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This movie is a great big fail, which is a pity because the one major and two supporting female characters are all shown as well-realised, competent characters with agency. They just never talk to each other.

( Spoilers for who appears in the movie and when, minimal plot spoilers )

noblealice

In Time is a futuristic world where time has become currency. While I really liked the movie, and there were many female characters with names, they never speak to one another.

( spoilers )

foxfirefey

valtyr

I watched this primarily because it has Chris Evans + superpowers, but found it a lot of fun. The plot gets a bit murky and confusing in places, but it does some interesting things with premonition. Some elements that early pinged me as a bit weird later turned out to be deliberately so in a plot-significant way.

What I was surprised by was the diversity of the cast. The film is set in Hong Kong, and while the three protagonists and most of the main group of villains are white, there are supporting heroic characters who aren't white, the primary antagonist is black and there's a separate group of Chinese antagonists. There are three significant characters who are women of colour.

There's also a lot of female characters, and they're pretty cool. A thirteen year old pre-cognitive, an older precognitive, a badass telepath on the run, a psychic surgeon, a tracker. And there's the thirteen-year-old's mother, who appears only briefly but is an off-screen chessmaster type who heavily influences the plot.

The two precogs have a tense rivalry, talking about their powers, the mother, and the predicted death of one of them. The girl and the surgeon talk about the mother. The girl and the precog talk about the telepath. While Chris Evans' character is the lead, the story is driven primarily by the two lead women. All the women are competent, decently characterised, and have their own agendas. While most of the action scenes are men (both telekinetics we see are male; there's some showy use of the powers in combat I enjoyed) there's a couple of decent ones with women.

It's not an amazing movie, but I found it enjoyable and interesting, and it passes the Bechdel test with flying colours and makes it look easy. I would happily watch an entire movie about the two pre-cogs and their rivalry; their scenes together were fantastic.

green_grrl

This movie passes, passes, passes!

There are numerous named female characters:
Hanna - a sixteen-year-old girl raised in the Finnish Arctic by her father and trained to fight
Marissa - the evil CIA agent who was Hanna's father's handler and who is the enemy he's training Hanna to protect herself from
Sophie - the material-girl, teenaged British tourist who meets Hanna-on-the-run and befriends her
Rachel - Sophie's hippie mother, who forms her own bond with Hanna
Katrin - Hanna's grandmother

Since the main plot of the movie is Marissa trying to hunt Hanna down, the conversations Marissa has with all the other women (and all the men she interacts with) revolve mostly around that, sometimes mentioning Hanna's father, sometimes not. That's an easy pass.

In addition, though, this is a movie with other themes and relationships. Despite Sophie's makeup-wearing, gum-popping ways, there's only one scene where she wants to chase boys and ends up dragging Hanna on a double date, and one scene where Hanna talks about meeting up with her father to Sophie. Other than that, Sophie indulges in a rapid-fire patter of pop culture, fashion, eye-rolling at her family, and genuine expressions of friendship—not boys.

Rachel admires Hanna for her independence and down-to-earth qualities, and Hanna spends quite a bit of time in the front of the family van while Rachel drives. Rachel's idea of conversation includes anthropological explanations for lipstick (Saying "labia" in front of your sixteen-year-old daughter? Instant mortification for said daughter! :-) and philosophizing on nature and theology.

I also appreciated that this movie featured a kick-ass heroine, yes, but at no point did she strip down, show skin, put on high heels/high-heeled boots, wear spandex/something clingy/something low-cut, or any other pandering to what has become the stereotype. She dressed to fight. Refreshing!

I'd call this movie a Bechdel home-run.

valtyr

Thor is the latest Marvel superhero movie, and it's a good one. Most of the conversations revolve around Thor, unsurprisingly, but the movie still passes.

There are three named female characters (Frigga appears in the film and is credited, but I don't think she's addressed by name; her sons call her 'mother') the Lady Sif, Jane Foster, and Jane's assistant Darcy. Sif barely interacts with Jane and Darcy, but Jane and Darcy do talk about physics and Jane's work with each other.

In the original comics, Jane was a nurse, assistant to Thor's alter ego Dr Don Blake. Here, she's a physicist studying wormholes and ion storms and stuff; I really liked that she'd been given her own goals and storyline, and that other characters respected her and her work. Her assistant Darcy was also a hoot.

Lady Sif, in the comics, was also a love interest; here, she's been added to the Warriors Three, who in the comics, like here, are a band of Asgardian warriors and Thor's sidekicks. It's worth noting it would have been really easy for the filmmakers to just include the Warriors Three and either ignore Sif or have her backgrounded. She's either been included because they think Sif's awesome, or because they decided they needed more women. Either motivation is good. :) Also, she's a very sensibly dressed warrior woman as well as a badass!

Also, when fighting breaks out, Frigga picks up a sword and throws down. She doesn't have a huge part, but it's nice to see an older woman doing even a bit of action stuff.

Overall, this is one of the best superhero movies I've seen for female characters. Jane Foster is competing with Michelle Pfeiffer's Catwoman for my favourite superhero movie love interest of all time. :)

miss_haitch

I recently rewatched the horror film 28 Days Later and was impressed at how well it stands the test of time. Jim, a bicycle courier, wakes up alone in a London hospital, and things have changed. A lot. People taken over by a lethal "rage" virus run rampant, attacking and infecting anyone in their path. Running from the infected, Jim teams up with Selena and Mark and hides out in a newspaper kiosk. And then the scary really sets in...

It's the low-key and character-driven moments that make 28 Days Later so effective - it's fairly quiet for a zombie film, which for me makes the suspenseful bits almost unbearable (but also a lot of fun). The main characters are likeable, and there's very much a sense of ordinary people having to deal with an utterly extraordinary situation.

I really appreciated having two major female characters - Selena, a pragmatic survivor and Hannah, a teenager still numb from the apocalyptic events. They talk to each other about varied things - surviving, driving, food-foraging and more.

Content notes for the film: rated 18 in the UK, it includes explicit language, graphic gory violence, and threat of sexual assault - and is very bleak in places.

holyschist

Complete Bechdel fail. Not only are there no named women, and no women with dialogue, you barely even see women in the background. The major secondary female character/love interest from Rosemary Sutcliff's novel has been removed (given how they changed the direction of the movie, I can see why, but).

(I did enjoy the heck out of it, but I wouldn't say it's a very good movie either.)

sasha_feather

Not only is this film a Bechdel MEGA pass, it is a true rarity: a reverse-Bechdel-fail. No two men speak to each other during this entire film!

Volver is a story of a family of women, their relationships and troubles, their past and their lives. From IMDB: "After her death, a mother returns to her home town in order to fix the situations she couldn't resolve during her life." I found it funny, warm, and generally wonderful.

There are six women with major roles. Raimunda (Penelope Cruz), her sister Sole, her daughter Paula, her aunt Paula, her mother Irene, and their friend Agustina. There are also neighbors and various other women with speaking roles. There are only three men with speaking roles and they never speak to each other (they only speak to Raimunda).

Warnings for this film include references to (but no depictions of) incest, rape, and violence. It is Spanish language with English subtitles and is directed by Pedro Almodovar.

trinity_clare

Every once in a while I get the urge to make a big batch of cookie dough and watch High School Musical. It was really only a matter of time before I had the Bechdel test on my mind at the same time. The fascinating thing about these movies is that the combination of mathematical gender equality - there are *exactly* as many female characters as male - and giving everyone names for merchandising purposes leads to a surprisingly solid pass from all three films.

HSM 1 -- Bechdel Pass, Mo Movie Measure Pass

The strongest pass in this movie comes from Gabriella and Taylor, who have at least two sustained conversations not about Troy. Beyond that there's Gabriella and her mom (who doesn't have a name beyond Mrs. Montez), Sharpay & Kelsi, Sharpay & Gabriella, and all three girls with Ms. Darbus. Almost every scene without Troy has a good chance of passing.

HSM 2 - Bechdel Pass, Mo Movie Measure Pass

Not as strong as pass as the first movie. Sharpay & Gabriella do a lot of sniping at each other, but only occasionally is it about something other than a boy. Kelsi talks to the girls far more often than the boys, and she has scenes with all four of the other girls in this one. I don't think Gabriella and Taylor talk about anything besides Troy in the entire movie, sadly. The Sharpettes don't have names, so they're a Bechdel pass but nothing more. Ditto Mrs. Evans when she talks to Sharpay.

HSM 3 - Bechdel Pass, Mo Movie Measure Pass

Even though there are actually more sustained f/f conversations in this one than in the last two, it feels like a much weaker pass. Given more time and a bigger screen, they decided to play up the romance, which led to a lot more focus on Troy and Gabriella at the expense of the minor characters. Kelsi literally doesn't speak to anyone besides Ryan, and Martha might not actually speak at all. Luckily Gabriella and Taylor have a much stronger subplot that doesn't intersect with Troy until the middle of the movie. There's also a new character (Tiara) who spends all her screentime talking to Sharpay and exchanges five words each with Darbus and Gabriella.

cyanocitta

Thankfully this movie passes the Bechdel Test as well as the Mo Movie Measure. Considering that there are so many female characters it would be stupidly disappointing if it failed one or the other. Most of the characters are female, they do talk to each other and they talk to each other about a variety of topics. Burlesque passes the Mo Movie Measure, too, and the named female characters actually have personalities that aren't entirely pasted on. The movie is decently feminist all-around although definitely not perfect and definitely cheesy.

Current Mood: okay

crumpetsfortaenia

A pass, I suppose, since Bellatrix Lestrange (evil!crazy) corners Herminone Granger, and threatens her with death and torture, Dolores Umbridge interacts briefly with a disguised Hermione, and with another woman who has been accused of being Muggle-born. Luna and Hermione might also exchange a few words, but if they did, they were pretty unmemorable

Like most of the Harry Potter films, this was very much centered on Harry and his interactions with the rest of the world, and secondary female characters, like Tonks, Ginny and Molly Weasely were significantly cut down in comparison to their roles in the books.

The only really developed female character is Hermione, and she does get some really great moments -- I was particularly impressed by the emotional depth that Emma Watson managed to put into a scene where Hermione erases her parents' memories of her.

And while the Bechdel technical-pass wasn't all that impressive, it was still a pretty enjoyable film.

scaramouche

This film also goes by the alternate title Rapunzel: A Tangled Tale, in my part of the world, at least.

There are three main human characters in this film, two of which are women: Rapunzel and her adoptive mother, Mother Gothel.

Despite the impression that some of the marketing material may have given, Rapunzel is very much the focus of the story. Her relationship with Mother Gothel is the driving force of the story's conflict, and their interactions lay central to the film.

( Character-related spoilers for the film. )

That's the central characters.

There are a couple of supporting characters in the form of guards and ruffians that Rapunzel encounters, but none of them are women. She does cross paths with some women in the kingdom village, but none of them have dialogue. ( One more character-related spoiler. )

ilthit

Not even close to a pass.

( spoilers )

foxfirefey

So, unless it happened in the very very beginning of the movie I missed, Megamind utterly fails the Bechdel Test--one woman with no other women to talk to! ( Even worse (with spoilers) )

valtyr

A definite pass - it's an ensemble, and two major characters are female, Sarah and Victoria. They talk to each other about the men in their lives, but they also discuss the job they're on. And there's an earlier scene where Sarah talks to a female supporting character about her daughter - I can't remember if the mother's name was actually spoken, or if I've just filled it in from knowing her daughter's name. Still, a definite pass, and some named female supporting characters.

Also, Helen Mirren with a big gun, kicking ass! I recommend this if you like slightly cheesy action movies.

foxfirefey

hradzka wrote an interesting essay on mechanical approaches to passing the Bechdel Test.

kareila

This made-for-HBO movie passes Bechdel with flying colors, but I'm not sure it passes Mo Movie Measure. The two named characters are Temple and her high school science teacher, Dr. Carlock, who is male. The other two main characters, Temple's mother and aunt, obviously have names, but I can't recall anyone referring to them by their names during the film, except perhaps her mother as "Ms. Grandin". So I'd call that a borderline megapass. Even apart from that, though, Temple's character is all kinds of awesome and I highly recommend the film.

trixtah

While I'm on a Michelle Yeoh kick, this is one of the better movies she's been in, which could best be described as a slapstick martial arts rom-com. Yeoh plays Yim Wing Chun, who made the school of Wing Chun kung fu famous.

The movie is played for laughs, with lots of slapstick and sexual humour - I'm sure if you know Chinese, there would be a lot more innuendo going on than what can be picked up via subtitles. Wing Chun runs a tofu shop with her aunt, Abacus Fong (King-Tan Yuen), and also dresses as a man and helps protect the town from bandits. Bandits abduct a young widow, Charmy (Catherine Hung Yang), who Wing Chun rescues. Charmy goes to work in the tofu shop, and Wing Chun's boyfriend Leung Pok To (Donnie Yen) suddenly returns from his martial arts studies, and much mistaken identity, bandit-fighting and marriage result.

So, Wing Chun and her aunt talk about marriage (and yes, about men too), Wing Chun's habit of dressing like a man, business and the bandits. Naturally, Wing Chun talks about Charmy's rescue and they all discuss romance, bandits and so on. Before Wing Chun does her final boss fight with the bandit chief, she visits her sifu, Buddhist nun Ng Mui (Pei-pei Cheng, who returns as the baddie Jade Fox in Crouching Tiger), and Mui advises her on the best way to defeat the bandit chief.

The tofu shop fight scene is worth the price of admission alone, and despite the more dodgy humour, there is quite a bit of implied commentary about survival in a male-dominated world.

trixtah

While a good chunk of the plot revolves around the two romances, this is a mega-pass. Yu Shu Lien (Michelle Yeoh) and Jen Yu (Ziyi Zhang) are central characters, and spend a lot of time talking about the Green Destiny sword (no wonder, since Jen steals it and Shu Lien wants to get it back) martial arts, honour, training, weapons, ethics, etc etc. Jade Fox (Pei-pei Cheng) as the antagonist is almost as important, and talks to both the other female characters about most of the same topics.

In fact, the movie barely passes the reverse-Bechdel test. Li Mu Bai (Yun-fat Chow) talks to Sir Te about his intended retirement and bestowal of the sword, and to Governor Lu and Master Bo when the sword is stolen, but otherwise all the action and dialogue centres around the women.

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The Bechdel-Wallace Test

Applying womanly rubrics to movies

Fail: The Avengers (2012)

FAIL: In Time (2011)

The 2012 Oscars and The Bechdel Test

Push (2009)

Hanna (2011)

Thor (2011)

28 Days Later (2002)

The Eagle (2011)

Volver (2006)

all 3 high school musical movies

Burlesque (2010)

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows (Part 1)

Tangled (2010)

Planet 51 (2009)

Megamind (2010)

RED (2010)

Essay -- the Bechdel Test: mechanical approaches

Temple Grandin (2010)

Wing Chun (1994)

Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (2000)

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