Reverse Bechdel Test

A movie passes the Bechdel Test if these three statements about it are true:

  • There are at least two named women in it
  • Who talk to each other
  • About something besides a man.

Surely there should be a movie where two women talk about the Bechdel test. But I digress.

The Bechdel test website rates famous movies. Currently they have rated 4,683 movies and 56% pass the test. More than half of the movies pass the test. There is hope. Right? Actually they have a separate list of the top 250 famous movies. Only 70 movies, or 28%, from this list pass the test.

My son Alexey suggested the obvious reverse Bechdel test, which is more striking than the Bechdel test. A movie doesn’t pass the test if it

  • Has at least two named men characters
  • Whenever they talk to each other
  • They only talk about women.

I can’t think of any movie like that. Can you?

Update (Sep 2023): I should have included the possibility that there are no two named male characters.

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6 Comments

  1. Ionica:

    Sex and the City might work (but I am not going to watch it to verify)…

  2. Tanya Khovanova:

    “Sex and the City: Boy, Interrupted (#6.10)” (2003)

    Stanford: I missed my prom in high school because…
    Anthony Marantino: You were gay.
    Stanford: No. My girlfriend and I broke up the night before because…
    Anthony Marantino: You were gay.
    Stanford: No. I wasn’t gay until…
    Anthony Marantino: You were born.
    Stanford: Never mind.

  3. Graham:

    Hmm… It is some years since I did formal logic but doesn’t any movie which contains two named men who never talk to each other fail the test? Your test seems to be: Movie fails if there exists named men A, B such that “A and B talk” implies “they talk only about women”. Which is true if there exist named men A, B such that A and B talk is false.

    Obviously that isn’t what you meant. But I am genuinely not sure how you mean the test to work. Did you mean that the movie fails if “for all named men A, B, ‘A and B talk’ implies ‘they only talk about women'”? Or the movie fails if “there exists named men A, B such that A and B talk and they only talk about women”?

  4. Gregory Marton:

    Much more common would be the mirror Bechdel, they talk about something other than a woman. “More than half pass” should be viewed in context of how many pass the mirror test.

  5. Jamougha:

    The Devil Wears Prada is the most probable candidate I can think of. It’s obviously quite rare.

  6. aristogeit:

    Since this is edging into politics
    which is not your style
    and I think not mine
    I’m prepositing a new study :
    ask all women who they want for Traveler’s check and you will have you desired 90% number

    according to Traveller’s theorem we deny all previous existence, and all steps in between, thereby creating a new one

    a state needs a lot of people around the center to be maintained

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