We don't need to Bechdel test

I’m all for strong female protagonists who are more than scantily-clad sex objects.  

That being said, implementing the Bechdel test as a rating system is ridiculous.

I have no doubt the Swedish cinemas who recently announced they will introduce a Bechdel-test-based A-F rating system have good intentions.

But not only is shoehorning additional ratings onto released films the wrong way to bring about change, the Bechdel test itself is a fundamentally flawed and ultimately useless tool.

I could conceivably understand how a competent, analysis-based rating system that identified misogyny in films could provide some social value, even if it came at further artistic limitations. The Bechdel test is not that system.

According to the “official” website of the test, bechdeltest.com, a movie passing the Bechdel test “does not mean it is at all ‘good’ or feminist friendly, just that it passes.”  

In other words, the only conclusion the Bechdel test draws about a film is whether or not it passes the Bechdel test. It says nothing about the film’s quality or themes.

Some of the most aggressively sexist and misogynistic films I’ve ever seen pass this test. Many high-quality films, without any apparent sexism, fail the test.

“Sharknado” and the Nazis-on-the-moon-epic “Iron Sky” both pass the test.

Nothing against these movies, which are fun in their own ways, but they don’t strike me as being less sexist than, say, the Lord of the Rings trilogy — which failed the Bechdel test.

Even the ultra-sick 2010 indie film “The Taint,” which marketed itself as the most misogynistic film ever, would score higher on the proposed Swedish scale than Alfonso Cuarón’s much-lauded “Gravity.”

For all the claims that the new rating scale will “stamp out sexism,” the fact of the matter is that this scale has little to do with identifying sexism in film.

Sure, it makes sense that a film with at least one non-male-based conversation would be more likely to treat women as more than sex objects or background characters, but that’s often a false assumption.

And if that’s what you’re trying to accomplish, why not implement a rating system that actually focuses on representations of women instead of dialogue scenarios?  

Sure, such a system would be subjective, but so is the Motion Picture Association of America’s rating system.

As the basis for a rating system, the Bechdel Test simply doesn’t cut it.

­— kkusisto@indiana.edu