The Bechdel Test: Which movies pass the test?

[Relaxing Dragon]

Why would you need two women in a movie unless it's for a lesbian scene? Come on!

Technically, that would still pass the test, since I don't think they'd be talking about men

We seem to be missing the big one here, Kill Bill (and also Death Proof, latter half at least. Tarantino likes passing this test).

I thought about Kill Bill, but all the dialogue between women in that is in some way related to Bill or one of the other male characters (Hattari Hanzo, Pai Mei) so I didn't count it.

And I wanted to drive a spike through my head after watching Death Proof's HOUR OF NOTHING HAPPENING EXCEPT PEOPLE TALKING, so unfortunately that didn't count for me, either.

I do applaud Tarantino for his many strong female characters, though.

Well, it wasn't just Bill. It was also about general revenge, especially in the first movie, when the Bride's talking to her first two targets.

And no matter the movie, I love Tarantino's dialogue. I'd watch a three hour movie of one of his characters giving one long monologue (shot with the camera circling around them, of course).

[TTYT]

I'm fine with well-written dialogue - I'd just like a plot to go with it.

Anyways, I think a lot of TV definitely passes this test. I can think of several shows off the top of my head that pass. GO TV!

[Darth Geek]

why is it that "tough, no-nonsense" women are always actively trying to find ways to annoy everyone they meet?

Because "tough, no-nonsense" female characters are usually poorly written with the sole point of disagreeing for the sake of disagreeing. The idea being that if they agree with the male character than they are seen as weak willed and just agreeing with the man. Unfortunately, since the main character is usually the male (often written by a male writer), he will be written more sympathetically. Which means that a character (male or female) who does nothing but disagree and argue with him is just bitchy. And considering that the very definition of bitchy is arguing for the sake of arguing, it's a true complaint.

[stansimpson]

We seem to be missing the big one here, Kill Bill (and also Death Proof, latter half at least. Tarantino likes passing this test).

I thought about Kill Bill, but all the dialogue between women in that is in some way related to Bill or one of the other male characters (Hattari Hanzo, Pai Mei) so I didn't count it.

And I wanted to drive a spike through my head after watching Death Proof's HOUR OF NOTHING HAPPENING EXCEPT PEOPLE TALKING, so unfortunately that didn't count for me, either.

I do applaud Tarantino for his many strong female characters, though.

Well, it wasn't just Bill. It was also about general revenge, especially in the first movie, when the Bride's talking to her first two targets.

And no matter the movie, I love Tarantino's dialogue. I'd watch a three hour movie of one of his characters giving one long monologue (shot with the camera circling around them, of course).

Here, here!     And the women in "Kill Bill" aren't always talking about Bill or Mai Pei.  They're usually talking about killing each other.  PASS!

Btw, I should point out that this test says absolutely nothing about the quality of these films.  Good movies AND bad movies can BOTH pass the test.  It's a matter of representation.  The fact that there are even fewer quality films of this nature is the implication, not a PART of the test.

The mentioning of "Ginger Snaps" somehow reminded me of "Mean Girls".  I'd say that passes... and it's a good movie.  I'd say it's the best non-John Hughes teen girl movie actually.

[TTYT]

They're usually talking about killing each other.

Based on an action those women carried out on orders from Bill...But whatever, I don't wanna debate Tarantino tonight.

[SJP]

Just wanted to add...I just realized that, after writing all that above, I had completely forgotten about a story I had written and posted up on the web, that has about 6 major female characters and the subject of men does come up a lot between them.  However, the subject of women also comes up among the men, so it's not just one-sided, and overall they do come off as much more competent than the male leads in the story, though not so much more so that they come off as completely humorless and shallow...it IS a comedy, after all, and everybody gets a little jab somewhere.

So, on the one hand, I would say that it's possible to have strong characters without this test necessarily being applicable, but it is definitely a lot harder to pull off than it sounds.  And since my writing has clearly proven I don't know what I'm talking about, feel free to ignore everything I said earlier.   

I never did see Mean Girls, but to add one other thing to Ginger Snaps is that it does a great job of making the women not only strong characters, but doesn't make the male characters completely worthless, either.  Most of them are clueless as to what's really going on, but none of them are weak, spineless, or plain old-fashioned dumb.  Even the bully has his sympathetic moments.