Four years ago, we analyzed Oscar nominees for Best Picture against the Bechdel Test, a metric commonly used among critics and moviegoers. The test poses three questions: 1. Does the movie contain two or more (named) female characters? 2. Do those characters talk to each other? 3. If so, do they discuss something other than a man?
The test is named for Alison Bechdel, an illustrator who, in 1985, presented the rule in an installment of her “Dykes to Watch Out For” comic strip. The Bechdel Test is not a perfect feminist litmus test. Films that do not pass may still dispel gender stereotypes or feature nuanced characters who exist outside the bounds of conventional Hollywood story lines. Conversely, some films that pass may do so on a technicality, through a fleeting, perhaps inconsequential, exchange between two women. And while the Bechdel Test is perhaps the most well-known metric, it is by no means the only way to measure inclusivity in film. Many new tests have emerged that further address gender stereotypes or measure for bias against race or ethnicity, including the DuVernay Test, coined by the film critic Manohla Dargis in honor of the filmmaker Ava DuVernay, which is meant to gauge whether “African-Americans and other minorities have fully realized lives rather than serve as scenery in white stories.” Many of these evaluations look behind the camera as well, an especially important endeavor given that, according to the Women’s Media Center, “77 percent of all Oscar nominees in behind-the-scenes roles are men.”
Still, the Bechdel Test remains useful for how little it asks of movies, and for the sobering fact that many films still fail to meet its basic criteria. When we last evaluated the Best Picture nominees, in 2014, only four of nine films passed. This year, which saw the rise of the #MeToo and #TimesUp movements, was historic for women’s voices being heard in Hollywood and beyond. As Richard Brody wrote in a post earlier this week sharing his Oscar predictions, change in Hollywood is slow, but it is happening, ever so gradually. Let’s revisit the Bechdel Test to see how many of the films the Academy chose to honor this year stack up.
Each of this year’s Best Picture nominees is pitted against another favorite from the past. In each case, one satisfies the Bechdel Test; the other doesn’t.
This film, Greta Gerwig’s directorial début, passes the test from the very first scene, in which Lady Bird (Saoirse Ronan) and her mother, Marion (Laurie Metcalf), are on a road trip visiting colleges. Lady Bird says that she only wants to go to school in places where there is “culture,” like New York:
MARION
How in the world did I raise such a snob?
LADY BIRD
Or at least Connecticut or New Hampshire. Where writers live in the woods.
MARION
You couldn’t get into those schools anyway.
LADY BIRD
Mom!
MARION
You can’t even pass your driver’s test.
LADY BIRD
Because you wouldn’t let me practice enough!
MARION
The way you work, the way you don’t work, you’re not even worth state tuition, Christine.
LADY BIRD
My name is Lady Bird!
Ronan also stars as one of the three supporting female characters named in “The Grand Budapest Hotel”: Agatha (Ronan), Clotilde (Léa Seydoux), and Madame D. (Tilda Swinton). None of them speak to one another in the film.
“The Shape of Water,” which has the most Oscar nominations this year, features two female protagonists, Elisa (Sally Hawkins) and Zelda (Octavia Spencer). While they mostly talk about men (or, in this case, a male sea creature), there is one exchange between Zelda and another female co-worker, Yolanda, that allows the film to pass:
ZELDA
Elisa! Come on! I’m here already. You gotta learn to be on time.
YOLANDA
Hey—what are you doing? Don’t cut in the mid—
ZELDA
Leave her alone, woman. I was keeping her place.
YOLANDA
I get reported, I come looking for you and the mute . . .
ZELDA
You do that, Yolanda. You do that.
“Avatar” features several named female characters, including Neytiri (Zoe Saldana); her mother, Mo’at (C. C. H. Pounder); Dr. Grace Augustine (Sigourney Weaver); and Trudy Chacón (Michelle Rodriguez). They say single lines to one another, but they do not hold a conversation that is not about a man. A conversation between Neytiri and her mother focusses on Neytiri’s romantic interest, Jake (Sam Worthington).
“The Post” chronicles the tense lead-up to the Washington Post’s publication of the Pentagon Papers. Throughout the film, the Post’s publisher, Kay Graham (Meryl Streep), is mostly surrounded by men, but the film passes the test because of an exchange Kay has with her daughter, Lally (Alison Brie) after she gives the green light to publish the documents:
KAY
You came out in your little nightgown and your robe and you hopped in the car with me and gave me this. Somehow you managed to scribble these notes for me so I’d know what to say. But I don’t have my glasses up here. So just read it for me a bit.
LALLY
Mommy . . .
KAY
Oh, come on. Would you just read it to me?
LALLY
One: Thank them. Two: There has been a crisis, but you know that we’ll carry on. Three: Never expected to be in this situation. Four: Going off to clear mind and think about the future. Five: No changes at this time; paper will remain in the family. And six: And be carried on in the traditions of . . .
KAY
So well said! You know I just wanted to hold on to the company for you and Don and Billy and Steve.
LALLY
You did. You have!
KAY
You know that quote . . . that quote: “A woman preaching is like a dog walking on its hind legs—it’s not done well and you’re surprised to see it’s done at all.” —Samuel Johnson.
LALLY
A bunch of nonsense.
KAY
No, but that’s the way we all thought then.
“All the President’s Men,” another historical drama set in the Post’s newsroom, details how the reporters Bob Woodward (Robert Redford) and Carl Bernstein (Dustin Hoffman) uncover the Watergate scandal. The named female characters do not talk to one another.
Jordan Peele’s directorial début, “Get Out,” is a horror story (and a brilliant comedy) about a black man’s experience of racism in America. In an interview with The Verge, Peele cites “The Shining” as one of his visual inspirations, but of the two only “Get Out” passes the test. The film has several female characters, including Rose (Allison Williams); her mother, Missy (Catherine Keener); and Georgina (Betty Gabriel). In one scene, Georgina accidentally spills iced tea and Missy instructs her to rest:
GEORGINA
I’m sorry. Look what I’ve done. What a nincompoop.
MISSY
It’s fine, George. Just leave it.
GEORGINA
Oh, I can’t leave that there.
MISSY
Yes, you can. Why don’t you go lie down?
GEORGINA
I think I will.
In “The Shining,” Shelley Duvall gives an iconic performance as Wendy, the wife of Jack (Jack Nicholson). The only other woman she speaks to is her son’s child psychologist, and they either talk about her son or Jack.
The headliner in “Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri” is Mildred (Frances McDormand), who puts up billboards to provoke local authorities to find out who murdered her daughter. Mildred speaks with her co-worker Denise (Amanda Warren) about putting up the billboards, and, in a flashback, Mildred replays an argument she had with her daughter, Angela (Kathryn Newton):
ANGELA
You ain’t going out again tonight, are ya?
MILDRED
Denise said we might get us a coupla drinks later, yeah.
ANGELA
Denise gonna be driving ya?
MILDRED
Angela, why don’t you just ask me if you can borrow the car?
ANGELA
Can I borrow the car?
MILDRED
No.
ANGELA
Bitch!
MILDRED
But I’ll give you money for a taxi if you ask me nice and don’t call me a bitch.
ANGELA
Why did you make me ask you to borrow it if you was never gonna let me borrow it?
MILDRED
’Cause it was funny. And ’cause you’ve been smoking pot all day.
McDormand also starred in the Coen brothers’ movie “Fargo,” as the police chief Marge Gunderson, a role for which she won Best Actress, in 1997. As we noted in our previous evaluation, most movies with a Best Actress role pass the test, but “Fargo,” does not—Marge never speaks with another named female character.
Of these two films, both directed by Christopher Nolan, only “Inception” passes—and just barely. Mal (Marion Cotillard) is the deceased wife of Cobb (Leonardo DiCaprio), and she exists in the film only as a projection in his mind. Still, Mal speaks briefly with Ariadne (Ellen Page) onscreen. Some have argued that their conversation is obliquely about Cobb, but he is not named:
MAL
What are you doing here?
ARIADNE
My name is—
MAL
I know who you are. What are you doing here?
ARIADNE
I’m just trying to understand.
MAL
How could you understand? Do you know what it is to be a lover? To be half of a whole?
ARIADNE
No.
MAL
I’ll tell you a riddle. You’re waiting for a train. A train that will take you far away. You know where you hope this train will take you, but you don’t know for sure . . .
MAL
But . . . it doesn’t matter. How can it not matter to you where that train will take you?
“Dunkirk” is the film with the second most Oscar nominations this year. But, given the subject matter, and the fact that much of the film is told through the perspective of male soldiers stranded on the beaches of Dunkirk, it’s no surprise that it doesn’t pass the test. There are no named female characters.
“Atonement,” which also received an Oscar nomination for Best Picture and is partially set during the Second World War, deals with an upper-class British family that is forever changed when Briony (Saoirse Ronan) accuses her sister’s lover (James McAvoy) of a crime he did not commit. Briony and her sister Cecilia (Keira Knightley) are major characters in the film and have multiple conversations that do not revolve around men, starting with one of the very earliest scenes in the film, which depicts them lounging in the sun:
BRIONY
What do you think it would feel like to be someone else?
CECILIA
Cooler, I should hope.
BRIONY
I’m worried about the play.
CECILIA
I’m sure it’s a masterpiece.
“Darkest Hour” recounts Winston Churchill’s struggles as Prime Minister in the early days of the Second World War, including the strategy for the evacuation of Dunkirk. The film has two major female characters: Churchill’s wife, Clementine (Kristin Scott Thomas), and Churchill’s secretary Elizabeth (Lily James). The only conversation between them regards Churchill.
“Phantom Thread” is about an obsessive dress designer, Reynolds, played by Daniel Day-Lewis. The two main women in the film, his sister Cyril (Lesley Manville) and his lover Alma (Vicky Krieps), live their lives according to Reynolds’s idiosyncrasies, and they only speak to each other about him. Alma has a brief conversation with Princess Mona Braganza (Lujza Richter); the exchange, though seemingly prompted by Alma’s desire to mark her claim on Reynolds, never mentions a man:
ALMA
I want to wish you good fortune for your wedding.
PRINCESS MONA
Thank you.
ALMA
Je m’appelle Alma.
PRINCESS MONA
Lovely to meet you, Alma.
ALMA
I live here.
As we noted in our previous evaluation, “The Artist” may be a silent film, but characters do carry on conversations, with the occasional assist from a title card. The story is centered on George Valentin (Jean Dujardin), a silent-film star, and all of the women (including his co-star Peppy Miller, played by Bérénice Bejo, and his wife, Doris, played by Penelope Ann Miller) are in supporting roles. None of these characters “speaks” to another.
“Call Me by Your Name” centers on a young man, Elio (Timothée Chalamet), and his sexual awakening with an older man, Oliver (Armie Hammer). The protagonist’s mother, Annella (Amira Casar), and the maid, Mafalda (Vanda Capriolo), have brief exchanges throughout, though they are of no real consequence to the narrative:
MAFALDA
Signora, vuole un frullato pure lei?(Madame, do you want a smoothie, too?)
ANNELLA
No, grazie, Mafalda, ceniamo tra poco.(No, thanks, Mafalda, we’re going to dinner.)
MAFALDA
Va bene.(All right.)
“Moonlight,” another coming of age story, won the Oscar for Best Picture at last year’s Academy Awards. The movie is a powerful, exquisitely realized portrait of Chiron (played, at different ages, by Alex R. Hibbert, Ashton Sanders, and Trevante Rhodes), who is growing up as a gay black boy in Miami. The film’s two major female characters, Chiron’s mother, Paula (Naomie Harris), and his friend and mentor Teresa (Janelle Monáe), never speak to each other, but the film aces the DuVernay Test. There is more than one way to expand representation in Hollywood. Here’s hoping for much more in years to come.