Bechdel Test and Women in Movies

I just bumped into the Bechdel Test, a way of evaluating movies in terms of the roles women play.

To pass the test

1. [The film] has to have at least two [named] women in it
2. Who talk to each other
3. About something besides a man

There is a website defining the test and applying it to many movies.

This video discussing the test and applying it to the Academy Awards best picture nominees is excellent.  It comes to the conclusion that two movies clearly pass the test, “The Descendants,” and “The Help” with two other movies coming close depending on how one interprets short snippets of conversation, “Hugo” and “Midnight in Paris.”

The video also talks of applying the movie to analyze the roles of characters of color in film using Alaya Dawn Johnson’s modification:

1.The film has to have two People of Color in it.

2. Who talk to each other.

3. About something other than a white person.

Only one Academy Award best picture nominee, “The Help,” passes this version.

Yes, these tests are very reductionist and do not guarantee that a film is good, unbiased, or woman centered, but they are useful as a way to see trends in an industry. Also, it matters what group of films one looks at.  For example, by looking at best picture nominees, the analysis of the Academy Awards misses “Iron Lady.”

George Clooney, Indigenous Hawaiian

I saw The Descendants  today and found it was a great movie worthy of all its accolades.  However, in the movie George Clooney is an indigenous Hawaiian.  Well, actually his character Matt King controls a land trust because of an ancestor who was part of the deposed Hawaiian monarchy.  As Matt King says at one point that while his family may be exceedingly white and privileged they have Hawaiian blood.  Given all of the historical injustice done to Native Hawaiians including the virtual coup executed by white planters to overthrow Queen Liliuokalani,  I wonder how George Clooney as Matt King is going over in Hawaii.  To an extent he is a character aware of racial politics, calling himself and his family haoles  (Hawaiian for non-Hawaiian, in some contexts an insult), and proving quite aware of the need to keep land for Hawaiians.  Yet he is also a rich white guy named “King” who in the movie controls pristine land as a descendant of the indigenous population.  Overall, I wonder what the directors and writers are trying to do with this film and its message about land, Hawaii, and the rights of indigenous people.

For a deeper progressive critique of the movie see “Racism in The Descendants” by retired University of Hawaii professor, Michael Haas.