The Bechdel Test
As I am making a film where to protagonist is female, I was interested coming across theoretical frameworks that applied to films made by and about women. One such is the Bechdel Test. The origin of this motion was the American cartoonist Alison Bechdel who created a comic 'Dykes to watch out for' (1985) and offered a set of rules that could be applied to asses the development of female characters in any work of fiction, although it is most often applied to film. In short it is a way of testing how much agency female characters have in films. One way of judging this was to ask the following questions:
- Does the film have at least two named women in it?
- Do they talk to each other ?
- Do they talk about something other than a man?
On the Bechdel Test Movie List website I found a list of recent films that have and have not passed the Bechdel Test:
Researching into the Bechdel Test made me think about the characters and dialogue in my own short film that I am creating . Our film Dreaming Daisy does pass the Bechdel Test as our two main characters are Daisy and Elli two best friends that have multiple conversations that are not just about boys.
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