What do “Pulp Fiction,” “Legally Blonde” and “The Amityville Horror” have in common? Nothing, right?
Wrong. They all pass the Bechdel Test, a measurement of “whether or not a film or other work of fiction portrays women in a way that is sexist or characterized by gender stereotyping.” Named for its creator, Alison Bechdel, the term first appeared in an installment of her “Dykes to Watch Out for” comic strip in 1985.
Passing the test seems simple enough – it requires that a film have at least two female characters, they must talk to each other, and they must talk about something unrelated to a man. Some people also add that the two women must be named. However, many popular films aren’t able to meet this (pretty low) standard, including “Forrest Gump,” “Toy Story” and “Baby Driver.”
But there are some movies that you’d never expect to pass the test that slide by with the smallest of conversations, proving that it’s incredibly easy to include a scene that meets these criteria, and at the same time realizing that many of the movies that do don’t really do so in a meaningful way.
Here are five films that unexpectedly, yet barely, pass the Bechdel Test :
- “Pulp Fiction”
Believe it or not, “Pulp Fiction” passes the test; with very low marks. In the beginning of the scene where Vincent Vega (John Travolta) buys drugs from Lance (Eric Stoltz), the latter’s wife Jody (Rosanna Arquette) talks with her friend Trudi (Bronagh Gallagher) about piercings.
- All five “Sharknado” movies
Every installment in what I am now calling the “Sharknado Cinematic Universe” has a one-or-two line conversation that makes them squeak by.
- “The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers”
In the scene where the people of Edoras make for Helm’s Deep in an attempt to avoid open war, a little girl and her mother have a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it worried conversation about how they’ll find each other once they get there.
- “Spaceballs”
The 1987 sci-fi spoof has a few lines between Princess Vespa (Daphne Zuniga) and Dot Matrix, a robot voiced by Joan Rivers. While this is cutting it close, the original “Star Wars” film this is based off of doesn’t come anywhere near passing.
- “Night at the Museum”
This is super lazy, but at the end of the film, museum docent Rebecca (Carla Gugino), who’s writing her dissertation on Sacagawea, gets a chance to speak with the museum’s wax model of her (Mizou Peck) when she comes to life at night (if you haven’t seen this movie, I highly recommend it).
Whether or not a film passes the Bechdel test is by no means the most important issue in Hollywood, but it’s interesting to see how often (or not) movies have storylines, or even dumb, filler dialogue, revolving women on their own and not associated with any men.
Next time you watch a movie, try and see if it passes the test – or, if you’re looking for something that passes with flying colors, here are a few suggestions: “Kill Bill: Vol. 1” and “Kill Bill: Vol. 2,” “The Hunger Games,” “Spirited Away,” “Mad Max: Fury Road” and “Eighth Grade.”