Bechdel Test
Nov. 4th, 2013 08:13 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
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goldenusagi: The Bechdel test, and why passing it isn’t as crucial as you may believe
I always find posts like this one so frustrating. Because, on the one hand, I do agree with the points that the essay makes. The Bechdel test wasn't designed to test individual works for feminism. There are works that are feminist that don't pass it. And there’s absolutely nothing in the test that says all works should pass it. All these points are true and fine.
But at the same time, every time someone posts something like this, tons of people show up in the comments being all "I've been worried because my work so rarely passes the Bechdel Test, but now that you've pointed out it's a test for wider societal trends and not individual works, I feel just fine with my output!"
(Of course, when someone posts something “Yay Bechdel test!”, there are always tons of people in comments who are all, “I’ve been worried because my work so rarely passes the Bechdel Test, but let me defensively explain why this actually isn’t a problem.” So you can’t really win.)
It's like these people think "wider societal trends" are something mystical and unchanging, rather than something created by human action: specifically, by the fact that many people feel just fine writing works where women rarely interact with each other, and only ever about men.
That being said. I don't think people have any obligation make their own work fit a social justice standard, particularly if that work is fanfic that they're writing for fun. Everyone should follow their bliss as long as it's not directly hurting anyone.
But if someone does want to their work to reflect or further their social justice ideals, and they're unhappy about their inclusion or lack thereof of female characters (or black characters, or whatever kind of characters), then it’s silly to leap on articles like this to rationalize away their niggling sense that their work doesn’t meet their social justice standards. If they don’t want to face their deficiencies head on and write more of those characters, they should admit (to themselves, if no one else) that they don’t care enough to do anything about it.
goldenusagi: The Bechdel test, and why passing it isn’t as crucial as you may believeI always find posts like this one so frustrating. Because, on the one hand, I do agree with the points that the essay makes. The Bechdel test wasn't designed to test individual works for feminism. There are works that are feminist that don't pass it. And there’s absolutely nothing in the test that says all works should pass it. All these points are true and fine.
But at the same time, every time someone posts something like this, tons of people show up in the comments being all "I've been worried because my work so rarely passes the Bechdel Test, but now that you've pointed out it's a test for wider societal trends and not individual works, I feel just fine with my output!"
(Of course, when someone posts something “Yay Bechdel test!”, there are always tons of people in comments who are all, “I’ve been worried because my work so rarely passes the Bechdel Test, but let me defensively explain why this actually isn’t a problem.” So you can’t really win.)
It's like these people think "wider societal trends" are something mystical and unchanging, rather than something created by human action: specifically, by the fact that many people feel just fine writing works where women rarely interact with each other, and only ever about men.
That being said. I don't think people have any obligation make their own work fit a social justice standard, particularly if that work is fanfic that they're writing for fun. Everyone should follow their bliss as long as it's not directly hurting anyone.
But if someone does want to their work to reflect or further their social justice ideals, and they're unhappy about their inclusion or lack thereof of female characters (or black characters, or whatever kind of characters), then it’s silly to leap on articles like this to rationalize away their niggling sense that their work doesn’t meet their social justice standards. If they don’t want to face their deficiencies head on and write more of those characters, they should admit (to themselves, if no one else) that they don’t care enough to do anything about it.
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no subject
Date: 2013-11-05 12:04 am (UTC)YES. Each individual work is an individual work, but it's the collection of individual works that creates the societal trends!
Did you notice on a recent episode of Castle, the murder victim happened to be a lesbian, and this was not at all relevant to the case? It was a fact, but she wasn't killed because she was a lesbian, and her sexual orientation wasn't problematized and didn't lift eyebrows at all. That's how you change societal trends: by having casual inclusion of stuff--or at least, it's one way.
no subject
Date: 2013-11-05 03:48 am (UTC)I don't have a TV so I haven't seen recent episodes of anything, but that seems like a very Castleish thing to do. They often have episodes where the murder victim was involved in non-mainstream things - SF cons, BDSM, vampire clubs - but the murders aren't related to these activities, and they never do that "Well these weird people kill for weird reasons! Those SF fans, so trigger-happy!" thing that sometimes happens on other shows.