. Films like Steel Magnolias, Sisterhood of the Travelling Pants, the Friday series, all of Tyler Perry’s films, they all distinguish themselves as being typical film for and about women of African Americans. When a film is populated by all white males, it doesn’t draw as much attention to itself. It’s considered “normal”.
And remember those polls 2 years ago, when Obama and Clinton were going head to head, and Americans were asked whether they were “ready” for an African American of female president, nad large numbers said they weren’t? Well, those same people (ie white males) who weren’t “ready” for a black president or a female president buy movie tickets, and when they see one billboard with Brad Pitt, one with Jamie Foxx, and one with Sandra Bullock, all other factors being equal, which one do you think they’ll go for? If they represent only 5% of the movie ticket buying audience, which one will studios most likely produce and throw a lot of maney at to make and advertise? The one with Pitt, because 5% extra revenue is still gonna be decisive, if all other factors are equal. And it’s probably a lot more than 5% at this point, whereas female and African American audiences largely acquiesce, buy tickets to Pitt’s movie, and occasionally push a film directed squarely at them to a modest success too.
That makes films about African American and female characters a deviation from the established standard, which in turn becomes both a descriptive and prescriptive custom, if you will, and creates room for a more marginal subset of films aimed at less lucrative audiences (and in the case of women, it led to the romcom counterprogramming successes that emerged in the nineties). So in the end it’s all about following the money. And unfortunately the money lies with a bunch of white guys who are about as progressive as the black and white folks from Pleasantville.
PS: Chris, Ryan, Erwin, etc… be nice to each other. And you can come up with statistics to prove anything, 14% of all people know that.
June 6th, 2010 at 4:34 pm
@ NHK: Totally agree with you…just didn’t want to open up TWO giant can of worms…
@ Chris: No one is saying that all films that fail the Bechtel test are crap…once again, it is just to raise awareness.
@ Erwin: lap it up, my brother, and enjoy (I recommend it with ranch and spicy mustard)…I’m editing all damn weekend but here’s a counter to your study that I dug up without all that much trying…(pay particular attention to the second paragraph).
“Here, we start with a study that found no statistically significant difference in male vs. female group happiness at either end of a time series, even though the data came from a large survey, whose size of 1,500 respondents in 1972 rose to 4,500 respondents by 2006. Looking across all 34 years, the researchers were able to find a statistically significant difference in overall male vs. female trends. The magnitude of this effect was cumulatively quite small (though doubtless important from the perspective of the philosophy of economics).
But what people take away from the journalistic description of this study is that women used to be happier than men, and now men are happier than women — and they think of this as a fact about all men and all women. In fact, we’re talking about effects whose size is such that perhaps the happiest half of the population, on an optimistic reading of a complex statistical reconstruction, contains a couple of percent more of one sex than the other! When I show readers of the NYT article the graph of the data that underlies this study, they’re flabbergasted.” Here’s the link: http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/archives/004965.html
It may also be time to take this off poor John’s blog (as we are getting into it a bit much…and in the interest of further discussion) here’s my email (its a junk address so sign me up for all the donkey porn you want) christophermorrison2@yahoo.com back to FCP!
June 6th, 2010 at 4:40 pm
I just re-watched George Cukor’s THE WOMEN from 1939 (based on the play by Claire Booth), and while it passes Bechdel’s first two criteria with flying colors, I don’t think it passes the third. And this is a 2 hour 15 minute movie where all of the characters are women!
(This might also apply to the recent Meg Ryan remake as well.)
June 7th, 2010 at 12:31 pm
I’m of the party that believes strongly in the “why not female?” rule. As in, if I’m watching an action movie (let’s say Ocean’s 11), I think “Why couldn’t half of the team be female?” Then the ladies on the team would be talking to each other about the plot (the heist) and not about men.
To me, that’s the simplest and weirdest part of this whole test, that people simply don’t think, “why not?”. It’s so easy for people to default to their own gender/race/etc that they just don’t think about the rest of us. And I agree that it applies to race, disability, religion, ethnicity, all of the underrepresented people in media.
When I’m writing, I always think, “Why not ___?” A lot of the times the answer makes my script more interesting. If everyone in Hollywood thought this way, I think it would make a lot of our films more interesting, as well.
June 7th, 2010 at 4:23 pm
I have to come clean here – After I came home drunk from clubbing a couple of days ago I dragged myself up the stairs, crawled over the floor and puked. Crossed the gaze of my cat, yelled: ‘Dzzzon’t you judge me!’ Tried to get up, slipped over the puke. While trying to balance ripped the Troll 2 and Jaws 4 posters off the wall. Collapsed on my knees, shouted at the torn pieces: ‘Why can’t I fathom your genius, damn you!’ After which I sank into a chair, opened my latest screenplay, added an emotional scene and cried for five minutes. Then decided to write that second unfocused rant on the blog here that got some people’s panties all in a bunch. Not that I don’t agree with my content, but the approach might’ve been somewhat off. Anyhoo –
Quote from “a Reader”: …and refused to alter — a script in which the story only happens to the supporting characters
I started out writing with two females as the lead and two males as supporting characters. While getting nervous about doing the female characters justice I unconsciously shifted more to the supporting males while making the females more straightforward and two dimensional. I don’t refuse to alter that, but I’d sooner choose to make the females more “manly” like you see so often in movies than to keep them this way. What we also might be forgetting is that we’re all writing in different genres and have different premises and goals. Writing the females like that in my current script actually wouldn’t be a grave injustice to women. I wouldn’t consider my characters worse than the female lead in Prince of Persia :)
@(.72) Paula:
I like your reply. I’ve been leaning towards that approach lately.
@Christopher Morrison:
Not entirely convinced by the article, focuses too much on male vs female which wasn’t my point, but I hear ya dude. Let’s leave it at this.
@Simon Underwood:
Love Labyrinth. Big fan of some typical 80’s fare. The Dark Crystal, Secret of Nimh, Willow, An American Tale and lots more. Willow and A Land Before Time have such great scores. They’re right on top of my list together with Williams’ Star Wars, Indy, Superman, Jurassic Park and Jerry Goldsmith’s Legend and Lionheart, Poledouris’ Conan, Elfman’s Edward Scissorhands and Debny’s Cutthroat Island. Oops, wandering off.
What’s interesting about your reply is that I kind of have the same thing with my scripts (not the movies I watch per se). I always put strong females in them, but my problem is they’re too much male. Maybe I should go see a psychologist about that.
…and don’t anyone dare write – ‘you need a psychologist for a whole lot more pal’ (which would probably be true, but you don’t know that you judgmental bastards).
Another @Simon: Keep us posted, love to see the results when you’re done.
June 7th, 2010 at 8:38 pm
John! I somehow missed this blog post. I hate when I miss your blog posts.
To be honest, my problem is that it sort of comes from a very problematic place in feminism – that somehow the interactions between and among women are more valid than any other interactions and somehow create stronger women. It is the genesis of all sorts of separate but equal things like “science for girls!” as if somehow girls need special science classes. It feels to me a bit like peeing on a stick instead of going to the doctor. Sure, you know if you’re pregnant, but there are like sixty five other things that could be making you nauseous.
I do think it is the tip of an interesting sword – the idea that women need to be married, paired off, romantically satisfied to have a satisfying movie experience. I think that is a massive problem out there. And I ask myself a different question – am I putting this female character in an easier to get out of situation because she’s a girl? Or am I putting her in the best place for her character regardless of her gender?
But I would never scoff at the question. It’s a damn good question to start a damn important dialogue.
June 8th, 2010 at 1:41 am
It’s a systemic problem in that it’s born of systemic assumptions. The basic assumption is that stories about men are for everyone, but stories about women are only for women. It comes from a variety of places, but the main thing is that men in our culture are not trained to relate to women, to identify with or put themselves in the shoes of a woman in a story. Meanwhile, women are exposed to so many stories about men from the time they’re children that they learn how to identify with male characters.
A good example lies in this statement by Erwin: “Maybe women’s humor has less entertainment value for the masses than humor in general. The masses might consider it less funny and might be less interested in it.”
Notice what he’s doing? There’s “women,” and then there’s “the masses.” Not women and men. Just women and people. Ergo, women are somehow separate from “the masses.”
The same thing happens with racial/ethnic diversity. For a long time, no one would put a non-white model on the cover of a fashion magazine, for example, because when white people see, say, an Asian woman on the cover of a magazine, they assume that that’s a magazine for Asians. This is changing, albeit more slowly than I’d like, and a large part of that is because the white people in charge of the fashion and printing industries were brave enough to try it out.
A systemic problem requires work from everyone in order to change. Screenwriters play an important role in that, IMO. The more stories about women we write, the more stories about women will (hopefully) be read. Even if all those women get deleted in the editing phase by the studio, at least someone read the story that way in the first place. After a while, as they get used to reading stories with women in them, hopefully it’ll become more normal. It’s just one part of the solution, but it’s definitely an important part.
And I do agree that TV is definitely beating out film on this front. Look at a show like “Saving Grace,” for example. Tons of women, comparatively to other shows anyway, who are tough women, and there are women of color in there too. Of course, it’s ending soon and it’s not like it’s super-popular, but it’s something. Pretty awesome writing too from the episodes I’ve seen.
June 8th, 2010 at 5:13 pm
@Miss Julie: I never made a “statement”, as I wrote I was putting a thought out there and also started that sentence with “maybe”. Also I did not seperate the women from the masses, the masses are everyone including women. I was mentioning a comparison between the masses in general and women by themselves.
You (and some others, including specifcally James Ford) mention racial minorities. The comparison between women and minorities originates from the fight for equal political rights and acceptance. Righteously in the last century each and everyone has fought for those and have come a long way. But you can’t compare the color of someone’s skin to women in general beyond that. Men and women are different in how their brains function in the details.
Quote Miss Julie: “…but the main thing is that men in our culture are not trained to relate to women, to identify with or put themselves in the shoes of a woman in a story.”
This is not just a “training” issue.
A baby boy is naturally somewhat more drawn to the color blue and a baby girl to pink. A baby girl is naturally somewhat more drawn to the expression on faces, a baby boy somewhat more to abstract and/or mechanical visuals. Men make fun of women for not being great drivers, women sigh at the lame fart jokes, burping and typical bar behaviour. It’s a stereotypical thing but in subtleties there’s truth to that. Through evolution men have become wired to undertake quick and specific action, they can really focus on one thing and do a great job at it. Women are great at the social aspects and have eyes in the back of their heads, they can do a lot at the same time.
Women have been proven to be somehwat slower at traffic parking, it takes them about 35 seconds more than a man, they do make somewhat more mistakes at map reading. To say: “Men need to be trained to relate to women” is the same as men saying: “Just get quicker at traffic parking and get better at map reading.”
Our brains have not been wired to operate exactly in the same way. From an evolutionary point of view women are somewhat more altruistic and caring and better at relating to others, therefore have less trouble watching a movie with more male characters.
What strikes me is – why can’t we accept ourselves for who we are? Why do (some) women need to go beyond the political rights and equal opportunities and force men to think exactly as they do, when it’s literally impossible for a male’s brain to entirely do so, just like it’s impossible for a female’s brain to do some typical male things?
Seeing as how our species have evolved to a point where we have no other natural enemies but ourselves I’m guessing both our brains will at sometime evolve to a more similar way of functioning. But that won’t happen with just a couple of generations of either men or women forcing their own brain functioning upon the other’s. Just like global religion issues this will not be resolved until further into the future.
Up until that time maybe we should just have to accept that there might be a male skew to the general big(ger) entertainment movies, not because women are not accepted, but because movie companies know that’s what makes them the most money. It’s all about the money.
And somewhat unrelated — with 13% of Americans being African-Americans it’s pretty impressive that 35% of last decade’s actor’s oscars went to African-Americans (like “James Ford” wrote). Now where’s the Hispanics/Latinos? They’re 16% of the US population. Let’s fight for them, they need it way more at the moment.
Lastly – My hypothesis about tv having more female characters in series would be that tv is more typical character driven instead of plot driven, also it’s a budget issue, it’s just too expensive to have everything blow up 40 minutes a week. TV accepts more female characters because it skews to dialogue, the typical movie skews more to visuals.
Note: The conclusions are my own. Most of the above is meant as a theory/hypothesis. I’ll conclude with – I love women ;)
June 8th, 2010 at 9:36 pm
Erwin, I didn’t mean to imply that you did it on purpose (the “women vs people” thing). Sorry about that. I was picking on you as an example of something that happens all the time (it’s like when you go to a book store and there’s “Fiction” and there’s “Women’s Fiction” but there’s no “Men’s Fiction” because Men’s Fiction and Everyone Fiction are the same thing).
Evo Psych is hugely problematic as a discipline, especially if you take it to the extreme of ignoring all social influences. Take for example:
“A baby boy is naturally somewhat more drawn to the color blue and a baby girl to pink.”
Then why is that previous to the 1940s (or so) pink was considered the masculine color (like a softer, more baby-appropriate version of red) and blue the feminine one? If baby boys “naturally” want blue things, and baby girls “naturally” prefer blue things, why would those associations only show up in the last 70 years?
There are even studies suggesting that women’s supposedly “natural” difficulties with spatial relationships (and map reading) dramatically improve when women partake in stereotypically male activities (here’s one link about that that I had lying around).
And it’s pretty objectively true that the protagonists for most (not all, of course) stories that kids in our culture typically grow up with are male. Just numbers wise, kids are taking in more male narratives than female ones. Which means that most girls grow up either placing themselves in narratives as victims or other passive supporting characters, or they learn how to identify with male characters. Boys don’t generally have to identify with female characters unless they want to (which from what I see they do, when the character is awesome and substantive and not a token).
Anyway, eventually this all becomes a meaningless chicken/egg argument. The point is that women are underrepresented in movies in general, regardless of the whys or where it’s coming from. And I think it’s pretty apparent that women would like to see more of themselves represented in the stories that they consume.
The presence or non-presence of women in a movie doesn’t make the movie inherently better or worse. But why not challenge yourself a little bit by considering these questions? If you decide in the end that your script is worse off for having, at some point, 2 women in it who talk to each other about something other than a man, then leave it out. If it doesn’t make a difference or if it makes your script better (which, yeah, it might), then good for you! You tried something new today as a writer. I don’t see what’s so objectionable about that.
BTW, if you cannot possibly imagine what people might think or say or do if you haven’t lived their particular lives, then I don’t see what appeal writing would have for you (outside of blogging or personal essays, I guess).
June 9th, 2010 at 3:43 am
@Miss Julie – I never said I can’t possibly imagine what people might think or say or do if you haven’t lived their particular lives.
I said truly fathom and I was talking about women. Plus you don’t know what I was comparing it to, like I already said – maybe I was comparing myself to some of the all time greats. Maybe it would do fine as average entertainment.
The question you should ask yourself is – why are you so desperate to train men into accepting women in that respect? I accept women in general, I think everyone should have equal rights and opportunities in life. But I just don’t give a damn about sitting around watching Oprah’s book club.
Okay… I do actually like Oprah’s book club. I’m gay and I also watch Sex and the City and Desperate Housewives. I have to come clean here and admit that I’ve been campaigning for keeping the guy advantage in movies because I like to watch guys.
My next campaign will be about keeping the stereotypical hot guys in there because people like to watch hot people and are not as interested in seeing your average looking person.
June 9th, 2010 at 5:05 pm
Very interesting post. I have to say, as a female writer and director, I’ve made and written several projects with female protagonists, and it is a tough road… A few people have even told me straight out that they aren’t interested in reading scripts with female protagonists. I recently made a little indie film, Raspberry Magic, about a girl girl who believes science can save her family. It’s been screening on the festival circuit, and we are working with a great company on distribution, but we’ll see. The thing that gets me is that women make up 50% of the population, so in theory, there should be an audience for female-oriented movies.
June 13th, 2010 at 5:07 am
I didn’t get a chance to read all of the comments that come before me, though I’m sure many of them made great points and had wonderful insights (I’ll get to them…eventually)…so maybe this has already been stated, but this test seems to be both interesting and inane at the same time. Interesting because of the number of films that do not pass the test, but inane because it admittedly gauges nothing but female presence (but tosses out female presence that does not meet a seemingly arbitrary “topic” test). I think that the anti-romance clause of this test is absurd in that comedy and romance (meaning the success or failure of each) are two of the most compelling reasons for audiences to watch films — even when it’s not the main plot, romance is usually a compelling sub-plot.
However, as someone who writes short fiction, I think this is an interesting challenge that I will take up. I also realize that the “systemic” problem here is that movies do typically have a “male gaze” that relegates women to the types of roles that keep them from talking to each other about things other than men. But…I’m not sure this is all a big male conspiracy (intentional or otherwise). Maybe this is sexist, but I think women like to watch movies about the leading men they are in love with or the leading ladies who are trying to meet and marry the leading men they are in love with, or a group of women bitching about men they love or don’t love, or… I think you get the picture. Even movies targeted to female audiences seem to tend to keep the woman-on-woman action pretty sparse — which I’m going to attribute to jealousy. I think women will identify with the leading woman to the point that they will feel animosity toward some other female character of any real weight (think how many movies that pass this test are about jealousy or competition between women).
A friend of mine was telling me the story of a party she had a few weeks ago at which a man, her good friend’s fiance, grabbed her butt when no one was looking. But she can’t tell her good friend about this, because, as she said, “women always blame the other woman.” So, as much as this trend might say about men and the “male gaze,” I think it says a lot about women and the society of women as well.
But men (again, this could be totally sexist) surely contribute. They seem to want to watch a movie about a dashing man, pair, or group of men engaged in daring-do, one of whom gets with beautiful leading lady, or at least blows stuff up in the presence of beautiful lady, or…well…I think that’s about it. We’ll deal with the touchy feely stuff if pressed.
And another thing! I’d like to see a list of all the movies that PASS the test. The fact that we can run off a list of failures doesn’t mean there aren’t a good number of non-failures. But one of the reasons that the list of failures probably seems so shocking is that it includes a bunch of big-budget or acclaimed or high-grossing films. But it seems that many of the movie genres that do well at the box office or at least do well enough that studios keep dipping into that can for more are things like action movies, cop dramas, war films, sci-fi/fantasy, westerns, and so on, all invented by adolescent boy minds (all men are adolescent boys) and consumed by the same. RomComs necessarily involve the violation of rule 2, as do seemingly all “chick flicks” not in the romcom category. But still, there have to be a great many films that pass the test…especially if we discount categories of movies that, by their nature, seem to necessitate the exclusion of women or at least any more than one woman (war movies, for example, and a lot of westerns).
So what I’m saying is that I don’t know if “systemic” is the right choice of words. I think that the product is designed to satisfy the needs, wants, and desires of both men and women — and both sexes seem to like movies without the type of complexity that involves multiple women talking about things other than men…probably because women talking about men is one of the most complex and interesting things there is, meaning that’s what people want to see. Nobody said life was fair (or balanced).
June 21st, 2010 at 6:25 pm
@ Erwin wrote:
And by boys Erwin’s quote surely means all boys, heterosexual or otherwise. I think this phenomenon is the most interesting aspect of the discussion, and might lead to insights on the original question.
Yes, straight boys want the token breasty sex symbol bouncing around the screen from time to time, but when all is said and done, they seem to want their protagonists male. And the protagonists is ultimately the character we are supposed to care about.
Just as we do a disservice to women, I also think we sell short films supposed target demographic — teenage males. It is assumed that all they want is sex and to watch shit blow-up, but I wonder. I wonder if both problems don’t share a common origin, and thus a single solution.
Do boys only want the schlock that Hollywood so often produces for them, or is this just all that is targeted to them, so they never really learn better, never really learn what an emotionally satisfying, complex story is really all about.
There’s a much longer comment here somewhere but I have a feeling I’m preaching to the choir, so I’ll just shut up.
(And thanks John for this site. We need more like it.)