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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Ionica:
Sex and the City might work (but I am not going to watch it to verify)…
12 February 2014, 2:24 pmTanya Khovanova:
“Sex and the City: Boy, Interrupted (#6.10)” (2003)
Stanford: I missed my prom in high school because…
12 February 2014, 5:32 pmAnthony 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.
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”?
13 February 2014, 5:56 amGregory 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.
13 February 2014, 6:46 amJamougha:
The Devil Wears Prada is the most probable candidate I can think of. It’s obviously quite rare.
15 February 2014, 8:08 pmaristogeit:
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
17 February 2014, 11:28 am