Saturday, October 30, 2021

Woman to Woman

 While rewatching Edward Scissorhands in honor of Winona's 50th birthday, Pamela noticed that it had passed the Bechdel Test in the first five minutes. This is especially noteworthy given that it is a 1990 film with male title character.

To review, the Bechdel test started as a bit of a joke on the part of cartoonist Alison Bechdel. 

Pamela meeting Alison Bechdel in 2019

Noticing the dominance of male perspectives in film, she devised what she thought would be a de minimis test of female presence in a film. The low bar has three requirements that are not met by an amazing number of films -- even today, and sometimes even by films with female title characters. 

A film passes if it:

  1. Includes two named female characters 
  2. Those characters have at least one conversation
  3. That conversation is not about a man
Some very good movies fail this test and some very bad ones pass it. Still, we cannot help but view films through this lens. Sometimes we finish a film without noticing, we are not certain whether a certain conversation qualifies, or we simply have not seen a film in a long time. For these occasions, we can consult the Bechdel list for another opinion, as we are doing for this blog post.

Herewith, a smattering of Our Noni's works, according to their Bechdel status. Each includes a link to our review and its croquet-ball score.

Passing Bechdel

S1m0ne (3)
Dracula (4)

Failing Bechdel


* = films we re-watched as part of the 50th birthday celebration; a spooky subset of the Winona oeuvre

Grand Finale

In the process of looking these up, Pamela found this gem from 2014: How to Make an American Quilt - Does it pass the Bechdel Test? Well, does it? Read our review to see our rating and commentary from each of us about whether it might or might not. Also see the Bechdel list entry for the semi-official ruling.

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