What are you watching & reading? Will you do the Beshdel Test on it?

[Seabright]

I have been trying to apply the Beshdel Test to what I've been watching lately.

The wiki entry in the link above explains more, but basically to pass the Beshdel Test a work of fiction must have:

A) At least two female characters
B) Who Talk to each other
C) About something other than a man

This evening I have watched:

1. Rizzoli & Isles - pass, just
2. The Good Wife - pass

And I'm reading an Ian Rankin novel at the moment (yes, my choice of tv and books is pretty limited - crime & murder!) which so far fails, but I'm only part way through.

They aren't just talking about the daughter not wanting to get married in Brave they talk history and tradition and sense of family in general, plus their mother-daughter relationship, so I think that definitely counts. I like Warehouse 13 too it's not great television but it's enjoyable and you're quite right about the range of non-stereotypical female characters.

Captain America fails; not precisely a surprise.

DS and I got to go to a preview test screening of Brave before they'd finished it. It was reasonably clear from the questions in the feedback form that their main concerns were (a) whether it was too scary for small children, (b) whether the stereotyping was offensive to Scottish people, and (c) (although I'd say this was a more minor concern lagging way behind the others) whether boys would enjoy a film with a female lead. DS (7 at the time) was quite outraged at the idea that he might object to it on that basis (and, incidentally, I explained the Bechdel test to him while we were waiting for the film to finally start and he found it quite interesting (although I suspect he's forgotten the specifics by now. Still, it primed the ground)).

Gaudy Night - easy pass.

I'm just reading two young adult novels 'Book of a Thousand Days' and 'The Midwife's Apprentice', both which pass.

I actually sort of chose them for their strong heroines. I'm not entrenched in feminism, so to speak, but I'm having a DD in the spring and it's made me think a bit. I started looking at lists of books that are good for girls. I ordered these two because they sounded so interesting that I wanted to read them. Plus the midwife book is by Karen Cushman, who wrote 'Catherine, Called Buddy' which I love.

Birdy. Sigh. Autocorrect!

caseyshraeger thought Brave was a breath of fresh air. Lucky you getting to go to a preview! This whole, boys won't bother with things with girl characters seems self-fulfilling to me, extremely frustrating!
You're right, Warehouse 13 isn't GREAT T.V. (did I say that? Can't flip the page back to check whilst typing a comment, if I did, sorry, that would be an exaggeration) but of it's type, it's a pleasant surprise.

ladypeterwimsy can tell you're a Sayers fan from your user name, and also, obviously your comment. Yes, 'Gaudy Night' is excellent.
Weirdly, I'm listening to 'Strong Poison' right now!
Just got the audiobook radio dram of 'Gaudy night', also have pretty much everything she's done in both book and audio. (Ian Carmichael is so good, and Patricia Routledge.) although some of her religious/academic stuff sounds a little intimidating!
Have you read her biography? What an incredible person! Sorry to go on, but nobody I know has ever heard of her.
Harriet Vane, your namesake, is such an excellent character, something modern authors could do with replicating!

If we're talking kids books, The 13 Treasures, by Michelle Harrison, and the following books are all excellent. Female characters, exciting, kind of scary story.

Game of Thrones (reading) - hahahahaha. Er, nope. But, to be fair, every single character spends 1000+ pages discussing Who Should Be King, so everyone is talking to each other about a man. Technically.

Life on Mars (watching) - hahahahahaha. Er, nope again. I feel like the '1970s' thing is just a vehicle to allow them to make an all-male cop show with one token woman.

Watching Girls and it passes - funny that!

Reading Disobedience and it doesn't pass yet but I feel sure it will, just started.

Well, is it talking to about a man for romantic reasons? Or any reason? Because as Tortoise says, they talk a lot about men in GOT, but they're often political discussions. Likewise the Stephanie Plum books where she and her female bounty hunting partner discuss men they're going to apprehend.

To me, both of those have more of a feminist bent than, say, women discussing shoes forever, even if they're not mentioning men at all.

I'm reading wolf hall. So far a fail - Thomas Cromwell has had two conversations with women so far - one with his sister about his father and one with his wife about their son. No women have spoken to each other at all. I am only about 80 pages in though.

Thinking about it my favourite film passes - the not terribly feminist Working Girl. Although there is a bit of an implied life triangle (although there is never an actual discussion between the female leads about it) the main thrust of the competition between them is business related. And at first it's made very clear tess thinks she's escaped macho corporate sexism by coming to work for Katherine, although she is quickly revealed in typical 80s business woman ball breaker mould.

Hmmm

I still like it though.

I actually think GOT fails either way, though; usually it's one woman per 'place' - you know, they're all over the country - talking to a bunch of men about the king. Or it's (I'm only up to partway through book three) Sansa and Cersei/Margarey/various other women talking about who Sansa is going to marry. Maybe Dany talks to her handmaids about having a bath occasionally, but that's all I can think of.

When it comes to books, there has to be a proportion argument, surely? Books have a lot more talking in them than films, I can't imagine that many books manage to have NO scenes of dialogue where two women talk about something other than a man. You know, just to establish a scene or whatever.

RM you might like this thread
www.mumsnet.com/Talk/feminist_book_club/1226130-The-first-feminist-mystery-novel-do-you-agree

I'm now pondering which Wimsey novels do pass. From memory:

Whose Body - fail
Clouds of Witness - fail? The Dowager and Mary are in a conversation but Parker and Wimsey are there and the conversation is mostly about a male suspect.
Bellona Club - fail, I think
Unnatural Death - pass, Miss Climpson and the niece (Wikipedia tells me the manuscript for this was called, "The Singular Tale of Three Spinsters")
Strong Poison - pass, Miss Climpson and the nurse.
Murder Must Advertise - pass? Two of the secretaries go out to tea but not sure if they only talk about the men at the office.
The Nine Tailors - fail
Five Red Herrings - fail.
Have His Carcase - fail? Harriet talks to the widow but I think it's all about the male characters.
Gaudy Night - pass. A lot. But doesn't fail the reverse test!
Busman's Honeymoon - pass, Harriet talks to various named female characters
Thrones, Dominations - pass, Harriet talks to Rosamund, and to Sylvia and Eiluned.

Tortoise, I think there are quite a lot of books without even a "pass me the salt, thanks" "you're welcome" level of dialogue between two named women (though it's more unusual to have unnamed figures in books than in films which might make it a bit easier for books to pass)

Cheerful, it is talking about a man for any reason - if you are talking about politics and there are no female politicians being discussed, then that's an indication in itself. Which books fail the reverse Bechdel (no two men holding a conversation that's not about a woman)? Maybe "chick lit"?

Film: just watched Django Unchained - massive fail! A woman barely spoke in the film

Book: reading Ian rankin's Rebus : Naming the dead - pass. Siobhan speaks to undercover female detective and her mum.

Tv: Borgen - pass

I'm really glad I came across this thread, I hadn't heard of that test. It is so simple but shows how almost every film fails the test.

I also saw Les Mis last week. Do you think that would pass? The scene at the beginning is the women workers kicking Fontaine out because she has a child.

Was going to say easy pass, as I'm reading Susanna Clarke's The Ladies of Grace Adieu.

But flicking back, I think it only squeaks through. And then only because the women are talking about the OW rather than the man. There are exchanges about one being injured and her clothes damaged, but this has happened while searching for the OW. So not a glorious pass.

Mme Thenardier also talks to Eponine, I believe. And possibly to Cosette?

Binge-watching The Vampire Diaries. The last few episodes have passed (the episodes have all merged into one in my head, so individual episodes may have failed). Bonnie and Elena talked about Bonnie's mum, Caroline and Abby (Bonnie's mum) talked about Bonnie, the mayor and the sheriff (both female) discussed an ongoing serial murder and I'm pretty sure there was a discussion between two of the girls about Rebecca. That said, it's not a particularly strong pass and probably not particularly feminist (but I still luffs it ).

Also re-watching series one of GOT. Scraped a pass in the first two episodes - both times for a brief conversation between Cersei and Catelyn regarding their children (male children in one of them, but not actually A Man).

Reading This Charming Man by Marian Keyes. Passes (several conversations where the narrator discusses clothes/fashion/her job with a couple of friends) but so far the narrator is falling to pieces because her boyfriend is marrying someone else, so all of her narration seems to come back to him. Really annoying writing style too, but I'm trying to stick with it because I normally love MK.

Also reading Clash of Kings (Game of Thrones book two). Fails so far. Quite a few named (and strong and interesting) female characters but they tend to be surrounded by men.

Most episodes of Supernatural fail (I can think of a few that pass). But then I, ahem, don't really watch it for its portrayal of women...

Peppa Pig - pass.

The IT Crowd - I think every episode fails.

And I saw there was a Frasier thread on mumsnet yesterday, I think that would possibly fail every episode too.