(NSFW: Suggestive Language and Sexual content in the comments)
I may not understand the Schrodinger's Cat experiment perfectly (I'm not, alas, a quantum physicist), but I do understand the Bechdel test. This is another test whose value is largely in the mind and in understanding the larger implications, and yet it's frequently misunderstood when brought up in conversation and particularly in reference to specific works. The test itself is fairly simple: does the work in question have two female characters who have a conversation with each other about something other than a man? Yes or no?
There's wrangling over the details, of course. Do the two female characters need to have names or a minimum of screen presence? Does the conversation need to be a back-and-forth or will a single line from one female character directed to another female character do the trick? Can the topic be a man, if the man is being discussed in a professional (i.e., not relational) capacity? If a single unnamed female cop asks a single unnamed female desk clerk, "Have you seen this man?" in the course of a criminal investigation and otherwise there are no female characters for the rest of the movie, is that "good enough" to pass the test?
There are fights over these questions. Serious ones. Speaking as a member of both the Firefly and the Star Trek: Voyager fandoms, there can be seriously hurt feelings and angry recriminations when the Bechdel test is brought up. Short version for the uninitiated: Voyager had a long history of sexually exploiting its female characters and focusing everything through Male Gaze lenses, but over the long running series, there were still many conversations between the female characters on the nature of humanity, the burden of responsibility, and the importance of finely ground organically grown coffee. Firefly, on the other hand, is generally seen as a more feminist-friendly work, but the series ran for a very short time and the Bechdel examples are fewer and farther between. It is impossible to bring this up online without hurting feelings. And, in fact, the whole thing usually degenerates into a few people explaining that the Bechdel test is not a measure-o'-feminism and a lot of people responding then what is it good for?! and then everyone walks away frustrated and unsatisfied.
It's true: the Bechdel test isn't a measure of feminism in a work. It's not a measure of whether or not a work is good. It's only very rarely even used as a reason to see or avoid a movie, and when it is, it's a question of personal taste and choice on the part of the viewer. So what is the test good for? Most people, myself included, use the Bechdel test as a thought experiment only. The question isn't "is this particular movie worth watching". The question isn't even really "does this particular movie pass the test", although that consideration is part of the bigger question. No, the real question the Bechdel test makes us consider is "why is it so hard to come up with a list of examples that pass the Bechdel test?"
Go back to the Firefly example above. Name me a scene where two women have a conversation that isn't about a man. Well, you'll probably reach for the Kaylee/Inara pampering scene where Inara brushes out Kaylee's hair in her shuttle. Name me a second one. Well, you'll dig down and pull out Kaylee asking Inara how many of her male clients wanted to take her away from her life as a Companion. We'll let you have that one, even though it's sort of about men, because I'm nothing if not reasonable. Name me a third one. Well... didn't Inara have a female client in one episode? We'll count that, even though it's somewhat overlaid with male gaze which is even lampshaded by Jayne's announced intentions... and even though most of what Inara and her client talk about are, in fact, men. Name me a fourth one. Um. Okay, surely the gals must have had some light banter around the dinner table at some point, and wasn't there that one scene where River states to Kaylee that she is badass? Not really a conversation, but we'll count it. Name me a fifth one. A sixth. A seventh. How many can you give me? Not ten, I'll bet.
Now name me thirty scenes in Firefly that feature two men having a conversation that isn't about a woman. I'll bet you can do that in ten minutes with plenty of scenes to spare. The men discuss reavers, the Alliance, the ship, the state of the finances, and the likelihood of the ambush they're flying into frequently and often. They have side discussions about wealth and privilege and religion and politics and guns. They discuss the moral implications of their thieving lifestyle, and they wrangle over how their lives will be affected if they give away money they can't afford and make enemies they don't need in order to help people they don't know. They discuss their loyalties to one another, and where those boundaries lie. They even talk about silly hats and hilarious bar ballads.
None of this means that Firefly is a bad show; I love Firefly. None of it means it's an anti-feminist show: the women are three-dimensional characters in their own right, and they're nuanced and complicated and thoroughly interesting to me. (YMMV, of course.) No, the value of the Bechdel test here isn't to trash Firefly or make it out to be a bad show because it's failed to give the female characters a voice.
Instead, the value of the Bechdel test here is to get the viewer thinking about the ways our society views women and the ways it views men. If your women on screen only interact with one another in stereotypical "feminine" ways -- in this case, largely talking about and growing interpersonal relationships -- then as a writer, you've failed to recognize and reflect the reality that women frequently and daily have conversations with each other about regular stuff. We talk about our jobs. We share our aches and pains. We discuss movies and TV shows and food and books. We exist as regular people, just as regular as the men around us.
The Bechdel test is a question of presence. Reading through the listings on the Bechdel Movie List, one is struck by how many films fail at the first point by only having one (or zero!) named female characters. Those tests that do pass, frequently hinge on split-second 'conversations' -- "Can I use the bathroom?", in one instance, and "Angel, no," in another -- that have to be diligently dug from the memories of the viewers reporting back from from the theaters. The take-away here isn't that there are a lot of bad movies out there; the take-away is that it's really dang hard to find the examples necessary to satisfy this simple test.
Presence of women in movies is important. In a world where women make up roughly half the population, it's been shown time and again that we're underrepresented in movies. There are three male characters to every one female character in movies. In group scenes with large crowds, the representation drops to one out of five. If women aren't visible and aren't vocal in movies, this aggregate under-representation underscores an ongoing belief in our unimportance. The Bechdel test illustrates that perfectly, not by picking out "bad movies" in particular, but by illustrating the incredibly unbalanced ratio of men to women in movies in general.
Take the same Bechdel test, and make it a question of race instead of gender. You'll have the same problems, with many of the same movies. It's not much easier to find scenes of non-white people having conversations about things other than white people; and -- just as with the original recipe Bechdel test -- the most obvious aversions occur in movies where the entire cast is made up of the group in question. It would seem that women have the best chance at having a voice when all the men have been excised from the movie, and that non-white characters have the best chance at having a voice when all the non-white characters have been removed from the cast. What can we make of this?
The "Reverse Bechdel test" -- in which the viewer is invited to find examples of two men having a conversation about something other than a woman -- is interesting because of its rarity. The test is usually only 'failed' if either all (or all-but-one) characters are female. These movies exist, it's true, but they're generally marketed almost exclusively to women; rarely is the summer blockbuster movie cast with zero male characters and expected to do well at the box office with men and women alike as excited viewers. It would seem that having a 1:5 ratio of men to women in a movie is generally expected to have similar ratios in the audience, but having a 5:1 ratio in favor of men isn't likely to hurt sales too much.
And this, in the end, is perhaps the real value of the Bechdel test: the solidification of the lowest possible expectations. The Bechdel test doesn't demand an equal ratio of female characters to male. It doesn't look for equal amounts of screen time or character importance or impact on the plot. It starts with the very basic question: of all the many, many characters in this movie -- ten, or fifteen, or twenty, or more -- are at least two of those characters female? And in this first step, an astonishing number of movies fail. And if we adjust for race and ignore gender, we still see a surprising number of movies that fail. What can we make of this?
Well, one possibility is that the roles are being written as white male characters who need white male actors. Fair enough. If you're writing a screenplay for an Apollo 13 remake, I guess you can't stock the space shuttle with a Chinese woman, a black man, and a Native American transgendered person. That wouldn't be historically accurate. But here's the thing, almost none of the movies I watched this year dealt with historical figures who had to be X gender and Y race or else be Historically Inaccurate. And 90% of the movies I watched this year could have been cast entirely from random selection of race and gender for 90% of the roles. And yet... for some reason... they weren't.
I can't tell you why that is, because there are a lot of possible reasons at play here. Maybe writers tend to be predominantly white males who therefore predominantly write white male characters. Maybe casting directors tend to be predominantly white males who therefore predominantly cast white male actors in parts -- or perhaps they predominantly over-value the white male dollar at the box office and cast according to the assumption that white male audiences want white male actors. Maybe directors tend to cut parts written for non-white non-male characters as being less valuable to the overall piece than the parts written for the white male characters. Maybe a lot of things.
What I can say is that this sort of thing is sharply outlined by thought experiments like the Bechdel test. What I can say is that it takes something like the Bechdel test to get people to stop talking individual movies -- which largely boil down to preference, interpretation, and fan wars -- and to start talking cultural trends. What I can say is that this conversation is precisely why we need a Bechdel test, why we need lots of Bechdel tests, for gender and race and sexual orientation and a variety of other measures. The Bechdel test sharply outlines what our society presents as normative, as the "default" form a character does and should take.
That is what the Bechdel test is for. Not for the one-off artistic efforts, but for the aggregate effect as a whole on minority voices in our culture.
--Ana Mardoll
The Bechdel Test, Bechdel-Wallace Test, or the Mo Movie Measure, is a sort of litmus test for female presence in movies and TV. The test is named for Alison Bechdel, creator of the comic strip Dykes To Watch Out For, who made it known to the world with this strip.Most people who talk about Schrodinger's Cat do so with the understanding that the "experiment" is a thought experiment only. The concept of the Schrodinger's Cat is used to illustrate in the mind an aspect of quantum physics, namely how (if I understand correctly) an event at a purely quantum level could have a practical effect on the physical world. There's no real value, however, in going out and getting a cat and a box to put it in -- the "experiment" in question is in the mind, and not in the box.
In order to pass, the film or show must meet the following criteria:
1. it includes at least two women* (some make the addendum that the women must be named characters)...
2. who have at least one conversation...
3. about something other than a man or men.-- TV Tropes
I may not understand the Schrodinger's Cat experiment perfectly (I'm not, alas, a quantum physicist), but I do understand the Bechdel test. This is another test whose value is largely in the mind and in understanding the larger implications, and yet it's frequently misunderstood when brought up in conversation and particularly in reference to specific works. The test itself is fairly simple: does the work in question have two female characters who have a conversation with each other about something other than a man? Yes or no?
There's wrangling over the details, of course. Do the two female characters need to have names or a minimum of screen presence? Does the conversation need to be a back-and-forth or will a single line from one female character directed to another female character do the trick? Can the topic be a man, if the man is being discussed in a professional (i.e., not relational) capacity? If a single unnamed female cop asks a single unnamed female desk clerk, "Have you seen this man?" in the course of a criminal investigation and otherwise there are no female characters for the rest of the movie, is that "good enough" to pass the test?
There are fights over these questions. Serious ones. Speaking as a member of both the Firefly and the Star Trek: Voyager fandoms, there can be seriously hurt feelings and angry recriminations when the Bechdel test is brought up. Short version for the uninitiated: Voyager had a long history of sexually exploiting its female characters and focusing everything through Male Gaze lenses, but over the long running series, there were still many conversations between the female characters on the nature of humanity, the burden of responsibility, and the importance of finely ground organically grown coffee. Firefly, on the other hand, is generally seen as a more feminist-friendly work, but the series ran for a very short time and the Bechdel examples are fewer and farther between. It is impossible to bring this up online without hurting feelings. And, in fact, the whole thing usually degenerates into a few people explaining that the Bechdel test is not a measure-o'-feminism and a lot of people responding then what is it good for?! and then everyone walks away frustrated and unsatisfied.
It's true: the Bechdel test isn't a measure of feminism in a work. It's not a measure of whether or not a work is good. It's only very rarely even used as a reason to see or avoid a movie, and when it is, it's a question of personal taste and choice on the part of the viewer. So what is the test good for? Most people, myself included, use the Bechdel test as a thought experiment only. The question isn't "is this particular movie worth watching". The question isn't even really "does this particular movie pass the test", although that consideration is part of the bigger question. No, the real question the Bechdel test makes us consider is "why is it so hard to come up with a list of examples that pass the Bechdel test?"
Go back to the Firefly example above. Name me a scene where two women have a conversation that isn't about a man. Well, you'll probably reach for the Kaylee/Inara pampering scene where Inara brushes out Kaylee's hair in her shuttle. Name me a second one. Well, you'll dig down and pull out Kaylee asking Inara how many of her male clients wanted to take her away from her life as a Companion. We'll let you have that one, even though it's sort of about men, because I'm nothing if not reasonable. Name me a third one. Well... didn't Inara have a female client in one episode? We'll count that, even though it's somewhat overlaid with male gaze which is even lampshaded by Jayne's announced intentions... and even though most of what Inara and her client talk about are, in fact, men. Name me a fourth one. Um. Okay, surely the gals must have had some light banter around the dinner table at some point, and wasn't there that one scene where River states to Kaylee that she is badass? Not really a conversation, but we'll count it. Name me a fifth one. A sixth. A seventh. How many can you give me? Not ten, I'll bet.
Now name me thirty scenes in Firefly that feature two men having a conversation that isn't about a woman. I'll bet you can do that in ten minutes with plenty of scenes to spare. The men discuss reavers, the Alliance, the ship, the state of the finances, and the likelihood of the ambush they're flying into frequently and often. They have side discussions about wealth and privilege and religion and politics and guns. They discuss the moral implications of their thieving lifestyle, and they wrangle over how their lives will be affected if they give away money they can't afford and make enemies they don't need in order to help people they don't know. They discuss their loyalties to one another, and where those boundaries lie. They even talk about silly hats and hilarious bar ballads.
None of this means that Firefly is a bad show; I love Firefly. None of it means it's an anti-feminist show: the women are three-dimensional characters in their own right, and they're nuanced and complicated and thoroughly interesting to me. (YMMV, of course.) No, the value of the Bechdel test here isn't to trash Firefly or make it out to be a bad show because it's failed to give the female characters a voice.
Instead, the value of the Bechdel test here is to get the viewer thinking about the ways our society views women and the ways it views men. If your women on screen only interact with one another in stereotypical "feminine" ways -- in this case, largely talking about and growing interpersonal relationships -- then as a writer, you've failed to recognize and reflect the reality that women frequently and daily have conversations with each other about regular stuff. We talk about our jobs. We share our aches and pains. We discuss movies and TV shows and food and books. We exist as regular people, just as regular as the men around us.
The Bechdel test is a question of presence. Reading through the listings on the Bechdel Movie List, one is struck by how many films fail at the first point by only having one (or zero!) named female characters. Those tests that do pass, frequently hinge on split-second 'conversations' -- "Can I use the bathroom?", in one instance, and "Angel, no," in another -- that have to be diligently dug from the memories of the viewers reporting back from from the theaters. The take-away here isn't that there are a lot of bad movies out there; the take-away is that it's really dang hard to find the examples necessary to satisfy this simple test.
Presence of women in movies is important. In a world where women make up roughly half the population, it's been shown time and again that we're underrepresented in movies. There are three male characters to every one female character in movies. In group scenes with large crowds, the representation drops to one out of five. If women aren't visible and aren't vocal in movies, this aggregate under-representation underscores an ongoing belief in our unimportance. The Bechdel test illustrates that perfectly, not by picking out "bad movies" in particular, but by illustrating the incredibly unbalanced ratio of men to women in movies in general.
Take the same Bechdel test, and make it a question of race instead of gender. You'll have the same problems, with many of the same movies. It's not much easier to find scenes of non-white people having conversations about things other than white people; and -- just as with the original recipe Bechdel test -- the most obvious aversions occur in movies where the entire cast is made up of the group in question. It would seem that women have the best chance at having a voice when all the men have been excised from the movie, and that non-white characters have the best chance at having a voice when all the non-white characters have been removed from the cast. What can we make of this?
The "Reverse Bechdel test" -- in which the viewer is invited to find examples of two men having a conversation about something other than a woman -- is interesting because of its rarity. The test is usually only 'failed' if either all (or all-but-one) characters are female. These movies exist, it's true, but they're generally marketed almost exclusively to women; rarely is the summer blockbuster movie cast with zero male characters and expected to do well at the box office with men and women alike as excited viewers. It would seem that having a 1:5 ratio of men to women in a movie is generally expected to have similar ratios in the audience, but having a 5:1 ratio in favor of men isn't likely to hurt sales too much.
And this, in the end, is perhaps the real value of the Bechdel test: the solidification of the lowest possible expectations. The Bechdel test doesn't demand an equal ratio of female characters to male. It doesn't look for equal amounts of screen time or character importance or impact on the plot. It starts with the very basic question: of all the many, many characters in this movie -- ten, or fifteen, or twenty, or more -- are at least two of those characters female? And in this first step, an astonishing number of movies fail. And if we adjust for race and ignore gender, we still see a surprising number of movies that fail. What can we make of this?
Well, one possibility is that the roles are being written as white male characters who need white male actors. Fair enough. If you're writing a screenplay for an Apollo 13 remake, I guess you can't stock the space shuttle with a Chinese woman, a black man, and a Native American transgendered person. That wouldn't be historically accurate. But here's the thing, almost none of the movies I watched this year dealt with historical figures who had to be X gender and Y race or else be Historically Inaccurate. And 90% of the movies I watched this year could have been cast entirely from random selection of race and gender for 90% of the roles. And yet... for some reason... they weren't.
I can't tell you why that is, because there are a lot of possible reasons at play here. Maybe writers tend to be predominantly white males who therefore predominantly write white male characters. Maybe casting directors tend to be predominantly white males who therefore predominantly cast white male actors in parts -- or perhaps they predominantly over-value the white male dollar at the box office and cast according to the assumption that white male audiences want white male actors. Maybe directors tend to cut parts written for non-white non-male characters as being less valuable to the overall piece than the parts written for the white male characters. Maybe a lot of things.
What I can say is that this sort of thing is sharply outlined by thought experiments like the Bechdel test. What I can say is that it takes something like the Bechdel test to get people to stop talking individual movies -- which largely boil down to preference, interpretation, and fan wars -- and to start talking cultural trends. What I can say is that this conversation is precisely why we need a Bechdel test, why we need lots of Bechdel tests, for gender and race and sexual orientation and a variety of other measures. The Bechdel test sharply outlines what our society presents as normative, as the "default" form a character does and should take.
That is what the Bechdel test is for. Not for the one-off artistic efforts, but for the aggregate effect as a whole on minority voices in our culture.
--Ana Mardoll
The Slacktiverse is a community blog. Content reflects the individual opinions of the contributors. We welcome disagreement in the comment threads, and invite anyone who wishes to present an alternative interpretation of a situation to write and submit a post.
@Ross
I think that there is some question of how we define what a conversation is about. See for example earlier in the thread where one person said a conversation was about Steven Colbert, thus a conversation about a man, and the other said it was about politics, thus not.
Or consider the conversations about food in Firefly. In War Stories are Kaylee and River talking about food, or are they engaged in recreational activity of which the food is merely a prop and thus giving us insight into how people spend time when they're stuck in a series of connected metal boxes that really has nothing to do with food and everything to do with the non-trivial question of how people stay sane in the given situation?
Also in War Stories were Kaylee and Zoe talking about food, or about Zoe's experience in the war and how this has forever altered the way she does things? I think we could argue either. (Or both.) The opening question was, "Why do you always slice your apples?" (or something like that, I haven't looked it up) the answer that occupied most of the conversation was Zoe's experience in the war. If we say it's about food it sounds frivolous, if we say it's about the way traumatic experience changes someone and that pervades every aspect of their life right down to their eating habits six years on, that doesn't sound so frivolous anymore.
Or to go back to the beginning, the big Mal, Zoe, Jayne conversation where Jayne makes his, "Ten percent of nuthin is..." speech is entirely about food. They have food, they want money. The person who was supposed to pay them money for the food wouldn't pay them. If they are caught with the food they will get in trouble. The entire conversation, and indeed much of the rest of the episode, is about what to do with the food. If I say that they're talking about food it sounds frivolous, if I say that they're talking about valuable cargo they can't afford not to get paid for, then not so much.
It's been a long time since I last watched the episode Serenity, but it seems to me that almost all of the conversation in the episode was about food, River, or Patience. Not all of it. There were non-conversation lines that weren't about any of those sprinkled throughout. On the conversation front Zoe and Wash discussed a vacation, when Kaylee was injured there was conversation about that, Mal and Jayne discussed interrogating Dobson, Zoe explained Reavers to Simon, I think that might be it for the non-food, non-River, non-Patience front.
Actually, as I was reading over looking for mistakes I realized I definitely left one out Book and Inara discuss how Mal treated her which segways into Mal in general, as I recall. I may very well have forgotten others. Yup, I forgot that the Mal and Simon relationship at the end wasn't just about River but about Simon too, which is a pretty stupid thing to forget. (I think the book think at the end doesn't qualify as a conversation, but I could be misremembering.)
Anyway, I'm letting myself get sidetracked (again) my point isn't how much of Firefly revolves around food, my point is that I think a big difference is made in how we choose to describe things. The exact same thing can seem very different depending on how we say it. Were Kaylee and Zoe discussing food, or war stories? Were Mercury and Ana talking about Stephen Colbert, a man, or politics and society (which is not a man)?
How we choose to describe something can alter whether it passes the test or not and can also potentially alter how we interpret the things that do pass.
Posted by: chris the cynic | Nov 23, 2011 at 05:12 PM
Also, just to pile on the anecdata, Feministe uses the term "prostitution" here:
http://www.feministe.us/blog/archives/2009/07/29/7-key-american-sex-worker-activist-projects/
She's usually pretty up on terminology issues, from what I recall.
Posted by: AnaMardoll | Nov 23, 2011 at 05:13 PM
Third to last paragraph's last line should read:
*I think the Book thing at the end...
When I add something after checking for mistakes I need to remember to check the addition for mistakes.
Posted by: chris the cynic | Nov 23, 2011 at 05:15 PM
Two more links, and then I'll stop spamming, I swear, but I like to back up my posts with actual data instead of just saying I found stuff, no really I did! :)
http://hips.org/
http://swopusa.org/en/node/263
Posted by: AnaMardoll | Nov 23, 2011 at 05:17 PM
Corn is not a vegetable, it's a grain (like wheat, oats, etc.). Corn and potatoes are the only 'vegetables' Spouse will eat too, and he refuses to believe me that corn does not count. He is a super-taster, with issues of texture, so he is quite picky about what he can and cannot eat.
Posted by: Laiima | Nov 23, 2011 at 05:24 PM
In general, why should "food" be considered a frivolous topic that would only concern women (and with which only frivolous women would be concerned)? Food is a necessity. Food is life.
And this is doubly so on shows like Firefly and BSG, where it's no longer a "first world" situation (at least for our heroes), and food takes on even greater importance. Finding and getting food, keeping food, transporting and storing food, maybe even having food that tastes good and you don't need to force-feed yourself--these are life-and-death issues, especially in BSG-verse.
It's similar to the way that I don't think male children should count as "about a man" for Bechdel purposes. When Emma and Regina and Mary Margaret discuss Henry in Once Upon A Time, they're not discussing "a man," they're discussing a child--the most important child in their lives.
Posted by: Ruby | Nov 23, 2011 at 05:27 PM
@Laiima, I think I am a super-taster too, although I know in my case it's not pickyness -- I I really WANT to eat all the lovely vegetables, but they literally taste terrible to me. I can't keep them down anymore than I can keep down, for example, dirt. :(
Posted by: AnaMardoll | Nov 23, 2011 at 05:34 PM
Where did "that would only concern women" come from?
It is precisely because it is a necessity that it is often frivolous. Most shows are not *about* food, and yet, because food is a commonplace necessity, you could *talk about food in any show*.
Two women are seated at a table. One woman says "Did you like the edamame?" The other says "Didn't care for it." The first woman gets up and leaves.
That scene is enough to pass bechdel, and you can put it into a good 2/3 of *any work of fiction that has ever been written* (which is why it's so damned weird that so few things pass.), but in hardly any of them does it advance the plot, deal with the main events of the story, or even reveal much about the character. (It could. Of course it could. you could build a whole very brilliant work of art around that scene. But that's neither here nor there.)
And I think male children should totally count as "about a man". I mean, what's the reason for the "about a man" qualifier in the first place? (Interesting thought. If the women are talking about a person whose gender is unspecified, is it Schrodinger's Bechdel, where they have both passed and not-passed until we learn the gender of the person?) I think part of the reason may be that western culture is pretty hardcore about only ever defining women *in terms of a man*. A woman who is defined entirely as "Man X's love interest" is no less her own person than the woman who is defined entirely as "Boy X's mother".
Posted by: Ross | Nov 23, 2011 at 05:39 PM
@Ana, I knew as soon as I hit 'post' that I shouldn't have said "picky" for that reason. I wasn't being judgmental about super-tasters; it seems a really unfortunate thing to be. Spouse, unlike you, though, doesn't *want* to eat vegetables.
Posted by: Laiima | Nov 23, 2011 at 05:41 PM
Oh look, time before class.
Frivolous topics of conversations that the female characters of Supernatural have had in my series of Bechdel-passing ficlets:
Econ homework. Violence. A birthday. A plane crash. A suicide. Showtunes. Tequila. Death. Past, present, and future. Children. Food. More death. A promotion. More food. Reading. Music. Lesbian sex. Hospital seating arrangements. Art. Vampires. A birth. Another death. Yet more death (apparently I like this theme). Hunting. Veganism. A broken plate. Business as usual. Hunting again. Death. Surgery. Job interview. WTF is going on around them. Playing jacks. Families. Lesbian sex. Demon possession. Lesbian pickup lines. Nightmares. Sick days. The occult. Shapeshifters. Scars. Dancing and death. Destruction. More lesbian sex. Ice cream. Business deals. Alcohol. Death. Hotels. Death. Girl Scout cookies. Magic. Pittsburgh. Business. Death. Death. Death. Death. Escape. Fear. Fire. Cooking. Abortion. Business.
Okay, bored now.
Passing the Bechdel test without using 'frivolous' conversations to do it is not difficult.
Posted by: MercuryBlue | Nov 23, 2011 at 05:55 PM
Ross: And I think male children should totally count as "about a man". I mean, what's the reason for the "about a man" qualifier in the first place?
I assume at least some of the reason is the assumption that a woman is not "complete" without a man/romantic love.
Which is why I don't think male children should count. Henry's primary characteristic is "child," not "man." Specifically, "Emma and Regina's child." Your child is a natural and important topic of conversation and not an example of "women are incapable of discussing anything besides men."
Posted by: Ruby | Nov 23, 2011 at 05:57 PM
Never said it was. But you said you wanted to disprove that in a great number of cases, that is how it happens. You have proven the existence of one case in which it doesn't.
Posted by: Ross | Nov 23, 2011 at 06:01 PM
Which leads to an interesting effect: in many genres most of the "important" dialogue will be people talking about other people. So any conversation between two women will have at least a 50-50 chance of being "about a man" (Usually much higher because we live in this world and not a hypothetical one). And that means that an awful lot of the time, Bechdel-qualifying conversations are going to be about something frivilous.
I don't understand why Important Dialogue would equal (or even lean heavily toward) Other People. o.O
In, say, zombie fiction Important Dialogue is about survival. But I'm stuck on the Walking Dead thread this week.
Posted by: AnaMardoll | Nov 23, 2011 at 06:06 PM
In general, why should "food" be considered a frivolous topic [argument that food is not frivolous removed for space saving reasons.]
Well it should probably be pointed out that relationships are very important. Not always in the matter of life and death way that food is, but they're important.
For that matter, hair brushing is not to be scoffed at either, unless your plan is to shave your head when you finally get around to dealing it.
No matter how deep of a depression one might fall into I recommend always keeping up on hair brushing because if you don't (I'm not talking about missing it once, I mean if you let it fall by the wayside) and your solution is not to cut it all off, severely matted hair is a problem that in my experience is resolved only via a process both long and painful. For all I know occasionally dematting takes less time in the long run than regular brushing, but hours of "Ow, ow, ow, for the love of god* it hurts, ow," are something you're probably better off avoiding.
So I'm not sure that any of the three things mentioned should really be dismissed as frivolous.
(It might be worth pointing out that the person who brought them up and the person who labeled them as frivolous are not the same person. There could be some disconnect between the original list and the label is what I'm saying.)
-
*Your milage may vary depending on religious beliefs or lack thereof as well as your expletives of choice.
Posted by: chris the cynic | Nov 23, 2011 at 06:10 PM
I assume at least some of the reason is the assumption that a woman is not "complete" without a man/romantic love.
There's also an assumption that a woman is not complete without a child. I'm not convinced that's any better.
Also, I feel like there are a lot of things besides, "child," we could put in the sentence, "Your child is a natural and important topic of conversation," and have it be true that would result in a lot of exemptions. Your boss (even if male) is a natural and important topic of conversation, as may be your brother or your father or your lover (even if male.) If we say that a conversation about a male counts if that male is a natural and important topic of conversation then a lot of things go from fail to pass and the waters are muddied severely.
Posted by: chris the cynic | Nov 23, 2011 at 06:11 PM
For me, I usually don't count the "man" exception very strongly if it's not a "relationship" conversation. (I.e., "I can't get Bob to marry me!")
Having said that, again, the point isn't to nail down the Bechdel test to something everyone agrees with; the point is that it shouldn't be hard to pass, period. Somehow we have no problem finding things for fictional men to talk about that doesn't involve women. The "not a man" thing shouldn't be an issue because we'd have plenty of other, not-a-man conversations to point to, so there would be no need to split hairs. :D
Posted by: AnaMardoll | Nov 23, 2011 at 06:16 PM
chris: There's also an assumption that a woman is not complete without a child. I'm not convinced that's any better.
As a currently-childfree woman, I completely (har) agree, but that's not the test. The test is "without a man," and a child is not a man. The boss or father or brother or lover are (in your examples) men, so they do count.
When I was ten years old, I was not a woman. I was a female child. Same thing.
Posted by: Ruby | Nov 23, 2011 at 06:18 PM
Ruby: There's a line of thought that a woman is not complete without a child, either. Particularly a male child. Thus I'm on the side that male children count as men. Children of unspecified gender don't count as men, though.
Ross: ???
http://bechdeltest.com/view/2358/%27tamara_drewe%27/ --subject of conversation: the title character.
http://bechdeltest.com/view/374/10_things_i_hate_about_you/ --feminism.
http://bechdeltest.com/view/1172/101_dalmatians/ --employment.
http://bechdeltest.com/view/47/21/ --blackjack. (Okay, I'll give you this one.)
http://bechdeltest.com/view/212/27_dresses/ --various and sundry.
http://bechdeltest.com/view/954/28_days/ --addiction.
http://bechdeltest.com/view/1806/4_months,_3_weeks_and_2_days/ --various and sundry.
http://bechdeltest.com/view/363/8_femmes/ --there aren't any men with lines.
http://bechdeltest.com/view/1902/84_charing_cross_road/ --life in England.
And that's just the movies listed on bechdeltest.com that pass the test, have the reason listed, and the title starts with a numeral or punctuation. Only one 'frivolous' conversation in the lot.
Posted by: MercuryBlue | Nov 23, 2011 at 06:19 PM
The highly male-dominated SONS OF ANARCHY passes the Bechtel test. This season, Gemma and the police chief's wife discuss saving a beloved local park. I'm sure there are other bits, but that's the one I remember.
Really, if there's a show you'd assume wouldn't pass, it would be SONS OF ANARCHY.
Posted by: Marc Mielke | Nov 23, 2011 at 06:28 PM
Supernatural has actually passed on occasion, too. "Bloody Mary". Three girls at a sleepover. Two dare the third to summon Mary.
Posted by: MercuryBlue | Nov 23, 2011 at 06:30 PM
MercuryBlue: There's a line of thought that a woman is not complete without a child, either. Particularly a male child. Thus I'm on the side that male children count as men. Children of unspecified gender don't count as men, though.
But again, is that the test? Because it doesn't strike me that the Bechdel test has to do with motherhood or lack thereof.
In Big Love, should a conversations between Barb and Margene count if it is about Sarah, but not if it is about Aaron or Lester?
Posted by: Ruby | Nov 23, 2011 at 07:12 PM
Are you also going to argue that the "Bloody Mary" conversation I referenced above doesn't pass Bechdel because it's between female children, not between women?
Posted by: MercuryBlue | Nov 23, 2011 at 07:17 PM
This is from the TVTropes page, which is by no means the end all and be all of definition but it could be useful:
The requirements are just what they say they are — it doesn't make any difference if, for instance, the male characters the women talk about are their fathers, sons, brothers, platonic friends or mortal enemies rather than romantic partners.
Posted by: chris the cynic | Nov 23, 2011 at 07:20 PM
This isn't going to be a popular position among the left-brainers, but my personal position is that it doesn't MATTER if male children are men or if talking about a male suspect counts.
It doesn't matter because if the ONLY conversation between 2 women on a show or in a movie or in a book are about a male child or a male suspect or heck, about the best way to make a peanut butter sandwich.
The point of the Bechdel test -- and this was why I wrote the OP -- is not to file everything away as passed/not-passed. The point is to think about a work and have that "ah-ha!" moment where you think, "Well, there must be plenty of conversations... um... HOLY CRAP there are only TWO conversations and one of them is about a male child and one of them up about a peanut butter sandwich?? WHY DO THE WOMEN NOT INTERACT?!?"
That's my opinion, anyway. I think wringing a precise meaning out of each of the three "conditions" is missing a forest for three trees. I'll shut up now, though; I've had my piece. :)
Posted by: AnaMardoll | Nov 23, 2011 at 07:26 PM
(Failed to finish my sentence. Dang Husband, distracting me with food. :D
It doesn't matter because if the ONLY conversation between 2 women on a show or in a movie or in a book are about a male child or a male suspect or heck, about the best way to make a peanut butter sandwich, then we ALREADY have a serious problem with the way women are being presented in the show/movie/book.)
Posted by: AnaMardoll | Nov 23, 2011 at 07:27 PM
MercuryBlue: Are you also going to argue that the "Bloody Mary" conversation I referenced above doesn't pass Bechdel because it's between female children, not between women?
I've never seen Supernatural, but sure. If test is that two women have a conversation not about a man, then children shouldn't count either way.
Posted by: Ruby | Nov 23, 2011 at 07:34 PM
Okay, found where we differ. I think the test uses 'women' as shorthand for 'female persons' and 'men' as shorthand for 'male persons'. You obviously disagree.
Posted by: MercuryBlue | Nov 23, 2011 at 07:36 PM
I think you want to read "man" as "male" and "woman" as "female" in the test so that you can apply it to movies with non-human but clearly gendered characters. You can note, for example, that _Rio_ has one each female human and female bird, but they never talk to one another as far as I can tell; and I'm told that the same is true for female cars in _Cars II_.
I am having trouble coming up with movie characters, human or otherwise, who are not clearly gendered. It seems like some should exist: but Wall-E is pretty clearly depicted as male, and so is Jabba the Hutt. Maybe some space-whale type aliens aren't gendered, like the big jellyfish in an early STTNG. But if it talks it apparently has to have a gender, and often (as with Wall-E) even if it doesn't.
It's a little odd, because written SF has non-gendered characters even though pronouns get a bit dicey. It should be easier in movies, especially animated movies.
Posted by: MaryKaye | Nov 23, 2011 at 08:00 PM
Laiima: Another supertaster here. I have a smell/taste stat of 18 on a scale from 3-18 on 3d6 (down from 20+ due to aging) and for the longest time I could not walk into a store that sold scented bath products if I wanted to breathe. Same goes for a certain local restaurant that overdoes the garlic. It was like walking into a solid wall of smell. Now that it's "only" an 18 I can finally enjoy incense and mild perfumes but only if they're natural.
I am not physically able to swallow food I think stinks or has a bad texture. My parents taught me how to be discreet and polite about it and didn't force me to eat. I'm almost a pure carnivore but I can only digest birds. Raw veggies, no. Some fruit, OK. Chocolate: YES yes yes yes yes yes yes and most of the time I can tell you what the percentage of cacao is.
The only good thing about being a supertaster and having a ridiculously high smell/taste stat is that wine tastings are wonderful. My brother broke his nose and his smell/taste stat is nonexistent. I envied him that for a long time. And then I discovered single malt scotch.
Posted by: Randomosity | Nov 23, 2011 at 08:04 PM
Ana, doesn't that go against what you said in the original post?
If we're saying that there only being one conversation between women in the work means that there's a serious problem with the work then we're completely doing away with the idea that the test is something that is important in aggregate rather than a way of judging individual works.
There's a reason I didn't respond to, "How many can you give me? Not ten, I'll bet." with, "Of course I can name ten if that's the standard we're using." (Though it is an extremely generous standard, probably far more generous than it should be. If it were more reasonably strict I probably couldn't.) The reason that I didn't do that is because my understanding is that that isn't the point. The point isn't whether the balance of conversations in Firefly is X% of expected or Y% off expected or even right where it should be, the point is that what we're seeing is a trend.
While I might be interested in conversations in Firefly I don't remember, there's not a lot of point in saying, "Well Firefly passed here, here, and here," because it's not about Firefly. If Firefly had undeniably passed several times an episode (which it very clearly did not, but hypothetical in use) the actual seriously wrong thing would still remain.
The point isn't that there's something wrong with a movie/book/show for not passing, the point is that there's something wrong overall because so few movies/books/shows do pass.
That's what I thought the point was, at any rate. But if the argument is that if the show passes by only one conversation "then we ALREADY have a serious problem with the way women are being presented in the show/movie/book," then it has nothing to do with the trend, we're using the test to determine whether an individual work is good or bad. And I thought we weren't doing that.
Posted by: chris the cynic | Nov 23, 2011 at 08:10 PM
Ana, doesn't that go against what you said in the original post?
I don't think it does, but maybe I"m not being clear.
I said in the OP that the Bechdel Test (BT) is not about judging individual works good/bad, but rather examining trends throughout the work in specific (example: Firefly has lots of women, but they rarely interact) and media at large (example: Quite a few movies either don't pass or barely pass).
I am saying now that if a work hinges on, say, 3 conversations out of hundreds of conversations within the larger work, then we have a "problem". I mean "problem" in the sense of "challenge" or "something that seeks an answer or solution". In this case, the "problem" is NOT "can we count Conversation #2 even though it's about a male under the age of 13". The "problem" is "Why do only 3 out of 241 conversations come close to passing this test?"
The answer may be "because it's set in a male prison on a planet populated entirely by males" (Aliens 3). And that may be a darn good reason. Problem potentially solved! But there was a problem there that needed addressing.
I'm not talking about judging; I'm talking about identifying problematic trends within a work in specific and society in general.
While I might be interested in conversations in Firefly I don't remember, there's not a lot of point in saying, "Well Firefly passed here, here, and here," because it's not about Firefly.
Right! It doesn't matter that Firefly passed or failed. What matters is the percentage and the whys behind why that percentage is so abysmally low. That doesn't make the work bad -- but it does make it problematic.
Splitting hairs? It makes sense to me, but maybe I need more caffeine. :)
Posted by: AnaMardoll | Nov 23, 2011 at 08:30 PM
There are lots of things which on their own, in a hypothetical alternate world would be perfectly fine, but because of the world we live in, ew.
(In fact, this is a favorite form of derailing, isn't it? "What? How is this one particular time that I made fun of someone based on a stereotype bigoted? I was not making a general statement about members of $group; this one particular memeber of $group really is $stereotype! I would have said the same thing had that person not been a member of $group but still exhibited $stereotype! So now members of $group are protected forever from accusations of $stereotype even when it's true? REVERSE RACISM!")
There shouldn't be any reason that Alien^3 needs to explain or justify or defend the lack of bechdel-ness. In a hypothetical world that is not this one, it would just be a thing about the movie, intrinsically value-neutral as the decision to set it in space.
But we live in this world, so it's a problem.
Posted by: Ross | Nov 23, 2011 at 09:16 PM
@Ross--I agree that it's a problem only in that there need to be more movies that buck the trend (to the point where it is not a trend anymore), not that any movie that doesn't pass Bechdel is inherently problematic.
And I do admit to the type of bias Ana talked about in the OP. Jaws and 12 Angry Men are masterpieces, and I have a real hard time calling them problematic.
Posted by: Ruby | Nov 23, 2011 at 09:42 PM
'Masterpiece' and 'problematic' are not mutually exclusive.
Posted by: MercuryBlue | Nov 23, 2011 at 10:15 PM
12 Angry Men
Which is your favorite version? :)
Posted by: AnaMardoll | Nov 23, 2011 at 10:44 PM
'Masterpiece' and 'problematic' are not mutually exclusive.
Someone should quote that the next time there's a Polanski thread. *sigh*
Posted by: AnaMardoll | Nov 23, 2011 at 10:45 PM
... Wait, what? Farnham's Freehold wasn't written as over the top satire?
'scuse me while I hunt down some brain bleach. And make sure I've no other RAH on my shelves. (I know I don't have FF. And wasn't impressed by what I thought was satire. But that was actually serious?
Posted by: Francis D | Nov 24, 2011 at 05:43 AM
How is Bechdel pronounced?
Posted by: kisekileia | Nov 24, 2011 at 10:05 AM
I've been assuming 'beck-del', but it might actually be 'bech-del'.
Posted by: MercuryBlue | Nov 24, 2011 at 10:18 AM
I say b-eh-ssh-del, but I've no idea if that's right or not...
Posted by: AnaMardoll | Nov 24, 2011 at 10:29 AM
*phonetics geek on*
In English, the phoneme [ch] is most commonly pronounced /ch/ as in church, next most common is /ck/ as in Bach, third most common is /sh/ as in machine.
In syllable final position, usually it is /ck/.
So my guess is /beck' del/.
*phonetics geek off*
*wanders off to start making dressing (not stuffing, because it is not going IN the turkey)*
Posted by: cjmr | Nov 24, 2011 at 11:22 AM
As far as Bechdel-pass-heavy books, I think I definitely can't go past Tamora Pierce. Her stuff is awesome. For example, the first book in the Immortals Quartet pretty much passes on the very first page, and continues pretty steadily from there.
The Song of the Lioness quartet not so much, but that has good reason, since much of it is set in mostly-male environments, and it does pass anyway - just not quite as frequently.
Posted by: Darth Ember | Nov 24, 2011 at 11:39 AM
The novel my friend is working on passes several times that I can think of offhand. I can't wait for her to publish it so I can rec it to y'all. She's self-publishing, which is a mark against her in hapax's eyes, I know, but she's good.
Posted by: MercuryBlue | Nov 24, 2011 at 12:04 PM
She's self-publishing, which is a mark against her in hapax's eyes, I know, but she's good.
Wait wait wait a minute.
I have never, ever, said that "self-publishing" is an indicator of quality. (Well, except when I use "self-publish" as a catch-all for the whole business of "self-editing, self-formatting, self-packaging, etc.", which generally turns out to be sub-par, because one person can rarely do such very different skills well, and editing your own work is pretty much always a Bad Idea.)
There are many, many, excellent self-published authors out there. Some have basically set up one-person publishing houses, and put out a very professional product. Some work through the subsidy presses ("vanity houses"), which are well suited for very specialized niche topics and genres. Some go through Lulu or similar sources, and offer frank disclaimers that these are works produced solely For The Love.
There's nothing wrong with *any* of these models. I have bought books both for my library and my personal use from all of them, and have enjoyed them.
What I have said, and still maintain, that the world of self-published materials is pretty much a vast slushpile. There is great stuff out there, but there isn't (yet) a reliable method of finding it.
And if self-publishing becomes the dominant model, it's going to be a nightmare for libraries; because decentralized distribution will vastly increase the proportion of resources that will have to be devoted to the technical processes of acquisition rather than to purchasing materials themselves, and make it much harder to obtain discounts.
Posted by: hapax | Nov 24, 2011 at 12:20 PM
Bechdel pronounces her own name 'Beck-del'.
Posted by: Kit Whitfield | Nov 24, 2011 at 12:29 PM
Someone else who understands the difference.....
Posted by: P J Evans | Nov 24, 2011 at 12:48 PM
dang, stupid computer lost the first line. That was about the difference between stuffing and dressing.
Posted by: P J Evans | Nov 24, 2011 at 12:48 PM
hapax: I retract the remark.
Posted by: MercuryBlue | Nov 24, 2011 at 01:45 PM
Spouse and I just saw the new Muppet movie, and it passes the Bechdel test.
There was some racial and ethnic diversity, but some of it was stereotypes. And not nearly as many female characters as it seemed like there should be, given how big the cast of the muppets is.
However, it was lots of fun, and I enjoyed it thoroughly. (Far more than I likely would've enjoyed what we'd originally meant to see - the new Hoover movie.)
Posted by: Laiima | Nov 24, 2011 at 07:44 PM
Laiima -- I just saw it with hapaxdaughter, and we said the same thing! (Aside from sniffling and cheering in the proper places)
Daughter also pointed out that the trailer to BRAVE was the first commercial she ever saw that passed the test.
Posted by: hapax | Nov 24, 2011 at 10:37 PM
@hapax, I cried through great swathes of it. I wasn't expecting to, but it really tugged my heartstrings.
I'd like to see the movie about the whales. I have a redhaired niece (although she's not Scottish); I'm undecided about that one [BRAVE].
Posted by: Laiima | Nov 24, 2011 at 11:11 PM
I think some of the criticism is valid--like the fact that there are no Asians in a 'verse where Chinese is one of the main languages? WTF?
Perhaps the conversation has moved on but, that pretty much sums up a lot of my feelings about Joss Whedon. It's just so frustrating, he always seems to think *just* enough to avoid one or two of the most obvious mistakes, but far too often replaces them with something only slightly better). It wouldn't be so bad if it weren't for the fact that it's so damn hard to find things that do it better, and ridiculously easy to find things that are worse.
Posted by: malpollyon | Nov 25, 2011 at 05:33 AM
As a matter of curiosity, how much more often would Firefly pass if Wash, Book, Jayne, and Simon were all female? A very high proportion of conversations in the show either directly involve Mal or are largely about him.
Dollhouse I intend to avoid. I kind of wish Whedon had had the idea earlier, when one of his previous series was still running: it might have made an interesting, though still VERY disturbing, episode or mini-arc in pretty much any of them. But as the premise for a WHOLE SERIES? More squick than I can take.
Posted by: Makhno | Nov 25, 2011 at 10:46 AM
BTW, about the Companions' blacklist - no, that's not how capitalism works, but are the Companions organised on capitalist lines? They might be a co-operative. Or they might be a franchise in which each individual Companion is self-employed.
Posted by: Makhno | Nov 25, 2011 at 10:59 AM
As a matter of curiosity, how much more often would Firefly pass if Wash, Book, Jayne, and Simon were all female?
*Googles Firefly transcripts*
With everyone but Mal female, "Serenity" passes:
"Train Job" passes: "Bushwhacked" passes in the very first scene. Jayne and Wash basketballing. I'm not going to copy-paste any further. "Shindig", second scene. Wash and Zoe, Persephone. "Safe", first scene, River playacting and Simon annoyed. "Our Mrs. Reynolds" takes till halfway through the script but we do finally get Wash and Zoe talking about 'Saffron'. "Jaynestown", first scene, Simon and Kaylee talking about swearing. "Out of Gas", Book's stories about the monastery (er, convent) and assorted reactions to same. "Ariel", first scene, Simon trying to get River to eat. "War Stories", Book and Simon about River. "The Message", Simon and Kaylee, "Yep, that's a cow fetus." "Heart of Gold" we don't even need to worry about genderswap: it passes with Nandi and one of her girls in the first scene. "Objects in Space", Simon and Kaylee about Simon's school antics. And Serenity, again no genderswap needed, River and the teacher in the first scene.That's just one example from each episode. I could find more easy. Amazing how increasing the representation of women in a show makes it easier for the show to pass Bechdel.
Posted by: MercuryBlue | Nov 25, 2011 at 11:09 AM
On the topic of Firefly and Asians:
I'm pretty sure I saw some in it, actually... I've not watched some of the eps in ages, so I'm not entirely sure, but off-hand I can remember at least one guy I saw in Shindig - one of the rich dudes at the party, and possibly his date. That's just me thinking back at a moment's notice.
Posted by: Darth Ember | Nov 25, 2011 at 11:16 AM
Kaylee was supposed to be Asian, but they found Jewel Staite before they found an Asian actress. Which says something really shitty about the availability of Asian actresses.
Posted by: MercuryBlue | Nov 25, 2011 at 11:24 AM
After watching the Broadway show 'trailers' before the Macy's Parade yesterday, I started wondering about Broadway musicals and Bechdel...
Posted by: cjmr | Nov 25, 2011 at 11:28 AM
Wicked passes.
The lesbian subtext is actual text.Posted by: MercuryBlue | Nov 25, 2011 at 11:31 AM
"I Didn't Dream of Dragons", mentioned earlier in the thread, is by Deepa D. (![[personal profile]](https://s.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
deepad), who is pretty much made of awesome.
Posted by: mercredigirl | Nov 25, 2011 at 12:09 PM
Well, I wasn't suggesting it WOULDN'T pass more often; it's not entirely The Mal Reynolds Show, and obviously that would vastly improve the statistical likeliness of it passing. I was just interested to see if that would elevate it to "passes consistently throughout". It sounds as if it pretty much would. Hmmm. Maybe it's a bit less Mal-heavy than it often feels. (I didn't really have a point, let alone an on-topic one, it was just a thought that randomly occurred to me.)
Hamlet's failure depends on how Gertrude and Ophelia's dialogue in IV.5 is interpreted. The viewer / reader's guess is at least as good as Gertrude's as to what exactly Ophelia is on about. Can it be said to be *about* Hamlet and/or Polonius? Or is it about the anonymous "hes" of the songs? Do those "hes", not being real in the context of the play even if Ophelia *makes* the songs refer to real people, count as men? Can they be said to be having a conversation, given that after the first two lines they stop engaging with each other and just talk AT one another? Are the first two lines enough, amounting as they do to little more than a greeting?
Posted by: Makhno | Nov 25, 2011 at 02:29 PM
Well, I wasn't suggesting it WOULDN'T pass more often; it's not entirely The Mal Reynolds Show, and obviously that would vastly improve the statistical likeliness of it passing.
Well, more relevantly, how much would it pass (or fail) if the genders were flipped -- if Kaylee, Zoe and River were male and Jayne, Walsh and Brooks were female? It would obviously pass more often if the entire cast that isn't Mal was female, simply by the virtue of statistics.
That was my first thought actually, on reading the thread, but I couldn't figure out how to say what I wanted to say, which is that it doesn't actually matter that much. I don't really want to defend Firefly and argue that while it is not sufficiently passing the Bechdel test, that's OK, because, like, y'know circumstances. But I like to figure out the excuses that people might give to themselves, so I can avoid doing the same.
Posted by: brjun | Nov 25, 2011 at 05:32 PM
I think that the idea of a reverse Bechdel test is valuable specifically because it does control for the idea that the problem isn't about women so much as a lack of mono-gendered conversations in general. I have no idea how Firefly would stack up and I'm not about to find out*. It doesn't really matter, like the actual Bechdel test the use of a reverse one would be to show a general trend. If you really want to see how strong this trend is, watch the gyrations some go through to try to make a reverse Bechdel that is hard to pass.
To try to make it a test that isn't passed all the time they add all sorts of things because the simple truth is that unmodified the reverse Bechdel is passed so very often that it's an extremely rare exception when it isn't passed.**
I think the value in actually thinking about it is that there's a temptation on the part of a lot people to respond to, "Group A is portrayed in this way in fiction," with, "Well what about Group B?" which in this case means, "What about men?" The most useful response I can think of in this case is, "Why don't you check?" Because if one does that the difference will be immediately obvious.
-
* If someone does want to go through everything to see, I think that the number you're looking for is 25. Given that the breakdown is 5-4 and I'm being lazy by assuming all conversations will be two person conversations to simplify the math, and off the top of my head using Ana's very generous standard from the original post I can think of 15 things that pass (with nods to Ruby and MercuryBlue for reminding me of things I would have otherwise forgotten) there should be 25 conversations between men not about a woman or women using that same generous standard.
So if there are, say, 100 of them then, even after adjusting for the fact that there's one more man than woman in the main cast, the women of the show are getting under represented by a factor of four. If there are 200 make that a factor of 8. So on, so forth.
Of course if you're going to go through everything anyway you'd probably be better off tallying up the Bechdel passes yourself and using whatever standard you see fit to judge what passes.
** I'm told that there's at least one genre where it isn't that uncommon for movies to fail the reverse Bechdel, but if that's accurate it doesn't change the point because it is not the case that frequent Bechdel fail is limited to one genre. If the one is across all genres and the other is confined to one, that highlights the inequality as much as anything.
Posted by: chris the cynic | Nov 25, 2011 at 06:37 PM
Back to the Firefly transcripts.
Assuming Radio Operator in "Serenity" is male (not checking because I'm watching something else right now), first scene of the series passes the reverse Bechdel. Ensign and Captain are probably both male, but again, not checking. But the ep definitely passes the reverse Bechdel because Mal and Wash talk about the Captain's ship.
"Train Job" passes; the whole Unification Day debacle. "Bushwhacked", again, Jayne and Wash basketballing. "Shindig", first scene, Wright playing pool with Mal and Jayne. "Safe", young Simon and his father arguing about Simon's Internet access. "Our Mrs. Reynolds", "I married me a powerful ugly creature." "How can you say that? How can you shame me in front of new people?" "Jaynestown", Mal and Jayne discussing whether Jayne's going in packing. "Out of Gas", Mal and Wash discussing the course they're taking. "Ariel", Jayne and Mal horseshoesing and Simon saying he's got a job for them. "War Stories", first scene, "Did you ever read the works of Shan Yu?" Unless that doesn't count because Book segues into talking about River; in that case, Niska and Viktor talking about Shan Yu. "Trash", Mal and Monty getting reacquainted. "The Message", Mal and Amnon about the crew's mail. "Heart of Gold", Mal and Burgess discuss guns. "Objects in Space", Book and Jayne talk about sex, which might not count, and holy orders, which does. Serenity, Dr. Mathias and the Operative about whether the Operative has the right to be where he is.
That's every episode passing the reverse Bechdel. No trouble whatsoever.
This is why I think every episode of a show should pass Bechdel. Because having two characters of the same gender conversing about a subject other than the opposite gender is proven incredibly simple.
Posted by: MercuryBlue | Nov 25, 2011 at 07:07 PM
@MercuryBlue: So, no show should ever have an episode where there's only one character who talks? Or an episode where there's no dialogue of any sort? No shows where all the characters are genderless anthropomorphic furballs?
I think more shows should pass bedchel, and, on balance, things which "pass" should pass "more". But when you start talking about individual movies and individual episodes, your hard-line position seems like an invitation to look for loopholes and technicalities (Like "The Vagina Monologues is technically really a DIALOGUE between the speaker and the audience, so it totally counts!") to get around the fact that the test *isn't* for judging the goodness or validity of individual works, but an intentionally simplistic (In that, by virtue of its simplicity, it excludes a great many explicitly feminist works, and includes a great many explicitly misogynist ones) way to demonstrate just how prevalent the gender imbalance is.
I think the value of any sort of "Reverse Bedchel" isn't that it controls for something or that it allows you to discount certain movies: I think that's still trying to push the Bedchel into a way to pass judgment on individual works. I _do_ think it's useful for establishing a baseline. If 20% of works pass Bedchel but 70% of works pass Reverse Bedchel, that points to the scope of the dichotomy. I don't see it as a particularly useful goal to ensure that 100% of works pass Bedchel, but I would certainly find it laudable to attempt to ensure that a roughly equal number of works pass both Bedchel and Reverse Bedchel.
Posted by: Ross | Nov 26, 2011 at 01:28 PM
I think the most useful application to single works is to go further--if there are female characters, and lately there usually are, *why* don't they talk to each other? What is the dynamic that prevents this from happening? If it is happening with the males, what is different?
I just read _Ranger's Apprentice_ to see if I would recommend it to my son (no). It has two named female characters who don't converse; but if you look at it, that's just a symptom of the bigger problem that the whole book exists to glorify its male protagonist and no one is important except in relation to him. The author is really not interested in any other character, except possibly the apprentice's master Halt, as a character. The problem is most marked with the women because their role is painfully restrictive on top of being totally subsidiary, but it's nasty with the men too.
(Also the horses are some of the worst I've ever seen. They not only bounce right back from being ridden nearly to death, they are *happy to do it*. This relieves the protag of having to feel bad about what he just did to his poor horse. In general the book is set up to relieve the protag of ever having to feel bad, except about receiving too much praise.)
Posted by: Mary Kaye | Nov 26, 2011 at 02:17 PM
So, no show should ever have an episode where there's only one character who talks? Or an episode where there's no dialogue of any sort? No shows where all the characters are genderless anthropomorphic furballs?
Point. Let me amend my position to 'if it passes reverse Bechdel, it must pass original Bechdel'.
Posted by: MercuryBlue | Nov 26, 2011 at 02:24 PM
I read through the thread, and I didn't see anyone raise this point (my apologizes if someone did and I missed them), so let me raise it: the Bechdel test works for female/male characters of the same gender discussing a character of different a different gender. What if the character defies a specific gender? For instance, what if the character, is biologically female, but identifies as either male or female at any given time, and discusses a male character with a character who solidly identifies as female? Where does the fall then? Pass, fail, or try again later? Or a male who is straight but identifies as both male and female at the same time discusses a female character with another male character?
I feel the Bechdel test straitjackets according to gender binaries, but it *does* reveal a truth about our media - there aren't many non-White, non-Male, non-Cisgendered characters in the media. However, applications of the test, just like media, tends to ignore progressive entertainment where transsexuals and transgendered people just *exist* without standing out or being treated different (or even if that isn't true and we are treated as an "other", or something strange), likely because don't really fall into that dynamic. Maybe entertainment progressive enough to include the non-cisgendered doesn't need a Bechdel test, but I still feel that any discussion of sex and gender that breaks down along the male/female lines is shutting out an entire segment of the population who are neither, both, fluid, or some other form of gender that is radically outside of the gender binary.
Posted by: J. Enigma (the Transhumanist!) | Nov 26, 2011 at 03:52 PM
Valid point, Enigma. My thinking is, one, a character who's genderqueer can pass either the Bechdel or reverse Bechdel depending on who zir interlocutor is (unless we know for a fact that, say, your hypothetical identifies-alternately-as-male-and-female individual is identifying as the opposite gender to the interlocutor at the time), and two, I can't speak for all genderqueer individuals or anybody who's trans, but this genderqueer individual thinks getting media representation for half the population is a more pressing need than getting media representation for a tiny sliver of the population. Though if we get a genderqueer rights movement going, or if the gay rights movement picks up genderqueer rights as a cause the way we keep trying to pick up bi and trans rights as causes, I will be delighted to join the fight.
Posted by: MercuryBlue | Nov 26, 2011 at 04:11 PM
Enigma: I feel the Bechdel test straitjackets according to gender binaries, but it *does* reveal a truth about our media - there aren't many non-White, non-Male, non-Cisgendered characters in the media.
I feel that understates the problem: there aren't that many non-male characters out there. Most people are cis-gendered after all, and, while ethnic minorities should have a greater presence, it is possible to have settings in which most of the characters should be white. But essentially 50% of the world is female, and there are extremely few settings which have a vast gender imbalance. Conflating *any* of the other problems with the problem of female characters *diminishes* the massive gender imbalance in the media.
Posted by: LMM | Nov 26, 2011 at 05:21 PM
Y'know what I'm wondering now: is it even possible for a work told in the first person to pass the Bechdel test if the narrator is male? Does his presence disqualify any conversation he reports even if he isn't an active participant?
Posted by: Ross | Nov 27, 2011 at 01:26 AM
The test doesn't say anything about who's present during the conversation. As long as the male narrator isn't participating, we're golden.
Posted by: MercuryBlue | Nov 27, 2011 at 08:26 AM
As long as the male narrator isn't participating, we're golden.
Or even if he is participating, but the two women address some remarks directly to each other.
Posted by: Kit Whitfield | Nov 27, 2011 at 09:55 AM
I keep on forgetting that I need to check every single time to see if it wants me type in random letters and numbers. It is possible that I have, twice now, lost a post into the boundless ether never to be seen again. It is also possible that twice now I've been spamtrapped. It's probably the first.
-
I personally think that the test should be restricted to aggregate so, "if it passes reverse Bechdel, it must pass original Bechdel" is something I disagree with where something more like, "There should be as many things that fail the reverse and pass the original as there are things that pass the reverse and fail the original," is something I'd support a lot.
I write this specifically thinking about TV episodes where the focus on a single character is so tight that if the character is male it fails the Bechdel test (and passes the reverse) and if the character is female it fails the reverse (and passes the original) even though all else is equal. I think such things can be valuable and worthwhile. The problem I see is that it always seems to be a male character in such cases. There should be a much more equitable distribution of such things.
In the course of writing my second attempt at this post I realized that I may be biased here. As I already said in this thread, my own writing often fails because I focus tightly on a single male character. If I am biased, I'm at least pointing out that I'm wrong to do it as often as I do.
So, that's the really short version. Hopefully it posts.
Posted by: chris the cynic | Nov 27, 2011 at 03:32 PM
@chris: I just checked -- you aren't in the spam trap. On the other hand parts of the internet are being a bit buggy today so perhaps you slipped through some cyber cracks.
Posted by: The Board Administration Team | Nov 27, 2011 at 03:55 PM
I write this specifically thinking about TV episodes where the focus on a single character is so tight that if the character is male it fails the Bechdel test (and passes the reverse) and if the character is female it fails the reverse (and passes the original) even though all else is equal.
Point the first, even when the focus is on a female character, often it doesn't pass Bechdel, while anytime the focus is on a male character, it passes reverse Bechdel no trouble. Point the second, as described above, tight focus on a male character does not preclude passing Bechdel, unless the male character in question only interacts with one female character at a time or the female characters with whom the PoV character interacts do not interact with each other. The reverse, of course, also applies, but when do male characters in the same room not interact with each other?
Posted by: MercuryBlue | Nov 27, 2011 at 04:05 PM
Once Upon A Time Bechdel Update: Tonight's episode passes, as Regina and Emma talk about the town and Emma's job. :D
Posted by: Ruby | Nov 27, 2011 at 11:31 PM
And then the fact that you don't see many extra females wandering around
Really? Because one of the things I thought BSG did very well was having a fair number of the random marines/fighter pilots be female. I can think of a couple moments off the top of my head where the soldier with 2 or 3 lines who on other shows would be male was female. (I'm personally quite fond of the marine with a sandwich who lets Roslin escape.)
It's pretty much the only show I can think of where women talking military tactics was a fairly common occurance.
Posted by: Ellie | Nov 27, 2011 at 11:58 PM
I have no idea how the breakdown was in BSG in general, but I do know that when Pegasus showed up with it's overwhelmingly male crew people sat up and took notice* and wondered, "What the hell? Where are all the women?" That doesn't mean very much though, it just means that the viewers had been conditioned to expect more women than that, not that they had been conditioned to expect an equal number of women or even anything close to it.
Someone somewhere has probably done an exact gender breakdown of BSG by now, though I'm not sure how one would go about looking for it. I wish I could contribute more than what I have because all what I'm saying is, "It could have been worse," and there's lot of overlap between "could have been worse" and "unacceptable".
-
Die Another Day is currently on television. Jinx is to a certain extent the female American James Bond. ("American" is included for completeness, not because it has any bearing on what I'm saying.) In a James Bond movie she ends up being rescued (twice), contributing to conversations significantly less than James, and not being the one who works out and executes the daring last minute helicopter escape. In her own movie the male lead would do that sort of thing while she did the rescuing, talking and assorted awesomeness. I want her, or someone like her, to have her own movie. Her own series of movies in fact.
I want the movie where instead of James talking to Jinx's male boss while Jinx looks on taking things in and quietly evaluating what's being said** Jinx is talking to James' female boss (who, by the way, is awesome) while James is quietly evaluating the situation.
-
* I was not one of those people. Shows you how observant I am.
** Actually, I like the fact that Jinx is quietly taking it all in instead of making herself the center of the conversation. Probably doesn't seem that way from how I am online, but in a lot of situations that's exactly how I would be. Once I get going I tend to be pretty involved but a lot of the time I never start talking and instead simply watch, listen and think. It's nice to see a globe trotting action hero do the same thing.
But, what I'm really talking about is the mirror image of a James Bond movie so the female James-equivalent ought to be less like me and more like James. That's a reason, beyond obvious concern over copyright, why it would probably be better to have the main character not actually be Jinx.
Posted by: chris the cynic | Nov 28, 2011 at 11:26 AM
I personally wouldn't watch such movies, because James Bond is not my thing, but I'm sure there's an audience for such movies.
What was the one where the main character was Angelina Jolie and her character's husband didn't end up getting rescued because it wouldn't be masculine enough?
Posted by: MercuryBlue | Nov 28, 2011 at 11:47 AM
I write this specifically thinking about TV episodes where the focus on a single character is so tight that if the character is male it fails the Bechdel test (and passes the reverse) and if the character is female it fails the reverse (and passes the original) even though all else is equal.
Who has read "Stepford Wives" recently? I have, but it's still been a few months and I've slept since then.
Stepford Wives The Book is *extremely* protagonist focused. It's a very short book, possibly a novella depending on the definition, and every scene has Joanna in it. The latest movie remake adds a lot of male-male conversations so that it definitely passes Reverse Bechdel.
Still, I think the book probably passes Reverse Bechdel because Joanna and her husband host a community meeting -- all males -- and Joanna insists on sitting in on the discussion. The men talk to her, but they also talk quite a bit to each other and, subtly, about her. One of the men even insists on sketching her, which makes her very uncomfortable.
I'm not sure, though, that the "conversation" counts -- it's very much happening in the book, but it might not be happening in direct dialogue; it's more of a dreamy "tell, instead of fully showing" novel. In a good way.
Posted by: AnaMardoll | Nov 28, 2011 at 12:24 PM
This is especially strange given that I can think of only three named characters from Pegasus (I know there were others), and they're all female (Cain, Kendra and Gina)
Posted by: Ross | Nov 28, 2011 at 12:24 PM
I saw Hugo. It was a good movie. I recommend it. It made me cry, it gave me hope.
Whether or not it passed the the test depends on how we define things like women and conversation. There was a direct back and forth between a woman and a girl on the topic of the woman's past, specifically her former career. (It definitely passed the reverse multiple times. The fact that you all would have known this if I hadn't said it is obviously unfair and thus a pretty good illustration of what we've been talking about.)
The film doesn't have good people and bad people, it has maybe two or three working people and a whole bunch of broken people. If you don't feel bad for the closest thing the film has to an antagonist then you and I are very much different.
So anyway, film recommendation from me.
-
What was the one where the main character was Angelina Jolie and her character's husband didn't end up getting rescued because it wouldn't be masculine enough?
[spoilers for the movie in question]
The movie was Salt, it was a good movie, but it pissed me off to no end to find out that, apparently, when Salt was supposed to be male the wife got rescued, but for some reason when Salt became female and spouse became a husband it suddenly became inconceivable that girl-Salt could rescue boy-spouse and so he had to die.
Of all the reasons for a character to die, the movie makers being sexists is pretty fracking bad.
And I do not get it at all. She saved the world. She saved the presidents of two countries. Why the hell couldn't she save her husband? Why? It makes me sad.
He has to die, she has to suffer the trauma of watching him die and being unable to stop it, just because someone somewhere decided that a woman can't rescue her male lover? I call bullshit.
If they really couldn't stand the idea of a woman rescuing her husband, they should have kept the spouse female as was apparently the case in the original script (back when Salt was male.) Salt could rescue her wife, their non-problem would be solved, and we'd get a heroic lesbian in the leading role of a mainstream action movie as well.
-
This is especially strange given that I can think of only three named characters from Pegasus (I know there were others), and they're all female (Cain, Kendra and Gina)
Some of the other people had names.
The deck guy who was abducted when Pegasus discovered a civilian fleet, kidnapped the people they considered useful, stripped away the parts that might have allowed the rest to survive, and left the rest to die certain death (but with ambiguity as to whether it would be slow and agonizing or quick and violent) he had a name. I think it might have been Peter.
The guy who got drunk with Saul and revealed that Cain murdered her XO in front of the crew had a name.
The guy that Helo and Galen accidentally kill (for good reason) had a name. (Thorn maybe?)
That said, I'm pretty sure that the people who noticed a difference were talking about the background characters, not the named ones. (Also I've heard that in Razor the crew is more balanced which implies that either it wasn't intentional, or it was they but tried to retcon it after changing their minds.)
Posted by: chris the cynic | Nov 28, 2011 at 04:55 PM
@chris the cynic: I could believe this about the background characters. Background characters all sort of blur together for me so I wouldn't have noticed.
I kind of wonder, though, if it was indeed intentional and very subtle: it seems to me like in a metaplot sort of way, Pegasus was "cursed", and had to ultimately die for its "sin".
(The following contains elements of gender essentialism, spoilers for Battlestar Galactica, and mentions rape)
I think one of the elements throughout the show is the characterization of various dichotomies as *gender dynamics*. The mapping does not strictly follow traditional gender essentialist mappings, but it does still map certain things to genders. The military is masculine, headed by Adama, a man. The civilian government is feminine, headed by Rosalin, a woman. In the early seasons, the viper pilots are characterized by Apollo the professional juxtaposed with Starbuck the loose cannon. For much of the series, the female Cylons are given precidence: the major Cylon characters are Sixes and Eights. Humanity, specifically vis-a-vis the cylons, is represented largely through the Adamas and Baltar. The gender dynamic reverses late in the series: while the "good" Cylons are still represented by the Sixes, the primary conflict moves to the evil Cylons under the command of the male Cavill, while humanity's ultimate salvation is determined by Starbuck. The turning point for the colonials, when things start to go their way, is when the "good" cylons and the humans start working together, which is _also_ when Bill and Laura -- the proxy Mom and Dad of the fleet -- become lovers.
Among the things which are disasterously bad for the humans in the show are things which violate these gender dynamics: when men take control of the civilian government (Baltar, Zarek, Tigh during the coup), and Cain's leadership of Pegasus. And of course, the reveal that the human race as *we* know it is the result of the union between a male human and a female cylon.
Viewed through that lens, the sin of Pegasus could be describe as its being *excessively masculine*. By scrapping her civilian fleet, Cain has effectively (according to the show's gender symbolism) killed off Pegasus's feminine aspect (And it is probably not coincidental that Cain is a lesbian. And now I'm sad because I do not like that symbolism. Oh well. Hoshi's still a good, solid gay character whose orientation isn't tied up in something unsavory), and that is reinforced by the sanctioned, repeated rape of Gina. In that light, Pegasus being overwhelmingly male would be a reflection of what was *wrong* with Pegasus.
(This is the first time I noticed how pervasive the gender themes were in BSG. I am not crazy about them.)
Posted by: Ross | Nov 29, 2011 at 09:56 AM
As I understand it, the writers' "problem" in Salt was not exactly that a woman couldn't rescue her husband and more that they didn't like the husband being rescued (by his wife). That's not better, obviously, but I think it's slightly different, in that they concluded it is unacceptably 'emasculating' for a man to need to be rescued, even if the rescuer is a world-saving action hero. If Salt were a man, would he have been allowed to rescue his husband? We should go to some parallel universes and check.
(Now I'm having flashbacks to the saga of Guy Blood. That dude was awesome; I wonder if I still have a novel world kicking around where he would fit in.)
---
Ross - really interesting points; I'm having to reconsider just how well BSG did with gender after all. I'm not sure how well Apollo and Starbuck fit into the theory, though; several key (beneficial) points for the story involved Starbuck going off on Zany Lone Wolf Soldier Times (finding the Arrow, recovering Anders' group, etc), or with Apollo ditching the military for politics, like when he was president and negotiated the Earth-finding alliance with the Good Cylons.
Posted by: Will Wildman | Nov 29, 2011 at 10:57 AM
@Will: I think maybe that Apollo and Starbuck represent order and chaos. As pilot,s Apollo is the responsible one, and Starbuck the reckless one. Apollo does eventually go into politics, but he goes there by way of *law*. Starbuck, meanwhile, goes on a weird trippy vision quest.
Posted by: Ross | Nov 29, 2011 at 11:39 AM
Because this thread should never die, but just keep shuffling along consuming the BRRRAAAAIIIINNNNNNNNSS of all who dare to stop by:
An on-topic interesting article via Dear Author.
Posted by: hapax | Nov 29, 2011 at 02:07 PM
Gender vis-a-vis race: One thing I've noticed in children's cartoons is that progress regarding race seems to be outpacing progress regarding women to a rather significant degree. For example, one of the many notable things about the excellent-if-you-like-the-property The Spectacular Spider-Man was that the creators took a lot of characters who had been white in the original books and made them people of color, making for a nicely diverse cast when accounting for race. When it came to women, though, it's hard to easily recall episodes that pass Bechdel, even with more than half a dozen women in the show's recurring cast (everyone outside of Spidey is recurring). Part of it was due to the showrunner's insistence in using only characters that had already been established in the comic, which historically skew male--especially when it comes to super-villains--but its still disappointing, particularly since the producer in question has a history of creating kick-ass female characters. Similarly, Generator Rex is notable in that its lead character is a Mexican-Argentinean teenage male, but tends to be full of fail when it comes to things like, for example, expecting us not to find something seriously wrong with the way the protagonist decides to try to scare the women he and his best friend are dating in order to improve their chances of getting to first base. All in all, Avatar seems to be the exception to the rule, and even then it wasn't until season 2 when the gender balance turned anywhere near, um...balanced.
SAD TV Suggestions: This won't last through December, since it's a 13-episode series, but The Middleman, which Mary Sue mentioned earlier in the thread, is really good. It's happy, funny, optimistic, and mostly unproblematic. It also gets props for a Latina protagonist and for passing Bechdel in almost every episode (a huge part of the show is protagonist Wendy Watson's friendship with her roommate/best friend Lacey). It's also the probably the second closest thing U.S. Television has to its own Dr. Who (the first being Power Rangers).
Posted by: Mime Paradox | Nov 29, 2011 at 10:47 PM
Late to the party, but I just want to mention, as I've mentioned before, that Patrick O'Brian's Aubrey-Maturin series has lovely female characters; that there are not only two-woman conversations but three or more; and that they pass Bechdel -- this in spite of the fact that the series is pretty much the Platonic ideal of what people are referring to when they come up with situations where a Bechdel fail is okay (Nelson's Navy).
Posted by: Rebecca | Dec 04, 2011 at 01:51 AM
Mime Paradox, I do see that trend in many shows, but at least in the shows geared to very young kids, I see a ready acceptance of girls as fully human, smart and heroic. There are still usually more boys, and girls of color are still underrepresented, but it's...better than I was expecting? (It would be interesting to actually study, like, what my kids watch on Nick Jr., PBS kids, and Netflix streaming. I'm watching it anyway, or at least walking by. Might as well take notes!)
Posted by: Lonespark | Dec 04, 2011 at 10:14 AM