Bechdel Test In Hollywood

I was listening to an Elvis interview recently and the radio deejay asked Elvis who his favorite male actor in Hollywood was. He responded, fairly quickly, with three or four names and could list even more. He talked about the movies they were in and how great they were. The deejay then asked him who his favorite actress in Hollywood was. Elvis sat, pondered, and stumbled for a good minute before he listed only one leading lady. A moment later Elvis talked about how great a couple more women in films were, with ease. As if he suddenly remembered all the wonderful women in film, many of whom he had worked with. This is a reinforcement of the fact that ladies in Hollywood are less frequent than males. In actual movies and in the public knowledge.

The Bechdel Test is graded on weather two or more women have a conversation about something other than a man in a movie. If they pass the test, then the movie had women talking about subjects other than men at least once throughout the entire movie. In 2013, “out of 50 total movies analyzed, 17 passed the test,”(Dockterman 2014). This test can be tricky. Other films technically passed, but did very little talking about things other than men. In a movie that came out recently that did not pass the Bechdel test had a female star. However, there were only two main characters, a man and a woman and the woman was clearly the star. The test is a small point in the debate about women in film that some say is accurate while others find it to be nothing more than a silly assumption. None the less the facts do not lie, women in films have many conversations about men. When it comes to movies, you are less likely to see a woman with a starring role. In fact, women are underrepresented in all media. Studies on prime time television programs show an alarmingly low number of women on television. Thirty-Eight percent of women play doctor or heath care roles. That means a whopping sixty-two percent are played by male actors. “In music videos drawn form five music-oriented television networks, male characters outnumber females by a ration of 3 to 1,”(Collins, 2011). In video games, the odds are the worst. Only 70 of 489 characters in top selling video games are