Author Topic: The YACF 'better than Bechdel' test  (Read 8506 times)

HTFB

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Re: The YACF 'better than Bechdel' test
« Reply #50 on: 18 July, 2013, 09:51:49 pm »
Mind you, you never can tell with Dwarves.  Does that mean they fail because of the "being a man with boobs" character stereotype though..?
The only female dwarf "who comes into these tales"1 or is even implied is the mother of Fili and Kili, who must have been a daughter of Thrain and sister of Thorin, but we find out nothing else about her, even her name. A comprehensive Bechdel failure all of her own.

1. I think that's the quotation from the introduction to Lord of the Rings, but I don't own a copy to check.
Not especially helpful or mature

Re: The YACF 'better than Bechdel' test
« Reply #51 on: 18 July, 2013, 11:39:51 pm »
Where does showgirls rate with this?

Re: The YACF 'better than Bechdel' test
« Reply #52 on: 19 July, 2013, 12:00:51 am »
Hadn't thought about it before, but Pratchett has many female characters. Oh, and he has dwarves, who may or may not be female - the beard is no help in that respect.

Steph

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Re: The YACF 'better than Bechdel' test
« Reply #53 on: 19 July, 2013, 12:24:48 am »
Hadn't thought about it before, but Pratchett has many female characters. Oh, and he has dwarves, who may or may not be female - the beard is no help in that respect.
Indeed. The witches and Susan Sto Helit are good examples, as is Tiffany Aching.
Mae angen arnaf i byw, a fe fydda'i

Re: The YACF 'better than Bechdel' test
« Reply #54 on: 19 July, 2013, 12:39:38 am »
Surely the YACF Bechdel test would centre on how many of the cycling characters talk to each other about things other than cycling. Off hand I can think of 2012, with one of the main characters wrestling with a Brompton.

Hmmm, I like this ... Better still might be cyclists whose role isn't simply to be figures of fun. (The guy in 2012 certainly fails this!)

Flashdance passes.

There are all mannner of Bechdel tests on the web, revolving around sexism, racism, homophobia W.H.Y. Any group who feels they're oppressed can have a go. I don't generally feel cheated if two Morris dancers don't have a conversation about Liberation Theology, although I must admit I haven't seen all of Mike Leigh's work.

Jakob

Re: The YACF 'better than Bechdel' test
« Reply #55 on: 19 July, 2013, 01:30:59 am »

As for sausageland films, Pacific Rim is a funny one - the female lead is a really solid character, the fandom are already squee'ing over her, Del Toro specifically wanted to avoid the Transformers sex-kitten or genderless-with-boobs types.  She keeps her (not stupid) clothes on! There's even a deliberate subversion/poke at male gaze ;) so I humbly submit that the Bechdel test is like BMI: it indicates that this is worth looking, but isn't a sign of gender-wise quality on its own.

Bah, she's a poor ripoff of the main Evangelion characters.  She also defers to Idris and Jax-thehunkfromsonsofanarchy.

Re: The YACF 'better than Bechdel' test
« Reply #56 on: 19 July, 2013, 09:34:00 am »
Who are the other ones? Oh, the person Sam marries at the end of the end of the end of the last book. And Frodo's nasty relatives contain some women.
You're still missing the majority.

I remember more of them than you do, & I'm male & haven't read the books for 40 years.

PS. Lobelia Sackville-Baggins was more than just a nasty relative. Displayed some admirable qualities.
"A woman on a bicycle has all the world before her where to choose; she can go where she will, no man hindering." The Type-Writer Girl, 1897

Re: The YACF 'better than Bechdel' test
« Reply #57 on: 19 July, 2013, 09:45:34 am »
Who are the other ones? Oh, the person Sam marries at the end of the end of the end of the last book. And Frodo's nasty relatives contain some women.
You're still missing the majority.

I remember more of them than you do, & I'm male & haven't read the books for 40 years.
I think EG is referring to the films.

Go on then, Bledlow, list for us all these other important female characters she's missing. I've just googled to boost my memory, it being ~30 years since I read them, and of all the characters invented by Tolkein vanishingly few of them are female. He names mothers in geneology, and wives, but they are not characters in the stories, they are names, adjuncts. Tolkein was a product of the Victorian and Edwardian ages and women were not movers and shakers, and his imagination did not make them so in his stories.

Re: The YACF 'better than Bechdel' test
« Reply #58 on: 19 July, 2013, 09:56:32 am »
There are no end of convincing female characters in the soaps and medical dramas. There's even a trans character in Coronation Street. But these don't matter, because they're produced with a largely female audience in mind. Sc-Fi and fantasy are for a largely young male audience.
The most believable female character in recent times, in our house at least, was Leslie Knope in Parks and Recreation.

Re: The YACF 'better than Bechdel' test
« Reply #59 on: 19 July, 2013, 10:14:45 am »
Sc-Fi and fantasy are for a largely young male audience.


If you said that in front of my step-daughter, I think she would punch you.

It's the same entrenched belief that produces computer games with all the female characters in skimpy tops, bare midriffs and boobs that defy gravity.
<i>Marmite slave</i>

clarion

  • Tyke
Re: The YACF 'better than Bechdel' test
« Reply #60 on: 19 July, 2013, 10:17:52 am »
I don't think ESL meant that as a normative statement (at least I hope he didn't).  It's just pretty accurately descriptive.
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mattc

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Re: The YACF 'better than Bechdel' test
« Reply #61 on: 19 July, 2013, 10:22:49 am »
Sc-Fi and fantasy are for a largely young male audience.


If you said that in front of my step-daughter, I think she would punch you.
I've added some bold. Hopefully this makes the truth in ESL's statement more clear.
Has never ridden RAAM
---------
No.11  Because of the great host of those who dislike the least appearance of "swank " when they travel the roads and lanes. - From Kuklos' 39 Articles

Re: The YACF 'better than Bechdel' test
« Reply #62 on: 19 July, 2013, 10:31:27 am »
Who are the other ones? Oh, the person Sam marries at the end of the end of the end of the last book. And Frodo's nasty relatives contain some women.
You're still missing the majority.

I remember more of them than you do, & I'm male & haven't read the books for 40 years.
I think EG is referring to the films.

Go on then, Bledlow, list for us all these other important female characters she's missing.
1) If referring to the films, then she shouldn't blame it all on Tolkien.

2) Who said important female characters? EG said female characters - full stop. And made it clear that she didn't just mean important ones.

Quote
I've just googled to boost my memory, it being ~30 years since I read them, and of all the characters invented by Tolkein vanishingly few of them are female. He names mothers in geneology, and wives, but they are not characters in the stories, they are names, adjuncts. Tolkein was a product of the Victorian and Edwardian ages and women were not movers and shakers, and his imagination did not make them so in his stories.
Nobody is arguing otherwise. You've just laid out what I think is the reason for the small number of female characters, & even smaller number of important ones. Tolkien lived in a world in which men mostly knew women as relatives, servants, or through their relationships with other men, & in which women were almost completely absent from public life. This is reflected in his books. What I objected to was EG claiming that the few major characters she named are the only female characters, because it just ain't so. Call me a nit-picking pedant if you like, but that sort of thing irritates me.

Another thing that irritates me is when I (or anyone else) argues one thing & someone comes back with a counter to something else. You've just done that. Read back. What did I write?
Quote
There's a serious lack of female characters, but those three are not the only ones.
You see? You argued straight past it. You didn't disagree with it. Instead, you argued with a position which I don't hold, & which was contrary to what I'd written, as if I'd said it. Why?
"A woman on a bicycle has all the world before her where to choose; she can go where she will, no man hindering." The Type-Writer Girl, 1897

Re: The YACF 'better than Bechdel' test
« Reply #63 on: 19 July, 2013, 10:38:39 am »
Sc-Fi and fantasy are for a largely young male audience.


If you said that in front of my step-daughter, I think she would punch you.
I've added some bold. Hopefully this makes the truth in ESL's statement more clear.

Insisting that it is true just makes it more firmly entrenched. It becomes self-fulfilling.

The sexism in online gaming is almost unbelievably bad. People feel free to talk in a disgustingly misogynistic way that would not be accepted anywhere else.  Repeatedly insisting that sci-fi/fantasy is for young men just perpetuates this; it is these statements that make young men think it is fine for them to tell women of the same age to get off the server (often accompanied by sexual-rape-fantasy foul suggestions).
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mattc

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Re: The YACF 'better than Bechdel' test
« Reply #64 on: 19 July, 2013, 10:43:48 am »
feel free to  tell women of the same age to get off the server (often accompanied by sexual-rape-fantasy foul suggestions).
That's a bit strong.
Has never ridden RAAM
---------
No.11  Because of the great host of those who dislike the least appearance of "swank " when they travel the roads and lanes. - From Kuklos' 39 Articles

Re: The YACF 'better than Bechdel' test
« Reply #65 on: 19 July, 2013, 10:46:01 am »
feel free to  tell women of the same age to get off the server (often accompanied by sexual-rape-fantasy foul suggestions).
That's a bit strong.
It's what happens, Matt. As a father, it's pretty hard seeing your daughter trying to play, say, Call of Duty, and this sort of thing appear in the chat window, directed at her.
<i>Marmite slave</i>

clarion

  • Tyke
Re: The YACF 'better than Bechdel' test
« Reply #66 on: 19 July, 2013, 10:50:57 am »
Sc-Fi and fantasy are for a largely young male audience.


If you said that in front of my step-daughter, I think she would punch you.
I've added some bold. Hopefully this makes the truth in ESL's statement more clear.

Insisting that it is true just makes it more firmly entrenched. It becomes self-fulfilling.

The sexism in online gaming is almost unbelievably bad. People feel free to talk in a disgustingly misogynistic way that would not be accepted anywhere else.  Repeatedly insisting that sci-fi/fantasy is for young men just perpetuates this; it is these statements that make young men think it is fine for them to tell women of the same age to get off the server (often accompanied by sexual-rape-fantasy foul suggestions).

True enough, and Aleks Krotoski is an erudite and forthright female gamer.  But the designers know there's a strong market for the sort of sexist (and racist) tosh they've been churning out, so they go on doing it.  The idiotic actions of young men playing them is just part of a spiral.

But it is certainly true that most sci-fi, like most action video games*, are aimed at young men.  Good, or bad (and, fwiw, I think it is bad, if commercially of benefit, to appeal to their basest natures), it's a fact.


* I believe that, when you include things like Farmville and Candy Crush etc women gamers outnumber men.
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clarion

  • Tyke
Re: The YACF 'better than Bechdel' test
« Reply #67 on: 19 July, 2013, 10:52:19 am »
I note no woman has posted on this threas since #57, and that's one of only two comments by women on this page.

:-[
Getting there...

Re: The YACF 'better than Bechdel' test
« Reply #68 on: 19 July, 2013, 11:04:56 am »
Bledlow: You are a nit picking pedant. And more importantly, your comment added nothing to the discussion, and appeared only to be posted to demonstrate your superior knowledge in Tolkein. Which you still haven't backed up.

This is why I unsubscribed from POBI.

Re: The YACF 'better than Bechdel' test
« Reply #69 on: 19 July, 2013, 11:22:35 am »
As for sausageland films, Pacific Rim is a funny one - the female lead is a really solid character, the fandom are already squee'ing over her, Del Toro specifically wanted to avoid the Transformers sex-kitten or genderless-with-boobs types.  She keeps her (not stupid) clothes on! There's even a deliberate subversion/poke at male gaze ;) so I humbly submit that the Bechdel test is like BMI: it indicates that this is worth looking, but isn't a sign of gender-wise quality on its own.

Pacific Rim failed as a film for me because the female lead started out as a strong independent character (albeit the only female character with more than two lines of dialogue) with an interesting back-story, and then she rapidly became second fiddle to the male lead who
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So it wasn't the failing of the Bechdel test that bothered me: it was the reasons why it failed the test.

And I'm not going to get drawn into the Tolkien thing, because people are being nit-picky and horrid. Fact: Tolkien does not have any decent female leads. Deal with it. End of. ::-)
Have you seen my blog? It has words. And pictures! http://ablogofallthingskathy.blogspot.com/

Kim

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Re: The YACF 'better than Bechdel' test
« Reply #70 on: 19 July, 2013, 02:14:58 pm »
I note no woman has posted on this threas since #57, and that's one of only two comments by women on this page.

I'm not a gamer.  I got distracted and lost interest in computer games at around the time that mainstream games were starting to develop decent graphics and meaningful character-driven plots.  Suffering from horrendous travel-sickness in first-person 3D environments doesn't help.

But I'm a geek, and I know a lot of gamers.  Some of them are women, some of them are LGBT.  Gender stereotypes about the type of games the women prefer to play are probably accurate - while they'll dabble in most things, it's the role-playing type games that seem to keep their interest (I'll handwave over Cow Clicker and the like).  From second-hand reports, about the only thing more insidious than the sexism in online gaming communities is the homophobia, to the point that it makes people weary of games they'd otherwise enjoy (yes, even virtual worlds where the possibility of same-sex relationships have been conspicuously overlooked by developers).  Gratuitous boobs are an occupational hazard of marketing pressure on art departments, and generally regarded as humorous, even by the straight males.  I suppose you need that attitude, or the maturity of a homophobic 12 year old, to put up with it.

It's all pretty sucky, really.

As for sci-fi, in which I have a much greater interest, it's again about marketing.  Which disproportionately affects film and television.  It means that things are more likely to be commissioned if they have obvious appeal to a young (which often means children and teenagers, to the detriment of the story) predominately male demographic.  It means that sci-fi and fantasy based television series are inherently less valuable to the advertisers (it's much easier to sell things to young, reasonably well-off women than it is to nerds), and it means that good series get axed because a target demographic of people who are technically capable and watch TV on their own terms don't make for good ratings.

With the notable exception of the occasional fantasy epic, churning out violent action films in a sci-fi/fantasy setting, or good quality film versions of classic comics storylines (aimed squarely at younger teens) is where the money is.  Do it well, and you'll get the target demographic, plus all the hardcore fans who'll watch it even if it's terrible.  And they'll keep coming back, regardless of how much Alien no longer makes sense, or that Pepper Potts gets developed and then screwed over time and again.

Books and comics remain where the good stuff is.  Marketing works differently, there.  As does the "fake geek girl" phenomenon...  :facepalm:

Eccentrica Gallumbits

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Re: The YACF 'better than Bechdel' test
« Reply #71 on: 19 July, 2013, 02:31:10 pm »
Who are the other ones? Oh, the person Sam marries at the end of the end of the end of the last book. And Frodo's nasty relatives contain some women.
You're still missing the majority.

I remember more of them than you do, & I'm male & haven't read the books for 40 years.

PS. Lobelia Sackville-Baggins was more than just a nasty relative. Displayed some admirable qualities.
What I objected to was EG claiming that the few major characters she named are the only female characters, because it just ain't so. Call me a nit-picking pedant if you like, but that sort of thing irritates me.

I forgot a couple. It's not a crime. The principle is the same - the number of meaningful female characters who have fewer than eight legs can be counted on the fingers of one hand.

Instead of just being a pedant, why not tell us which ones I've forgotten? The hobbits are male, apart from the woman Sam marries and a few of the Baggins relatives. The dwarves are male. The Men are male. Galadriel, Eowyn, Arwen are female. Entwives are mentioned but are never seen. The orcs and goblins are not described as female and I'm pretty sure the Nazgul aren't either. Oh, there's a woman in the healing houses who identifies Aragorn as the king by his healing hands. And Tom Bombadil's missis whose name I forget is female. Goldberry. The Wizards are male, Beorn is male.

I've read the books numerous times and the only female characters who are as memorable as the male ones are Galadriel, Arwen and Eowyn, and Arwen doesn't really do much except sit around and wait to marry Aragorn. I've had to run through the chronology of events in my head to remember the healer woman and Goldberry.

I note no woman has posted on this threas since #57, and that's one of only two comments by women on this page.

:-[
Perhaps that's because we've learned that if we post about sexism, we'll be told we're wrong.

feel free to  tell women of the same age to get off the server (often accompanied by sexual-rape-fantasy foul suggestions).
That's a bit strong.
There is lots of information on the web about the abuse women are given for daring to play online games. Of course, some of the men on this board would claim that it's self-selective and therefore not credible.

My feminist marxist dialectic brings all the boys to the yard.


Chris S

Re: The YACF 'better than Bechdel' test
« Reply #72 on: 19 July, 2013, 02:34:42 pm »
Tomb Raider featured a female hero. Wealthy, good with a gun, a character in her own right.

Or was it just about her tits after all? They did seem to get bigger as the series progressed  :facepalm:.

Kim

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Re: The YACF 'better than Bechdel' test
« Reply #73 on: 19 July, 2013, 02:46:12 pm »
Tomb Raider featured a female hero. Wealthy, good with a gun, a character in her own right.

Or was it just about her tits after all? They did seem to get bigger as the series progressed  :facepalm:.

Both, I think.

She was notable as the first female viewpoint character in that kind of mainstream game.

That she had to have geometrically implausible tits in order for it not to be a marketing flop is just sad.

Chell is what Lara Croft should have been.  Interesting that she was the protagonist of a game that was never intended to be marketed on its own...

clarion

  • Tyke
Re: The YACF 'better than Bechdel' test
« Reply #74 on: 19 July, 2013, 02:50:26 pm »
I note no woman has posted on this threas since #57, and that's one of only two comments by women on this page.

:-[
Perhaps that's because we've learned that if we post about sexism, we'll be told we're wrong.

You're wrong.






;)
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