Episode 50: The Bechdel Test

with me for it. And you know, people can keep up with my life on social media, so I know Danny was going through hard stuff. Meanwhile, I was playing Apex Legends all day. Your your your struggle was also hard you uh you know you'd be you know. Something to note is they released a new hero out uh called Octane, who is Latin x h yeah and he uh he's also disabled. He has to uh metal legs

and he runs real fast. Now you know they've been It's it's funny because they've been effortlessly diversifying the game, like they have Bloodhound, who is uh non binary. You have uh, you know Gibraltar, who is a you know, Maori gay biker. Uh you know, so so you know all that stuff, all that stuff that and and it's people in the real world are what's fun about it is it's such a good game that no one's been

complaining too much about it. I was there's someone I still don't know if it's a joke or not, honestly don't care. But the one white male character is this guy who who drops like this toxic bombs. And so someone made a YouTube video that was like, the one white male is the toxic white male read between the lines. There's like it's funny because it's like, oh man, this is a great character if it is. But we live in a time where you just can't tell. But if

you're doing a character, good job. If you're not, you know what I mean. Um, I wanted to introduce our guests. They are both They are in our studio here there at our how stuff work stuff. I heart media studio. There we go podcast studio works. What we are Disney. Um. That's Caitlin Dante and Jimmy Loftus of Bechtel Cast. Thank you for joining us. Yeah, we today are talking about the Bechtel Tests. Yeah, really excited about it. Me and Caitlin.

We're matching. We both have pesta. You're the same. Yeah, we take a picture. Yeah, let's do it. Look my Instagram, always trying to show the looks and always trying to show the friends. I was on y'all's podcast Were You on It? Black Panther episode lauded as one of the best episodes of their podcast, people that Yes, look I was. You caught me out a good time. I was charged up on Black Panther Energy. I was doing voices, I was re enacting scenes. It is the most ridiculous I've

been on any podcast ever. You're reenacting full scenes, like playing every single part I was going to. I was on the Lota Croft tomb Raider episode and introduced the cast to women in fridges watches, Uh yeah, fridging the doom fridging and how gayl Simone came up with that whole website. If you don't know what that is, it's essentially when a female character is killed to further the plot of a male character, which is very common, and

that website still exists. It's really cute because I think it still has like almost n these ish looking software too. It like a space Jam website. Yeah, I think they did that with Captain Marvel too. They made it like nineties for her website. Yeah, so we are talking about the Bechdel tests. Wh Why did y all decide that

you wanted to make a podcast about this? Caitlin, Well, I suppose it was my idea, Bragg, But basically, I am a huge film buff, to the extent that I stupidly got two different degrees in film and spent you know, tens of thousands of dollars on an education and film and uh yeah, I mean movies. Movies are life for me, umnestly crazy, I mean brave, really really brave. Yeah, everyone

started hashtaging Caitlin brave. Um. So I love movies and I wanted to talk about them and kind of reconcile the fact that a lot of my favorite movies treat women horribly, or at least the movies that I grew up with and just had become accustomed to watch. Some of those that you discovered, like, oh crap, I love me awful, but I didn't didn't have the representation of

women yet, right, Um. The Big Three were like for me, it was like the like trilogies of Back to the Future, Indiana Jones, and Star Wars like those were like the crux of my childhood movie development. Uh and then just any I mean most movies since and before those were

also not great to women. So I just I wanted to kind of examine these movies more closely, just any movie that has had like a big cultural impact and uh, you know, take a look at them and figure out, you know, maybe how much media is responsible for the patriarchy still being a thing. Um. And so yeah, we just to I I asked Jamie if she wanted to collaborate with me on this idea, and she was very down.

And two and a half years later, here we are, Oh my gosh, that sounds about the same as krilling it. And eventually nerdifficent. I was like, hey, you want to do this. I was like, yeah, yeah, good idea. And I had seen, like, I have not seen a lot of well now I have when the podcast started, I had not seen like most of I had also technically onto film school, but technically I went, but I've majored in radio, so I had also had to use the

medium more radio worth it thousands in debt. Uh. But yeah, and I hadn't seen most of the movies that we covered and so it was like an in real time education. But I think it helps to get those two different perspectives from like me, who like is apologetic to a lot of these movies and then you're like, oh, I'm just seeing them for the first time and wow, they're not good. Yeah that makes sense, Yeah, because you're watching

them with like an air of nostalgia too. Yeah. So for people that don't know what is the Bechdel test is our favorite thing to explain to the Bechdel Test. We can get into the history of it, but just like the version and the way that we use it,

because there's a few different like permutations of it. But it's a test that is applied to media, usually movies and TV, in which a movie that passes the Bechtel test has a scene with two female identifying characters who have names, who talk to each other about something other than a man for at least two lines of dialogue. That's our version. That's our version. There's a bunch of different versions. They're simpler ones, there's more demanding ones, but

that's the one we use, okay. Yeah, And it originally started from Alison Bechdel, right, who wrote in a comic strip that was Dikes to Watch out for that appeared in nine and we'll have a link to the actual comics so y'all can see it. But it was essentially two women that were trying to go see a movie and had that same thing where they were saying, I only go to see a movie if it satisfies three basic requirements, when it has to have at least two women in it who talked to each other and about

something other than a man. And then it ends with saying, the last movie I saw was Alien. Yes, that was like that, which is funny because that movie barely passes the Bee. So because they're talking about the alien and or protocol on the shipsina monster as with every like major sci fi movie as a vaginal monster because yourgina's are scary, scary, so wild. And then there's just to give a little bit more context on that is Alison

Bechdel is a queer cartoonist. A lot of her work has been about, you know, her identity as a queer woman. And if you've seen fun Home, which is like a very famous comic book and musical, now that that was

all her. Yeah, And in the context, this test derives from it's these two women who basically they they've established these kind of guidelines for this test because they there's so little representation of queer women in movies that they are like, oh, well, if two women are in a movie and they're not talking about men, that kind of allows me to ship them together and pretend that I

am seeing like two queer women on screen. So like, that's a little bit more of the context that has gone largely ignored in conversations about the Bechtel tests, like as it's been sort of appropriated to more like mainstream entertainment stuff. But and and yeah, like unlike I mean, I guess sort of like a lot of these metrics that have come more into the conversation in the past ten years, it wasn't originally intended to be a metric.

It was just like a joke that she she said, it was a quote, a little lesbian joke in an alternative feminist newspaper um And then like twenty years after it came out, everyone's like, oh, this is here, it is this is the rule and the hard and fast tests feminism. But it was I mean, at the at the time that it was the only thing that anyone had it's so strange. It's and we've found, like through our podcast that it's definitely it's not the test by

any means. It's definitely flawed. You can have two women in a movie talking about some really dark um that doesn't test. There's very often they're talking about something extremely domestic and still pretty starry types um that makes sense talking and movies are always talking about either clothes, food,

or cooking other domestic chores birth like babies. There are, of course exceptions, but we come up on this a lot where a movie will pass the test and then it's like, but they talked about cooking, but there's like, but that exchange was so or is this like an exchange that's so like just like, hey, what's up? Nothing? And then they're like, wow, it's a feminist text. Um. Yeah. So. Alison Bechdel also credited the idea to her friend Liz

Wallace and the writings of Virginia Wolf. After the test became more widely discussed in the two thousands, a number of variants like y'all were saying came out that we will also get into. So in her nineteen essay A Room of One's Own Virginia Wolf observed about the literature of her time with what equivalent would be of the Bechdel test back then that essentially it was largely the same thing, largely male. I mean, also who was Who's

writing most of these roles? You know? Like that for because a study of gender portrayals in eight hundred and fifty five of the most financially successful US films ranging from nineteen five d to two thousand and six, And they did another study after that, but during that range show that there were on average two male characters for each female character, a ratio that has remained stable over time.

Female characters were portrayed as being involved in sex twice as often as male characters, and their proportion of scenes with explicit sexual content increased over time. Have you all seen that as you've had to watch all these because you watch like a movie a week for your podcast. Yeah, I mean I think we do. It's we rarely cover movies that didn't come out post seventy ish. We've only done a few older movies. But you can see. I mean, I always I feel like I always get harsh feedback

every time I'm like really critical of eighties movies. But I think that that is like the eighties and nineties, it's sort of had problematic peak um for for stuff like that. I've found, I don't what do you think. I mean, Yeah, it depends on the filmmaker, and it depends on a few different things. But yeah, there's a whole swaw of very problematic movies from those eras and from before and from yesterday. So it's just an ongoing trend. And the more we watch, I mean, yeah, we definitely

we're noticing a lot of trends. We're noticing a lot of tropes in terms of how women are represented and treated. I mean the ones that you listed, there's also you know, so few women of color in movie in mainstream movies, or so few queer women, uh so, a few you know, women with disabilities, any any group that's marginalized. It is rare to see them represented, and when they're represented, it's

always in very specific trophy ways. Yeah, this was a conversation that I tried to have on Twitter as civilly as possible about you know, people people really okay, because the whole thing with Netflix and Steven Spielberg trying to basically discredit some of the films that were on there, including Roma, which won an Academy Award. So my argument about Netflix, which also just canceled one day at a time,

so not great. This my argument was before that happened, but which was a great representation of both women of color and the queer community and veterans. To be honest, um, but my issue is that a lot of people are like, oh, Netflix doesn't care about about real cinema, and if you did, you would have films from the fifties, you know, you only have these current films. I'm like, yeah, but okay, those films from the fifties didn't really include us at all,

you know. I'm like, there weren't so great for women of color, people of color in general. So the fact that there's such a wealth of of filmmakers of color and specifically women of color that are in a lot of these Netflix films, to me, it's like, I understand what you're saying, but also it is giving a more

diverse platform for people that didn't previously have it. And also we are still considered real film Like to me, when you say that, when you say, oh, they don't have real films, what you're saying is Oh, these films of these people that don't look like me in these stories I don't care about. That's why it's not real.

In your nineteen fifties film is real cinema. And to me, it's like, no, that there's a clear just like there's a clear issue of why you're saying that that you don't you don't care about our stories as much, or you don't care about you know, these these filmmakers. Well, I feel like anytime you put real in front of, like as a descriptor in front of any subject, it's usually followed by some bs like real women have curl,

really don't cry. Real blank, you know, like it's it's a nothing term and it's something used to be elitist, you know, and because usually when the person is using real blankety blank blank blank, it usually means the latter. So it's like real films. No, a real film is any film made, work put into it. Because if if you've ever tried to shoot anything, not even necessarily a film, you know how much of a labor of love and collaboration.

It is so too for anyone, you know, to disc credit anything because they think it's cool and edgy, because it's in black and white, you know what I'm saying, Like, like Clerks did it in black and white, and they didn't have to be in the fifties. I think also we're not. I mean when you look at to the amount of people who are are allowed to have theatrical releases, because that's essentially what he was saying is, oh, no,

the film should have to have a theatrical release. Well, think about who gets that type of funding, and think about the stories that don't get that funding, you know, in the studio and the and it's nice that we're able so many eyes on Netflix are able to see our stories and are able to see the work of these filmmakers, and it's unfortunate. Of course they want to have theatrical releases. It doesn't mean the studio is going

to help them with that. Yeah. I think what it all comes down to is this just that old head mentality, which is all funny because as I explained that there's still going to be some like light irony stuff because like I feel like a lot of old head mentality is this idea that now it's becoming easier to do what I worked hard to do. The reason that's irony is because especially a lot of creative spaces. Uh. You know.

The reason you're right, the reason there are a lot of these issues are because it's primarily dominated by white men, specifically older white men who have been in the game for longer than The reason they've been in the game for longer is because they've had this ability to like whenever I hear like a story of this filmmaker who had a camera at like three, and he always got it like my my dad would never let me touch a camera because we didn't have the money to burn

on me wasting the family camera like I didn't, so you have. And and then also I was talking about this a little bit in the E Sports episode, and I think it's kind of the same, the same kind of symptom of it, where it's like there's all these risks, like for me to pursue my career, it was it caused like a real huge, big blow up in my family for me to you know, my dad comes here from Nigeria and he wants me to be something that is guaranteed to make money, like a doctor or a lawyer,

or an accountant or a pharmacist. You know. I I used to want to draw and I got talked out of going to college for art because he said there's no money in that. So when you think of that mentality from parents who and usually families uh from poverty, like even you know, even like some white families. And then you add like a layer to it where like say you are a person of color, or if you are a female or a woman, uh, you know, sorry, it's a black thing. You know, you have to move

it out my vernacular. Uh, if you're a woman and you're like expected to like especially like a lot of immigrant families are like you when you're a woman, it's like you have to make yourself presentable for a husband. You need to. You can't intimidate them. So like me trying to go into this field that is like, yeah, I could be in this for thirty years and nothing happens. Luckily for me, things have been happening and my dad has been able to sigh release and now he's bragging

as if I did get a doctorates. But but that's what you know, people of color and women are usually facing where it's like because I don't have anyone to point to and hopefully now you know, you know, even on my stream, you know, he means it jokingly, but hopefully like you know someone he's like, he's like, you know, I can show you like, um, this guy Draco, he's he's Nigerian, he's in the UK, and he's like, I can show my mom that you have dreads and and

she'll let me get dreads. Because that's really how it works. That's you know, when you can point to a Steven Spielberg, Peter Jackson, any name, any one of them and be like, look, that's who I want to be, and your parents are like, oh, yeah, you know you are a young white kid and yeah

you look like that. But if if I'm like, you know, I'm like, hey, I want to be like Steven Spielberg Peter Jackson, there's all this baggage where my dad's like, well, no, you're not like them, you you you gotta go, you gotta do the lawyer. And then you add even more compound that's from an immigrant perspective, where like some people who grow up in the hood and think the only way out is basketball, sports or or or wrapping those those are the only two options. So of course, yeah,

this is going to be dominated by this. And then you add in the effects of like, okay, you got like college you know, bonds, so you got like Emmerson mafia. If you wrote for the what you McCall it the you know what I'm talking about, But what's the comedy thing over there that's real big, right for the Lampoon.

You have all these connections, and you have this expectation where you have these these these like Ivy League folks in these rooms, um show runners who who think that, oh, I'm good because I went to an Ivy League school and not necessarily because they're funny, and they may have a person of color or a woman in front of them who is genuinely funny, but they're like, well, they didn't go to Emerson, they didn't go to an Ivy League school, they didn't write for the National Lampoon. And

that's my like bar for comedy. When it's like, oh no, it's this whole funny thing like that's you know, and

it and it gets even more insulting. I'm doing a tangent ran again, but it gets even more insulting when you see like how often people pluck from black Twitter memes and pluck from the things that we are saying and use it in their bs and then uh, and then still have the goal to not want to hire black people for some BS bar that we can't reach because even then, ivye have a hard time letting in black people. And I and when I say black people,

I mean black people. Africans get in higher on average, just so they can say they're letting in black people, but they're letting in Africans. And there goes a whole another baggage that I can but anyway to reel it all in that is that I don't barely scratch the surface of the baggage. But that's what is up against all of people of color and women, and that type

of stuff isn't carried. And that's generally what people talk about, just in case someone needs to hear this, When they mean privilege, that doesn't mean that you didn't have a hard life. That doesn't mean that you may not have been poor. But if you were poor and white, you still have a better chance of getting at Harvard than a poor and black person. It's just simple facts, and there's data to back that up. Affirmative action help no

one but white women, straight up. And it's and it's and that's just why let's just stick to the back. But I would say to go to end that point is essentially that is what studios are more willing to take a risk on, their less willing to take a risk on filmmakers of color, and they're less willing to take a risk on stories from people of color. And that has been shown throughout these decades and even now, which is a conversation that we've had in the last

couple of podcasts, we're still dealing with that. So all I wanted to say is when people are like, oh, you don't have real film, you know, because it's we don't have film from the nineteen fifties. It's not that I'm saying that you can't watch those. I'm just saying that you're invalidating the current landscape of what they have on there that is hard hitting stuff from people of coloring.

And that's the thing. You even like what you like, but don't try and uh nag or knocked down something someone else likes to try and prop up the thing you like, And which is like Steven Spielberg game by saying something like what is he losing out on by making that criticism, and just like it just seems so empty to do in the first place. It's just the the old head thing. It's that idea of like it's so easy when I worked so hard, when you should

be happy about it. It's it's very much like crabs in the barrel, like I made it and everyone should should that. That's what separated the cream from the crop. And I was like, now there's a lot of other stuff that's separated. And it wasn't even the cream of the crop. It was the cream of the who had the most known father or uncle or somebody who can give them a leg up. It's it's as simple as that.

We all know it. It's all part of it. Nepotism is part of it, and and that's not and this always will be a part of it, because like I said, there's a very collaborative scene. So even even everyone in this room is probably gonna hire someone who is their friend or homie. But then that just means the onus is if you see a hole or a blind spot in the people you're hiring, maybe hire one less homie and put someone on who you think deserves it. Fritzing out And I want to end on a positive a note.

Before I know Danny is about to take us to break because I don't like to be so like negative in the industry. I am without like shining line on some positivity. And I will say, and Danny is really good about this. Because of that, there are a lot of dope programs to highlight and shine women and people of color to get them at that point, Danny is real good about posting when all of these are entering in.

So don't listen to this and and think that I don't have a chance with all that that whole diet tribe. If you do have a chance, and they are working to fix it. It's a long problem to fix when you have to fix so many stems and loops and all that. But there is a shot. And I think if you want it bad enough, even with nothing you know really in front of you, just go for it, you know, just make a safe thing. Make sure you don't kill yourself doing it, but just go for it.

Never let anything stop you from doing what you believe you are set out in this world to do. If you thank you for that, I'm gonna I'm gonna save that and listen to whenever I feel like giving up. Um, I do post on my If you follow me on Twitter, I do post. I try to post as often as possible for different writers and creators of color when they're accepting submissions for things. We do have to take an ad break. We will be right back to talk more

about the Bechdel Test. And we're back still joined by Caitlin and Jamie, and I wanted to ask y'all about some of the films that we're surprising that didn't pass the Bechdel test. Okay, let me pull up our list. There's I'm never surprised when a movie does not pass the Bechdel times. I mean sometimes they seem to be marketed specifically for women, right, and there's even some of those don't pass it. I think the most famous example

of that that we get. We haven't covered it on the show, but it comes up all the time is I think it's like ane late nineteen thirties movie called The Women and we're all female past. It's like ten women you do not like your famously, and the way it was marketed like it was like you don't see a man on screen the whole time, and that is true. It does not pass the back because they're only talking

to talk to each other. But it's always about it's always about a gotten, it's always about a man named Steve. They're talking about Steve the whole movie. Do you know who wrote that? Let me the womenkay written by? Oh, it was written by It was written by two women over so really uh really uh job, no no way to no way around it. No, the thing is for me.

I tend to not remember unless it's like it very handily passes, or it is very clear that the movie would not pass because it only has one woman in the entire movie see Raiders of the Lost Dark see you Know a New Hope, that kind of thing. Um. I tend not to really remember if a movie passes the Bechdel Test or not us because it's a metric that is a useful metric first starting off point to

talk about representation of women in movies. But that's pretty much all we use it for is just like, Okay, this initiates a larger conversation that we can talk about a whole stoe of other things. So whether or not a movie passes Jamie, as you said, like like the Room, that famously horrible, horrible movie past test, but like it's still such a piece of and you know, it's fun to watch, but you know, it doesn't mean anything that

that movie passes. And then I think, like we determine chart here, our our friends are very studious and make up the chart. I would say one that I found surprising was You've Got Mail because it's a rom com. Yeah, you didn't think like movies that are like made right for women in theory. And that was came out like

what two decades ago. So yeah, I think they talked about you know, well, no, I think I think it's probablyly in her book in the scenes in the bookstore, you know, when she because she's talking about her mom and she's talking about you know what I mean, Like, I think that's probably how it passed. It. The whole order of the Rings trilogy does not pass the Vachtel test, not one of it's a ten hour it doesn't pass.

It's crazy. It has every opportunity and it doesn't. Uh. And then another one we did recently that I thought, I guess sort of for the same reason you were saying, Danny about You've Got Mail, is five Days of Summer doesn't pass the Vechtel test um. Wait, were you saying that it does it does pass? Yeah, it does pass. That's why I'm saying I find that surprising because it's a rom com. You think, like you know, because she was yeah, okay, yeah, I mean rom coms often don't pass.

I think we did. We did an episode about we haven't done um you've got mail yet, but we did do when Harry met Sally and Sleepless in Seattle, And there are most of those. There might be like a very quick conversation that just happens to not be about men, but often in rom comms, I mean, there's it's it's it's interesting because like there are certain genres that almost never passed, like action movies like often do not pass because there's usually one woman and she's the love interest.

She gets captured, she has to be saved, like she's everyone's like, oh my god, she can kick. I mean even if she's allowed to fight. Usually women are not allowed to fight. Usually they just actual or if you're in the locks arc, your only weapon can be like a domestic item like a frying pan or in Halloween, it's like all domestic items that that are weapons and oh boy, well this is such an interesting statistics. So um, vactives.

Authors found that films from thirteen that passed the test earned a total of four point two billion in the US, while those that failed earned only two point sixty six billion, saying that Hollywood makes more money by having more women on screen, which, hello, we've been seeing that, you know, as Yeah, it's kind of interesting that you might be able to capture that whole other demographic of our population. And you know, we make up half or more than

half of the population. Yeah, I mean, it's I mean, hopefully people will continue to I mean the past three years is there's been an increase in diversity almost across the board, and it's like, can we, for the love of God keep that going. There's it's not it's like it's good business to like, there's no reason except being a bigot toll to not do that. Like people want to see these stories, and people will pay to see these stories, So make it happen. Stop making the same

boring movie over and over and over. There's a couple of other tests it looks like that have come up. There's GLADS, which is Studio Responsibility Index, So that has to do with queer characters. So essentially their criteria is Um, the film contains a character that is identifiably lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgender. The character must not be solely or predominantly defined by their sexual orientation. We see that so much. It's like, that's my personality. Um, that's who I am.

That's my character trait is that I'm gay. That's it. Um, I see that. Also. I don't know if there's a if there's a marker for this one, but for plus size women it's normally I'm fat. That's it. That's my character. And I remember people like tweeting, hey, you know the fact girl you can like actually give her a storyline and other things. Right, she's almost always like the butt of jokes. But yeah, exactly. Yeah, the test you were

just talking about is the Vito Russo tests. And yeah, and I think the third caveat of that is that that character, if they were removed from the story, it would have like significant impact on the plot. So basically, like their integration into the story, uh needs to be so important that removing them would affect how the story plays out. Um, So few movies that we've done on the podcast that I've seen in general past the Vito Russo test, which is very upsetting. Um. But yeah, there's

that one. UM. There's another one that I like is the way test, which the rules of it are movie passes if there's a black woman in the work who's in a position of power and she's in a healthy relationship. UM. Of the top fifty movies, five movies passed that very simple metric. Um. There there was a project that five thirty eight did at the I think it was at the end of twenty at the end of where they invited women of you know, like every every type of

woman you could think of to make up their own metrics. UM. And there were more. There were more intersectional tests. There were tests that focused for behind the camera, which is I think something that we don't get a chance to get a lot in our show, but like it's one thing to have. UM. I mean, there's so many movies we've covered where we're like, oh, cool, a female protagonist.

Like I think Carrie is a movie that we covered that It's like, Okay, you have a movie that is about women, but so much of it is Uncanny Valley because everyone behind the camera is a man. So it's like a man writing a woman's story, and so you're like the story doesn't make sense. Um, and I don't know everyone, everyone check it out. There's I think like

thirty or forty different positive tests. Here's something I want to butt in with two because I know, you know, whenever you have these conversations, there's this like weird like so there shouldn't be any movies about white wo men, and it's like, no, that's not the case. I just wanted to just drop a number to kind of help you realize how this actually isn't a huge impact and you still can have your cake and eat it with us representing other people and still making movies about white men.

Because look, I love Ryan Gosling. You put him in anything that he's my favorite white dude. I'm sorry, I'm gonna sen but there are a total of two thousand, five hundred and seventy seven films produced each year on average around the world. So yeah, I feel like you wouldn't really know the difference if you sprinkled it in. Especially, I want everyone to take two seconds to try and remember every movie you saw it last year and see

if they're see which ones you even remember. We see so many movies and there are are only ones that stick with us, and I think that's okay, because that's how stories work. We're gonna see a lot of stories, and certain stories are going to impact us and hold a place within us. I still have yet to see anything, so so I think it really wouldn't make a difference if every week one movie only one, not even asking

a lot. I want more, But I'm just saying, in this hypothetical, if every year one movie is featuring just solely underrepresented characters and actors and people, that would not even impact the movie scene in a big way. You

wouldn't even notice. So so that's that's always And once again, a lot of the things we because you know we which which I forget which episode we're talking about, we were talking about like you know, white men writing, you know, people of color and women and this, and you know, I was contacted by you know, two different people who were who were writers and we're concerned about, like, well,

can I not write? And I was like no. What we're saying is there's a difference when it's handled by certain people, and actually it's it wouldn't be a problem if the people representing being represented were able to write their own stories. And we just want everybody to write.

But when someone's taking the center stage and getting to tell all the stories, when they're getting all the chips in the bowl and the salsa and we were stuck with the crumbs, then we're gonna look at your chips in all your hand and be like, hey, but if everybody's getting chips, everyone's happy. And that's that's what it is. It's more equity than anything, right. We talked about this on the episode we did on the Beguild, which was

that Sofia couple of remakes forgot. It's like, what was just a wretched movie, but it's it's an adapt She remade a movie that Clint Eastwood was in from I think the seventies, and that was an adaptation from a novel um and basically she erases all of the people of color in the book, so it's only white women

in this. In this story, she there was there was a character who was a slave because it takes place during the Civil War, but that character gets erased and then when asked about it was like, oh, well, I didn't think I would be qualified to write that character, so I just took her out her completely instead of

hiring someone Ellab someone I thought I hadn't. I thought, like I saw a couple of people commenting on this, and I thought it was also because then it would make her white female protagonists harder to root for if they had slaves. It's like, well then you need to write a better than don't. Don't make that Like it's as simple as that. It wasn't a good movie to begin with. It was not. It was also the that I never saw it. I mean, not to come down too hard on the nepotism scale, but like that was

on that same press tr Sophia. Couple of us like what am the beck tailed tests? Just like I just I sure feminist hero you know, I mean everyone, Yeah, that movie was trash. Did you want to go over the Maco Morey sure? Yeah. This is another interesting one. This originates from the film The Masterpiece Pacific rim and the Maco Morey test requires that there must be at least one prominent female character in the movie who has her own narrative arc and which is not about supporting

a man's story, right, so it's those three conditions. Is named after the character in the movie whose name is Macomoory who who whose arc does pass that test? And she has I mean, she has like her own story. I My main criticism of that movie is that, in spite of the fact that she's given her own storyline and it's satisfying and as dependent on a man, she has launched out of the climax of that movie, which

made me gasp, and she doesn't get to participate. They are putting her in a pod and she can't be at the end of the movie. And then at the end she's bobbing at the top of the It's just ridiculous. But didn't she say? It also didn't pass the Bechdel tests that that movie, and I don't think that yeah, yeah, um.

There's also the Duvernate test um, which is says that characters who are people of color have fully realized lives rather than serving as the scenery in white stories, which is something that we do see a lot in the movies that we cover on the podcast, where there might be one person of color who's the best friend of the protagonists, but they don't have their own narrative arc. They only exist to basically serve as scenery. I feel

like that's every nineties movie, really, I do. I feel like that's every It was like, you know, the black friend, the Latina friend, you know, and it was like, oh, it's a sassy one, you know. And then they normally die or get killed, like I'm thinking of scary movies, but they you know, comes, It's like they never get

a fully realized their own Yeah. Yeah, that reminds me of Sorry, I was going to say, that reminds me of Dave Chappelle showed up randomly and you've got veil also also in A Star is Born, he just shows up randomly. It's like, Dave Chappelle, why are you in this movie? And then by the time you get the chance to ask that question, he's gone. You don't. I don't why you keep drinking your brother telling you what wrunk?

I love a minute, but I just was like, wait, he shows up and then he never comes, you know. That's what I want for the twilight of my career is just to show up in movie like he's just been showing up, like he showed up at the Means, he showed up at the oscars. That's That's where I need my career to That sounds nice. That sounds nice. So then there's the Riz test Uh, named after a Riz amn Muslim character based on either their ethnicity, their clothing,

or language they speak. Do they talk about or are the victim of a perpetrator of islamis terrorism? Are they shown as being irrationally angry? Is the character anti modern culturally backwards? Are superstitious? Do they get presented as a threat to the Western way of life? And when it comes to the gender of the Muslim character, is the

male character presented as being misogynistic? Does a female character get presented as someone who is oppressed by males, which which just seems like all these tests are like are

you doing the stereotype? You know, like yeah, yeah, just don't adhere to stereotypes, because yeah, I imagine people listening like, oh my gosh, we have to do all of these tests, and it's like, no, it's just if you have a person of color, if you have you know, if you have a woman, if you have these which you should, but like actually make them real characters and not just

side characters and not just stereotypes. Well, my new answer is like, if you're a good writer, you have nothing to worry about because you know, as as I've been just writing more and more, you go back and like there there are like blind spots, Like I was thinking about this episode today and uh, you know, and one of my pilots I was like, damn, there's like two women, uh actually three, but they all are so disjointed that they literally can't pass the Bechdel test because they don't

have any scenes together. So then you you have to wonder, you know. I I've eventually came to terms that it kind of served the story I was telling. But but like and I think that's an important thing too. Whereas like that's something to have in my head and say, you know, you know this gets picked up to a series, baby, you know, like then I have to make an honest effort to rectify that and make sure you know, we're

getting scenes with women, adding more women, I think. Uh so, like in the case of you know, white women, Uh, you know, we had a we write stuff for ourselves and we're six black dudes, so we make sure that you know, when we write something that we are including women.

And you know, it's funny looking at our old stuff because some of our old stuff we're like, we failed y'all, uh simply put, but we're like, you know, going forward, we need to be more aware of that because you know, you've got six men locked in there, and what can you do do here? And I think it's literally that simple.

And like sometimes if you're like, if the story is so important that it serves us, you know, then yeah, then you just go forward with that in your mind and be considerate of that and considered just the women you do have in your story, how are they, how are they communicating with people, how are they being portrayed? And and that's really all you need to think about.

Like I was had one show concept that had you know, and an Asian woman in it who like had the the like tiger mom type thing, and I like called up a friend I don't think she's been on the cash Jinny Yang, and I like walked through the beats of the character is to make sure like I'm not doing anything offensive and and we hash it in it with something great. And obviously if that show got picked up, it's like you're in the room. But like you know, right now, when it's just me the writer, you have

to do your due diligence. And those are examples of ways that you can represent people appropriately, talk to have them read it. You know, if you if you have black people in your story and you're wondering like, oh, is this gonna be offensive? Find a black friend sended to them and have them read it. They'll tell you straight. It's so it's so frustrating, Like and I like when a writer is like, well, I'm too anxious to try to represent people that aren't exactly me. That's like what

perpetuates this problem every single time. So I'm just going to go out and say you're not a good writer if you don't want to do that. If you're limiting your if you're putting training wheels on your scripts because you're afraid of messing up, you're not a good writer

because you're supposed to be challenging yourself. And right, like what we said, like if you have queer characters, that shouldn't be their whole That's why if you're saying, like you're not a good writer, that shouldn't be their whole thing is that they're queer. That's just the part of who they are, but it's not their whole personality. Yeah, that's not a fleshed out character, is just queer. So on that we have to take a quick break and we will be right back to talk more about the

Bechtel test, and we're back. I was going to say, I don't know if we have a Latin next one, but I think if we did, I would want to Are they superstitious? Do they have a decal of Virgin Mary on the back of their car? Do they at some point say that's in so many school? When I was at Io in their screenwriting class, I was like, please stop writing us, like we don't all say that. Well, this is your opportunity to make up. Yes, the IF test, the IFI test for you know, movies feature in Nigerian?

Am I in it? It fails? Or you're racist? Um? So I think those were the main tests that I could find. There's no please go ahead. There's something called the sexy lamp test. Gosh, she told me this and it was terrifying. Isn't that based around a Christmas story. It's the Christmas story that has the the late woman's leg as like the base of a lamp um. So basically, if you can replace your female character with that sexy lamp in your story and the story is still basically works,

then that movie fails. Were the ones that they tried to do that with. I mean, I would say, like, are they saying a Christmas story? Is that movie? You could replace them? Or no, not so much that they're just borrowing that sexy leg lamp from that movie. But I would I would say that, like apply the sexy

lamp test to a lot of like Bond films. I bet those would fail like anyone though, there's just like a token woman who is like the male heroes, like you know, girlfriend back home that he has to like have sex with once and then like or like a woman who's there to like give one piece of information and then disappear like it could have been from the lamp. Yeah, talking, would you count Lars in the Real Girl? Oh my gosh, that's an interesting well we have this com We had

this conversation before we started recording. I think about Solo about the robot. Do you count? Like do those do female characters that aren't human count? I would? I would say so, yeah, if they are, if they seem to

identify as female in some way. And I would also extend like so that we're not being so rigid with like gender, if they are like non binary, if there's a non binary character who talks to a woman or another non binary character like I would and if they're not talking about a man, I would say that pass, like yeah, we don't, we don't want to like you know,

place these rigid restrictions on anything like that. But yeah, and then there's just like our men not talking the whole movie, liked about right right or the subject of every conversation. Yeah, another one I like this. This is like a more specific vision of the behind the camera stuff. Is the Reese Davies test by Katerie Davies. A movie passes if every department has two or more women, which is not which which is something that doesn't happen very much.

Only about a third of movies pass this test because there is such a disproportionate representation behind the camera as well, which is something that I want to be better on our show about like paying attention to of. Like it's so rare to see female composers, female editors, photographers, um, where it's usually where I we're talking about directors, writers

and talent. But there's like there's so many things that like when a movie is edited by women, they're probably going to edit out the shot where you know, probably the male cinematographer. It's like a lingering shot of a woman in a swimsuit exactly. Yeah. Um, there's another one that is, uh, I think lesser known because it's it's newer, but it's called the Kent Test. It's from um Clarkesha Kent, and it's there are many different components to it, so

I'll just name kind of the main one. But it determines whether a film or other piece of media has provided the audience with adequate representation of women or fans of color. And then it has all these different like criteria by which you can like basically, it's like, I think twelve different things, and if it scores higher than like a six or an eight or some some number, then it's like, oh, it's doing pretty well. A lot

of movies don't fare very well on this test. I was gonna say, for if he for your episode of Black Panther, I'm assuming that that passed the Bechdel test, right. And I love the fact that Ryan Coogler had Rachel Morrison, who's his DP and has worked with him on Fruitvale Station and on Black Panther, So that was that is a huge thing that that was pretty cool that he had a woman behind the scenes. Um, as one of

the head people of his crew. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. And then I was pointing I was pointing this out to you the other day that George Miller, who made Mad Max, his wife edited it and he there's this quote where his wife was like, why do you want me to edit this movie? Was like, because if I have a man edited, it's gonna look like every other action movie. And that that's true. Like one of the benefits you get from having an underrepresented peace to your film is

you're getting a different perspective. I mean, in a good writer's room, that's why you want different perspective. I was and probably one of the most diverse writing room a few weeks ago, and you know, we had you know me uh, you know, the showrunner was Indian. You had uh, we had like two women to two men who were writing. Uh. And and it was just interesting too, like you know, have you just your different things to the way people say, like,

you know, it's it's all. It's very interesting too to have just the one line that I always like to hear in those situations, uh, you know when someone speaking and goes, oh, a woman wouldn't say that, you know, like his because because I just even from my perspective, whenever you see like a black person written by a white person, you're like, no black person in their life would ever say that, you know, even just I think

we were saying that a few episodes ago. Just even the relationship to the police, you know, like you, black people have a different relationship to the police. Black people have a different relationship to food. Family eating. There's a different dynamic and one parent, two parent households, how they look at wealth, how they look at fame. There's it's just a whole different worldview. So without someone in there to check you and be like, oh, that would be whack.

And this is why, And I can like totally break down why that person wouldn't say that. You know, it really does help you give that film that extra And if you just pay attention to what people say when films nail at on Twitter, I don't see why no, not everyone does it. You know, what were some of the films since we're closing up here, what are some great films if someone want to check out that do pass the Bechtel test that you guys really love well?

You you just had your Captain Marvel episode, Yeah, that handily passes if we're talking about recent movies that pass the Bechtel test, I mean we always talk about Moana. Uh, that's just like kind of the golden standard of all movies. Um,

are there any Selman? Louise is one of my faves that you know passes handily, and it like Beckham is covered semi recently that that does really well with representing a lot of different types of female relationships, where there's relationships between women of different uh, generations, of different races, of different um like income levels. There's there's a lot of different types and that's something that I think is a blind spot of I mean of the many blind

spots of the Bechtel test too. It takes it doesn't take into account what type of women are you seeing? Right, because there's a jillion funnily funnily is that a word?

I'm going to make it funnily enough. Um. Netflix tweeted that out on International Women's Day and they were just like, when taking positive representative this is what they tweeted from at Netflix Film, when taking positive representation for women, we need to be critical of what good representation looks like, not just for white women, but for women of color. To here are some films to watch on International Women's Day that not only passed the Bechtel test, but the

DuVernay test too. Awesome. Yeah so and then people, oh, um, let's see Roma, Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, The Breaker Uppers, High Flying Bird to all the boys I've loved before. Lot of people wrinkling time. Um. People got you know, kind of through some shade at them by tweeting back at them their senior leadership team which is all white men. Um, and so what I know. But I think for me, I tweeted something like, we are aware of the problems.

You know, there's so many issues we're aware of. Who runs the studios, We're aware of you know. Even when it comes to Netflix, I think Netflix is more has been more willing to take risks and giving a platform to these voices than say other studios. Um. So that's where I'm a win for it. But it's not flawless. None of these are none of them are so um in this progress. Yes, So it's it's gonna take time.

It's gonna take time for there to be you know, more diverse, like you know, studio execs and and directed everyone through every step of the process. So yeah, it's just kind of waiting it out and contributing to the diversity if you are, you know, a writer, young writer, yeah, and not a straight ciss white man. Yeah. I think that wraps everything up, unless you had something iffy. No. The only thing I have is where can people find you? Wow?

You can follow our podcast and listen to it on all the places that you would find a podcast anywhere where you get your podcast, which podcasting Apple because I find that or probably, and then you can follow us on social media on Twitter and Instagram at bechtel Cast and then on Facebook as well. Just type in bectel cast if you don't know how to spell it because a lot of people are like, yeah, I tried to look you up and I don't know how to spell

this damn word. It's a b E C H D E L. And just check out Alison Becktel's work because it's really good. Um. Yeah, that's where you can find should be, I guess individually. Yeah, please do. You can find me on Twitter at Jamie Left His Help or Instagram am at Jamie christ Superstar, and you can follow me on Twitter and Instagram at Caitlin Toronte. Thank you so much for having Yeah, thanks for coming on and for going on. I learned some new tests, and I

think that that's really cool. Many tests to make my own tests, Like like you're saying, if they're all like basically common sense a good writer, So just have common sense to the top of your intelligence. Yeah, and I'm asked someone smarter than you. I do script notes professionally not to plug but yeah, if you should, because we I mean, if you actually are taking submissions. We have a ton of you know, newer writers that we constantly hit us up. So yeah, I do. I'm a professional

story analyst. I give thorough notes and uh, I'm so excited for all the resources we give the people that listen to this podcast. I'm such a nerd, but I like we had voice actors giving advice. We've had we had Xavier come on and and also take he's taking horror scripts that he'll read, and like, oh man, I'm so excited. Hit me up at Caitlin Dronte on Twitter.

Just you know, so I don't know tag me. I don't know how you slide into my d M S. I don't know how things work professionally, sally professionally, you can just slide into my dar. For whatever reason, I don't respond, but I do read them. Hey, how's it going? And you know that's your boy. If I f y n w A d i w E on Twitter and Instagram, the discord is Discord dot g g slash Salt Squad and you can watch me on Twitch at if D s I f d E easy on Twitch. We're getting

it in uh and yeah. Also, you know, if you like clothes and you need them. If you're listening to this and you look down and you're like, all my clothes got holes in them, you can go to Tea Public. We have a Tea Public store with lots of narraw Diifficent merch always at new stuff and we're like hitting you up with the I don't know if you could tell. We've had a themed merchant there. We had the Captain Marvel March for the Captain Marvel episode. We had Harley

during the Terror Strong Harley Quinn episode. So just thank you. Peep it. Yeah, it's t public dot com slash near Deifficent. I'm at miss Danny Fernandez. If you're going to Wonder Con, I will also be there on Friday. I have a panel with Aurice Wanser who was on our show. Also Chris Lam who has a who's going to be on one of our future shows. It's LGBT and minority host How to break Through. I know that we kind of did an episode on that, so then you can hear

even more if you're interested in becoming a host. That's at four pm, Um, I'm going to tweet out all of this, and then Saturday, I'm on the Most Dangerous Women panel with some killer women that I love, and that is at eleven am. So if you're at Wonder Con, come and say hi to me. Very very so approachable and like we always say, stay neardy, stay neardy on