“Why film schools teach screenwriters not to pass the Bechdel test”
H/t to Kate E for passing along this post from the blog The Hathor Legacy: The Search for Good Female Characters:
While writing Female characters exist to promote male leads for network profits, I realized something I had never quite put together in so many words. It’s important enough to deserve its own article (thanks, Bellatrys!), so here it is: my screenwriting professors taught me not to write scripts that passed the Bechdel/Mo Movie Measure/”Dykes To Watch Out For” test, and I can tell you why, and this needs to be known.
The “Dykes to Watch Out For” test, formerly coined as the “Mo Movie Measure” test and Bechdel Test, was named for the comic strip it came from, penned by Alison Bechdel — but Bechdel credits a friend named Liz Wallace, so maybe it really should be called the Liz Wallace Test…? Anyway, the test is much simpler than the name. To pass it your movie must have the following:
1) there are at least two named female characters, who
2) talk to each other about
3) something other than a man.
So simple, and yet as you go through all your favorite movies (and most of your favorite TV shows, though there’s a little more variety in TV), you find very few movies pass this test.
The simple fact is: Hollywood movie studios discriminate against women. I don’t mean jobs as development execs or above-the-line gigs such as directors (although there’s certainly evidence to suggest that is true as well). I’m talking about female protagonists in movies. The ‘conventional wisdom’ is that girls will watch movies with male or female leads, but boys won’t watch movies with female leads. Presumably this is an attitude Hwood believes continues as the boys become men and the girls become women, otherwise that would mean that the studios have ceded this point only to boys: If they don’t resonate with female leads, then we can’t have female leads. More from The Hathor Legacy post:
When I started taking film classes at UCLA, I was quickly informed I had what it took to go all the way in film. I was a damn good writer, but more importantly (yeah, you didn’t think good writing was a main prerequisite in this industry, did you?) I understood the process of rewriting to cope with budget (and other) limitations. I didn’t hesitate to rip out my most beloved scenes when necessary. I also did a lot of research and taught myself how to write well-paced action/adventure films that would be remarkably cheap to film — that was pure gold.
There was just one little problem.
I had to understand that the audience only wanted white, straight, male leads. I was assured that as long as I made the white, straight men in my scripts prominent, I could still offer groundbreaking characters of other descriptions (fascinating, significant women, men of color, etc.) — as long as they didn’t distract the audience from the white men they really paid their money to see.
You can have all sorts of “groundbreaking” types as secondary characters. Indeed, I think an argument can be made that the movie studios like to see scripts fleshed out with interesting non-white, non-male, non-hetero types for three reasons: (A) To provide characters for viewers (who fit into those ‘alternate’ racial / gender / sexual category) to connect with; (B) To give stories more color and texture by creating a variety of character types; © And the biggest reason: to be able to deflect potential criticism about movies having only white male heterosexual Protagonists. “Okay, it’s true, the Protagonist is a white, hetero male. But there’s only one of him. Meanwhile look at all these other interesting and colorful characters: The funny gay Wisdom figure, the sassy female Romance character, the person-of-color Trickster character, and what about all those wacky ployglots who live upstairs. So don’t you see? There are actually more ‘colorful’ characters than just one white male hetero Protagonist. That’s almost better, don’t you think?”
Uh… unless you take into account that the Protagonist is the primary conduit into the movie for the viewer — which means they experience the story through the eyes of a white hetero male.
Hwood may discriminate against non-white, non-male, non-hetero (and while we’re at it, let’s throw in non-young) Protagonist characters, but that doesn’t mean the situation is static. Things change. For instance, look at the make-up of the horror movie market. 25 years ago, at least 80% of horror movie fans were males. Now that split is about 50–50%. Not surprisingly, we’ve started to see more horror movies with female leads (e.g., I Know What You Did Last Summer, The Ring, The Descent).
Which leads to a few questions. Did horror movies with female leads spur interest in the genre among women? Or did women start following horror movies and Hwood reacted by developing movies with strong female leads? Or some sort of synergy between both?
And finally what does this mean for you as a screenwriter? While I think it’s smart to (at least) be aware of market exigencies and Hwood ‘conventional wisdom,’ bottom line you have to write the story you want to write. If your choices would seem to make your screenplay a harder sell, as long as you write the hell out of the script, you always stand a chance of setting up the project. A great script is, after all, a great script.
Have any of you had a script negatively critiqued because it featured a non-male or non-white or non-hetero Protagonist?
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