Sexism pervades our culture pretty strongly. There's a reason why the simple but very intelligent Bechdel Test is so rarely passed.
The Bechdel test is so useful.
That's why The Lord of the Rings fails it but The Sword of Shanara passes it.
:rotate:
It's not like it makes claims about quality.
Lord of the Rings is a story that is very much not about women. It's still a great story, but I don't know that I've ever seen anyone state that the Bechdel Test is designed to ferret out the best works of literature.
It is ok for a particular movie to fail that test, but given a reasonably large sample size and an unbiased society, we would expect the number that fails to roughly mirror the number that fails the male version.
1) All females are girls, but not all girls are females.
Female is biological, "girl" is generally associated with gender, and gender doesn't always follow biology. Some males are women, some females are men.
This is really really context dependent. People do say that a lot, but honestly, the main difference I see between the words isn't biology/gender, but is that female is an adjective and girl/woman is not. People refer to female pronouns, female clothing, female body parts, etc. And there are a bunch of "check your gender: female/male" boxes (and I do get that most people don't think about phrasing when they do that, but female and male are really ingrained in our culture as gendered adjectives.)
It is arbitrary, and it's only noteworthiness is that a staggering percentage of films can't meet it's criteria, while the same cannot be said for the 'reverse test'.
While the Bechdel test isn't useful on an individual movie basis, and says nothing about quality, it does highlight an overall trend towards male centered roles in Hollywood. Women don't talk to each other. They are there to be useful to the male protagonist or they are there as the protagonist and are completely surrounded by males.
edit: removed my example because it's really not analogous, and it would only cause confusion
Which is why I called the test useless.
It's sole reason for existence is to prove a point that is blindingly obvious already to anyone who isn't a troll. Media is malecentric. Yes. This is a fact.
Unless someone is denying that, the Bechdel test is useless.
Geek culture and media is pretty strong these days. How many sports movies versus how many comic book movies in the last five years?
Sure, but the relevant question is whether most newer franchises suffer from these problems, right? Obviously if you reboot an old franchise it's hard to change the core characters around too much, and introducing new ones is always an iffy proposition with the fans.
New franchises still tend to be pretty sexist. Guess what sex the nagging know-it-all was in Harry Potter!
You mean the smartest and most capable character in the book? To paraphrase Tube, if that's your example of sexism in media it's time to hang up the bayonet.
And even if you do think Harry Potter is sexist on any meaningful level (?), it's very hard to argue that YA fiction as a whole is. Women make up the majority of readers and authors, and strong female protagonists are pretty common.
You mean the naggiest nag of nagsville. Like Asians who are good at math, it's still a bullshit stereotype.
Ben 10 has the same dynamic. The sister is mature, knowledgeable, but an obnoxious nag, while the boys are fun warriors. Sitcoms have the same dynamic like crazy. So many idiotic but fun husbands with obnoxious know-it-all nag wives. The dynamic in Family Guy, Simpsons, Home Improvement, etc is part of our ignorance-is-good, knowledge-is-boring cultural bullshit. Not sure how it works in the UK, but I doubt the nagging woman is an American original.
She was pretty open about how the Herm was written. Harry was Harry, Ron was introduced as an obviously non-sexual friend and confidante, and Herm was introduced fairly late as a source of exposition. Herm's personality and backstory were written for the express purpose of making sure the type of teacher's pet that would know everything would have a narrative excuse to hang out with the trouble makers.
Hermoine is also the most likable and voice-of-morality throughout all of the books.
The know-it-all concerned with following rules/caution crosses genders.
I'd be more concerned with the obvious tokenism of making the late third character female, for my part.
Hermione is probably the number two character in the books, at worst she is tied with Ron for the size of her part. Hell, she is the one with actual talent out of the three. And the books are written by a woman.
I Love Lucy does match the idiotic but fun wife trope, I'll grant you that. But, it was also a program of the 1950s, before feminism in its current form took shape. It's grandmothered in as respectable.
I've never seen an episode of Rosanne in my life. I can't honestly comment on it as matching the trope or not.
What's actually interesting is to look at how early sitcoms actually handled gender relationships. Like The Honeymooners. Everyone always pokes fun at how Ralph constantly used the "One of these days, Alice...!" thing, but in the end, Alice is ALWAYS the one to get things over on her husband and Ralph is ALWAYS revealed to be nothing more than a blowhard with a bruised ego.
I Love Lucy takes on an interesting turn when you realize that Lucy really is talented. When they go to Hollywood and Ricky's stint there winds down, Lucy's is picking up steam. It's only by coercion and threat of taking Little Ricky and going back to New York without her that she gives up on having a career of her own.
To me, though, one of the darkest mid-century sitcoms is Bewitched when you really see that Darren is a controlling dillweed. It's never okay for Sam to use her powers unless he really needs them to win over his boss/a client/whatever, then it's different. It really makes you not feel bad when he gets turned into a variety of animals all wearing a necktie.
Also, King of the Hill was pretty much a complete inversion of the Dopey Husband/Smart Wife trope.
I Love Lucy does match the idiotic but fun wife trope, I'll grant you that. But, it was also a program of the 1950s, before feminism in its current form took shape. It's grandmothered in as respectable.
I've never seen an episode of Rosanne in my life. I can't honestly comment on it as matching the trope or not.
What's actually interesting is to look at how early sitcoms actually handled gender relationships. Like The Honeymooners. Everyone always pokes fun at how Ralph constantly used the "One of these days, Alice...!" thing, but in the end, Alice is ALWAYS the one to get things over on her husband and Ralph is ALWAYS revealed to be nothing more than a blowhard with a bruised ego.
I Love Lucy takes on an interesting turn when you realize that Lucy really is talented. When they go to Hollywood and Ricky's stint there winds down, Lucy's is picking up steam. It's only by coercion and threat of taking Little Ricky and going back to New York without her that she gives up on having a career of her own.
To me, though, one of the darkest mid-century sitcoms is Bewitched when you really see that Darren is a controlling dillweed. It's never okay for Sam to use her powers unless he really needs them to win over his boss/a client/whatever, then it's different. It really makes you not feel bad when he gets turned into a variety of animals all wearing a necktie.
Also, King of the Hill was pretty much a complete inversion of the Dopey Husband/Smart Wife trope.
It is arbitrary, and it's only noteworthiness is that a staggering percentage of films can't meet it's criteria, while the same cannot be said for the 'reverse test'.
While the Bechdel test isn't useful on an individual movie basis, and says nothing about quality, it does highlight an overall trend towards male centered roles in Hollywood. Women don't talk to each other. They are there to be useful to the male protagonist or they are there as the protagonist and are completely surrounded by males.
edit: removed my example because it's really not analogous, and it would only cause confusion
Which is why I called the test useless.
It's sole reason for existence is to prove a point that is blindingly obvious already to anyone who isn't a troll. Media is malecentric. Yes. This is a fact.
Unless someone is denying that, the Bechdel test is useless.
I disagree. Its criteria are arbitrary, but as long as it's applied consistently and there are controls we get real data which can be useful for all kinds of things.
Like measuring if we are getting noticeably better (or worse) as time goes on.
It is arbitrary, and it's only noteworthiness is that a staggering percentage of films can't meet it's criteria, while the same cannot be said for the 'reverse test'.
While the Bechdel test isn't useful on an individual movie basis, and says nothing about quality, it does highlight an overall trend towards male centered roles in Hollywood. Women don't talk to each other. They are there to be useful to the male protagonist or they are there as the protagonist and are completely surrounded by males.
edit: removed my example because it's really not analogous, and it would only cause confusion
Which is why I called the test useless.
It's sole reason for existence is to prove a point that is blindingly obvious already to anyone who isn't a troll. Media is malecentric. Yes. This is a fact.
Unless someone is denying that, the Bechdel test is useless.
I disagree. Its criteria are arbitrary, but as long as it's applied consistently and there are controls we get real data which can be useful for all kinds of things.
Like measuring if we are getting noticeably better (or worse) as time goes on.
Again, useless. Anyone arguing that this isn't (and hasn't) been getting better is being disingenuous or simply trolling. Cable networks dedicated to female centric programming, Ryan Gosling films etc. It's completely clear, utterly transparent that media is spending more money and effort to attract the female demographic.
Whether or not any of it is quality is irrelevant, and the Bechdel test couldn't measure for that anyway.
Yeouch. Though this also serves to remind me how little I know about geek culture. I think I recognize maybe three characters/names mentioned...hmmm...
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ShivahnUnaware of her barrel shifter privilegeWestern coastal temptressRegistered User, Moderatormod
Yeouch. Though this also serves to remind me how little I know about geek culture. I think I recognize maybe three characters/names mentioned...hmmm...
If it makes you feel better, the only one I recognized was Bella from Twilight.
Yeouch. Though this also serves to remind me how little I know about geek culture. I think I recognize maybe three characters/names mentioned...hmmm...
The really fucking creepy part was where she pointed out that some men were happy to state that they would happily let Lara get raped for tittilation.
We've seen much more convincing arguments than that rubbish from both sides here. There's no need to go external for your support when you have much more capable people on your side right here in the thread.
A lot of the characters (3/5) she has in her lineup are interesting female characters or at least were at the time that that image references to. She's got powergirl in an image from her best run ever, where she was being written by a woman. She's got Princess Leia, who was anything but a helpless flower, whose metal bikini images felt like a natural and normal part of the plot. And Leeloo from fifth element, who (while not strong in a classical way) was a forceful and important part of the plot and didn't feel like a tacked on T&A piece at any time.
Sexism is (and I think we all agree on this) NOT the way someone looks. Characters all being classically beautiful is the symptom of a more pervasive problem which affects everyone equally and is nothing to do with sexism. Sexism is when female characters are nothing except their beauty, or where they behave in unbelievable ways to allow the audience to 'observe' some T&A. There's nothing 'wrong' with this, but it is sexist. Just because powergirl has brought enough boobs for the whole class doesn't mean she's sexist, how she acts and behaves does that. Sometimes she is, and sometimes she isn't.
Please, before this gets off the deep end, remember that this entire discussion was spawned by the contention that you can disagree that the dictionary definition of racism really is racism.
Lying again. It's based on the fact that you said definitions are objectively true. Which is false.
definitions objectively define words because that is a tautology.
What you claimed was that the definition in the dictionary is objectively true. Specifically:
if the dictionary definition of racism is not objectively racism then the universe just crapped the bed
Which is still not true. Dictionaries are not objective truth. They are subjective books made by subjective people whose definitions change all the time. So more to the point: That you personally think something is racism and even if something fits whichever dictionary you happen to pick out definition of racism does not mean others agree it's racism. They can very easily claim both you and the dictionary have it wrong. Hell, they might have their own dictionary that even says so!
Which brings us back to: Media can not be objectively sexist. Which is part of the problem since you get idiots who just deny blatant, obvious sexism because they decide to define it differently for themselves.
You get that Powergirl is not a real person right?
Like yes, women with large breasts are not "being sexist" because they have large breasts. They're built how they're built.
But the not-actual-person that is an image drawn on the page with large breasts can in fact be sexist. It's possible!
Edit: I mean, we've had like 6 explanations of the boob-window, and they all boil down to "but actually it's ridiculous my character would ever do this, really it's for jerk-off material".
We've seen much more convincing arguments than that rubbish from both sides here. There's no need to go external for your support when you have much more capable people on your side right here in the thread.
A lot of the characters (3/5) she has in her lineup are interesting female characters or at least were at the time that that image references to. She's got powergirl in an image from her best run ever, where she was being written by a woman. She's got Princess Leia, who was anything but a helpless flower, whose metal bikini images felt like a natural and normal part of the plot. And Leeloo from fifth element, who (while not strong in a classical way) was a forceful and important part of the plot and didn't feel like a tacked on T&A piece at any time.
Sexism is (and I think we all agree on this) NOT the way someone looks. Characters all being classically beautiful is the symptom of a more pervasive problem which affects everyone equally and is nothing to do with sexism. Sexism is when female characters are nothing except their beauty, or where they behave in unbelievable ways to allow the audience to 'observe' some T&A. There's nothing 'wrong' with this, but it is sexist. Just because powergirl has brought enough boobs for the whole class doesn't mean she's sexist, how she acts and behaves does that. Sometimes she is, and sometimes she isn't.
It's not so much that those characters aren't any good, but that selectively picking out examples is dumb.
You get that Powergirl is not a real person right?
Like yes, women with large breasts are not "being sexist" because they have large breasts. They're built how they're built.
But the not-actual-person that is an image drawn on the page with large breasts can in fact be sexist. It's possible!
Edit: I mean, we've had like 6 explanations of the boob-window, and they all boil down to "but actually it's ridiculous my character would ever do this, really it's for jerk-off material".
Like all comic characters whether she's being a sexist character or not depends on whose writing and drawing her at the time.
I haven't seen RoJ in a while, but wasn't Princess Leia's outfit at that point directly related to her having attempted an (admittedly unsuccessful) rescue attempt for a helpless, blinded male character?
Admittedly it's a male character who eventually rescues both of them, but I recall that having less to do with his hyper-competent maleness and more to do with him being fucking telekinetic.
That's the outfit she's wearing when she turns on her captor (who is many times her size and strength) and kills him with the chains he used to bind her, isn't it?
We've seen much more convincing arguments than that rubbish from both sides here. There's no need to go external for your support when you have much more capable people on your side right here in the thread.
A lot of the characters (3/5) she has in her lineup are interesting female characters or at least were at the time that that image references to. She's got powergirl in an image from her best run ever, where she was being written by a woman. She's got Princess Leia, who was anything but a helpless flower, whose metal bikini images felt like a natural and normal part of the plot. And Leeloo from fifth element, who (while not strong in a classical way) was a forceful and important part of the plot and didn't feel like a tacked on T&A piece at any time.
Sexism is (and I think we all agree on this) NOT the way someone looks. Characters all being classically beautiful is the symptom of a more pervasive problem which affects everyone equally and is nothing to do with sexism. Sexism is when female characters are nothing except their beauty, or where they behave in unbelievable ways to allow the audience to 'observe' some T&A. There's nothing 'wrong' with this, but it is sexist. Just because powergirl has brought enough boobs for the whole class doesn't mean she's sexist, how she acts and behaves does that. Sometimes she is, and sometimes she isn't.
Except that all of that was in response to the first image. You know, the one where whoever created it missed the irony of putting Lady Gaga in as an example of "sexism"? The point of the first part of that article is that sometimes people who are trying to pretend like they aren't sexist.... are actually being kinda sexist.
"Geek culture is better because our women aren't scantily clad!"
It is arbitrary, and it's only noteworthiness is that a staggering percentage of films can't meet it's criteria, while the same cannot be said for the 'reverse test'.
While the Bechdel test isn't useful on an individual movie basis, and says nothing about quality, it does highlight an overall trend towards male centered roles in Hollywood. Women don't talk to each other. They are there to be useful to the male protagonist or they are there as the protagonist and are completely surrounded by males.
edit: removed my example because it's really not analogous, and it would only cause confusion
Which is why I called the test useless.
It's sole reason for existence is to prove a point that is blindingly obvious already to anyone who isn't a troll. Media is malecentric. Yes. This is a fact.
Unless someone is denying that, the Bechdel test is useless.
I disagree. Its criteria are arbitrary, but as long as it's applied consistently and there are controls we get real data which can be useful for all kinds of things.
Like measuring if we are getting noticeably better (or worse) as time goes on.
Except you are measuring whether we are getting better or worse vs an arbitrary and useless criteria.
It's like Pirates vs Global Warming all over again.
It is arbitrary, and it's only noteworthiness is that a staggering percentage of films can't meet it's criteria, while the same cannot be said for the 'reverse test'.
While the Bechdel test isn't useful on an individual movie basis, and says nothing about quality, it does highlight an overall trend towards male centered roles in Hollywood. Women don't talk to each other. They are there to be useful to the male protagonist or they are there as the protagonist and are completely surrounded by males.
edit: removed my example because it's really not analogous, and it would only cause confusion
Which is why I called the test useless.
It's sole reason for existence is to prove a point that is blindingly obvious already to anyone who isn't a troll. Media is malecentric. Yes. This is a fact.
Unless someone is denying that, the Bechdel test is useless.
I disagree. Its criteria are arbitrary, but as long as it's applied consistently and there are controls we get real data which can be useful for all kinds of things.
Like measuring if we are getting noticeably better (or worse) as time goes on.
Again, useless. Anyone arguing that this isn't (and hasn't) been getting better is being disingenuous or simply trolling. Cable networks dedicated to female centric programming, Ryan Gosling films etc. It's completely clear, utterly transparent that media is spending more money and effort to attract the female demographic.
Whether or not any of it is quality is irrelevant, and the Bechdel test couldn't measure for that anyway.
I don't understand what you're suggesting.
Are there people arguing that things are worse than they've ever been and that's the only reason to attempt to change things? I'd happily say things have been getting better in general. Just, why bother to stop asking for better stuff? TV has gotten better overall, I'd still like fewer Real Housewives shows.
You get that Powergirl is not a real person right?
Like yes, women with large breasts are not "being sexist" because they have large breasts. They're built how they're built.
But the not-actual-person that is an image drawn on the page with large breasts can in fact be sexist. It's possible!
Edit: I mean, we've had like 6 explanations of the boob-window, and they all boil down to "but actually it's ridiculous my character would ever do this, really it's for jerk-off material".
Like all comic characters whether she's being a sexist character or not depends on whose writing and drawing her at the time.
Editorial, more like. Individual writers and artists can't really change long-standing costume designs. The newest one might be better? It hasn't really made it into the public consciousness yet, though.
I can't speak for powergirl, the fifth element (haven't seen it) or the green lady at the end (I have no idea who that is). I'm sure Lollipop Chainsaw is disgraceful and terrible but one of the more notable things is that she has the severed head of a male attacker on her belt.
I don't know why some are looking at the picture at the top. Fuck the picture, the story is the text below.
As to the whole article, it always seems to be like "geek culture"'s problem is that because for many it's some sort of safe-haven from emotional abuse, there's many members who are less then well adjusted and any criticism is seen as a very personal attack on their last stronghold.
I can't speak for powergirl, the fifth element (haven't seen it) or the green lady at the end (I have no idea who that is). I'm sure Lollipop Chainsaw is disgraceful and terrible but one of the more notable things is that she has the severed head of a male attacker on her belt.
The severed head belongs to her boyfriend who was bitten by zombies. Severing his head was the only way to save him from zombification.
We've seen much more convincing arguments than that rubbish from both sides here. There's no need to go external for your support when you have much more capable people on your side right here in the thread.
A lot of the characters (3/5) she has in her lineup are interesting female characters or at least were at the time that that image references to. She's got powergirl in an image from her best run ever, where she was being written by a woman. She's got Princess Leia, who was anything but a helpless flower, whose metal bikini images felt like a natural and normal part of the plot. And Leeloo from fifth element, who (while not strong in a classical way) was a forceful and important part of the plot and didn't feel like a tacked on T&A piece at any time.
Sexism is (and I think we all agree on this) NOT the way someone looks. Characters all being classically beautiful is the symptom of a more pervasive problem which affects everyone equally and is nothing to do with sexism. Sexism is when female characters are nothing except their beauty, or where they behave in unbelievable ways to allow the audience to 'observe' some T&A. There's nothing 'wrong' with this, but it is sexist. Just because powergirl has brought enough boobs for the whole class doesn't mean she's sexist, how she acts and behaves does that. Sometimes she is, and sometimes she isn't.
Except that all of that was in response to the first image. You know, the one where whoever created it missed the irony of putting Lady Gaga in as an example of "sexism"? The point of the first part of that article is that sometimes people who are trying to pretend like they aren't sexist.... are actually being kinda sexist.
"Geek culture is better because our women aren't scantily clad!"
Except when they are.
Nope, all the women in the 'geek culture' example were independent and interesting characters in their own right. Every single one of the five on the geek side is a great character who would be an excellent role model for any young woman. Not being scantily clad was a bonus which made the point a little more visually obvious. Hell, one of them IS scantily clad in a tank top.
On the 'pop culture' side we've got a lot of people who use sexuality in the 'planet of the space lesbians' way. What would sell more crap? Boobs and submissiveness you say? Well, I can't think of a logical way to achieve that so here they are!
I can't speak for powergirl, the fifth element (haven't seen it) or the green lady at the end (I have no idea who that is). I'm sure Lollipop Chainsaw is disgraceful and terrible but one of the more notable things is that she has the severed head of a male attacker on her belt.
Fifth Element spoilers
Leeloo is smart and competent only she spends a lot of time not understanding English so she can't communicate thus relies on Corbin to travel around. When she can speak she demolishes a hostile alien party with her bare hands only to get almost killed by Zog, so it's up to everyone else to save the day to get her into a position to save the planet and Corbin can only get her to activate the fail safe device by convincing her he loves her.
I can't speak for powergirl, the fifth element (haven't seen it) or the green lady at the end (I have no idea who that is). I'm sure Lollipop Chainsaw is disgraceful and terrible but one of the more notable things is that she has the severed head of a male attacker on her belt.
The green lady is an Orion Slave Girl from classic Star Trek. Y'know, that horribly sexist/racist show that had powerful female officers, nurses, and so forth and used people of different races in ways that didn't have to do with them being of different races. It's more cherry picking.
I can't speak for powergirl, the fifth element (haven't seen it) or the green lady at the end (I have no idea who that is). I'm sure Lollipop Chainsaw is disgraceful and terrible but one of the more notable things is that she has the severed head of a male attacker on her belt.
The green lady is an Orion Slave Girl from classic Star Trek. Y'know, that horribly sexist/racist show that had powerful female officers, nurses, and so forth and used people of different races in ways that didn't have to do with them being of different races. It's more cherry picking.
And both of those images in the context of the article are to make the point that cherry picking examples is not necessary to demonstrate the problems in gaming culture. In fact, the images (both of them!) are almost irrelevant to the article.
It's an article which is attempting to rebut a visual representation of a theme with words, and a worse visual retort. I read the article, it's a lot of random examples of bad things happening, revealing that (shockingly) geek culture is not a monolithic thing which accepts all peoples. However, those five women from geek culture were BETTER role models than the 5 from popular culture. Even the ones she chose as bad visual examples were better than the pop culture examples. So she failed to address the key point of "Screw barbie, I'm buying my daughter a raygun"
Geeks are far far far from perfect, but they do better than most insulated communities. And they do better than popular culture as a whole. Her examples are without fail people who come in from outside criticizing the culture for not being what they want and thus saying it is garbage, and (even if they are right) receive a hostile response. This would be true of ANY community from people who love Twilight to people who love dancing with the stars. Or guys who love football. Or women who love ice dancing. Or women who love football. Or any group who likes anything! Noone likes the criticism of the outsider, or to feel betrayed by an insider. The community doesn't respond that way to her examples because they are WOMEN. They respond that way because they are criticisms from an 'outsider'.
Hell, I'm sure if I went onto a feminism forum and said, "Hey, I'm John and I think your forum design is crap because guys don't like the color green so much. You should get rid of your crappy green background" then I would be attacked and it wouldn't be because the people there were sexist.
It's an article which is attempting to rebut a visual representation of a theme with words, and a worse visual retort. I read the article, it's a lot of random examples of bad things happening, revealing that (shockingly) geek culture is not a monolithic thing which accepts all peoples. However, those five women from geek culture were BETTER role models than the 5 from popular culture. Even the ones she chose as bad visual examples were better than the pop culture examples. So she failed to address the key point of "Screw barbie, I'm buying my daughter a raygun"
Geeks are far far far from perfect, but they do better than most insulated communities. And they do better than popular culture as a whole. Her examples are without fail people who come in from outside criticizing the culture for not being what they want and thus saying it is garbage, and (even if they are right) receive a hostile response. This would be true of ANY community from people who love Twilight to people who love dancing with the stars. Or guys who love football. Or women who love ice dancing. Or women who love football. Or any group who likes anything! Noone likes the criticism of the outsider, or to feel betrayed by an insider. The community doesn't respond that way to her examples because they are WOMEN. They respond that way because they are criticisms from an 'outsider'.
Hell, I'm sure if I went onto a feminism forum and said, "Hey, I'm John and I think your forum design is crap because guys don't like the color green so much. You should get rid of your crappy green background" then I would be attacked and it wouldn't be because the people there were sexist.
Do they? Any proof?
The whole point of the article was to look at this very point and show that there's absolutely no proof of that concept.
And plenty of evidence of ridiculous misogyny getting brushed off by vocal sections of the "geek community".
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CambiataCommander ShepardThe likes of which even GAWD has never seenRegistered Userregular
Why read the article when there is a picture? Doesn't the picture explain everything?
The saddest thing about this thread is that there have been dozens of very well written articles posted about sexism, most of them easy to digest. And the people who could most benefit from the knowledge contained in those articles refuse to read them.
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It's not like it makes claims about quality.
Lord of the Rings is a story that is very much not about women. It's still a great story, but I don't know that I've ever seen anyone state that the Bechdel Test is designed to ferret out the best works of literature.
This is not the case in practice.
Which is to say you bring it out and someone will yell "I'm not fat, that test doesn't account for variation in body type, it's useless!"
And then everyone who has an inner statistician will die a little on the inside.
This is really really context dependent. People do say that a lot, but honestly, the main difference I see between the words isn't biology/gender, but is that female is an adjective and girl/woman is not. People refer to female pronouns, female clothing, female body parts, etc. And there are a bunch of "check your gender: female/male" boxes (and I do get that most people don't think about phrasing when they do that, but female and male are really ingrained in our culture as gendered adjectives.)
Which is why I called the test useless.
It's sole reason for existence is to prove a point that is blindingly obvious already to anyone who isn't a troll. Media is malecentric. Yes. This is a fact.
Unless someone is denying that, the Bechdel test is useless.
Hermione is probably the number two character in the books, at worst she is tied with Ron for the size of her part. Hell, she is the one with actual talent out of the three. And the books are written by a woman.
What's actually interesting is to look at how early sitcoms actually handled gender relationships. Like The Honeymooners. Everyone always pokes fun at how Ralph constantly used the "One of these days, Alice...!" thing, but in the end, Alice is ALWAYS the one to get things over on her husband and Ralph is ALWAYS revealed to be nothing more than a blowhard with a bruised ego.
I Love Lucy takes on an interesting turn when you realize that Lucy really is talented. When they go to Hollywood and Ricky's stint there winds down, Lucy's is picking up steam. It's only by coercion and threat of taking Little Ricky and going back to New York without her that she gives up on having a career of her own.
To me, though, one of the darkest mid-century sitcoms is Bewitched when you really see that Darren is a controlling dillweed. It's never okay for Sam to use her powers unless he really needs them to win over his boss/a client/whatever, then it's different. It really makes you not feel bad when he gets turned into a variety of animals all wearing a necktie.
Also, King of the Hill was pretty much a complete inversion of the Dopey Husband/Smart Wife trope.
We could go back even further:
I disagree. Its criteria are arbitrary, but as long as it's applied consistently and there are controls we get real data which can be useful for all kinds of things.
Like measuring if we are getting noticeably better (or worse) as time goes on.
Again, useless. Anyone arguing that this isn't (and hasn't) been getting better is being disingenuous or simply trolling. Cable networks dedicated to female centric programming, Ryan Gosling films etc. It's completely clear, utterly transparent that media is spending more money and effort to attract the female demographic.
Whether or not any of it is quality is irrelevant, and the Bechdel test couldn't measure for that anyway.
Yeouch. Though this also serves to remind me how little I know about geek culture. I think I recognize maybe three characters/names mentioned...hmmm...
If it makes you feel better, the only one I recognized was Bella from Twilight.
I misidentified two of the others though! >.>
The really fucking creepy part was where she pointed out that some men were happy to state that they would happily let Lara get raped for tittilation.
We've seen much more convincing arguments than that rubbish from both sides here. There's no need to go external for your support when you have much more capable people on your side right here in the thread.
A lot of the characters (3/5) she has in her lineup are interesting female characters or at least were at the time that that image references to. She's got powergirl in an image from her best run ever, where she was being written by a woman. She's got Princess Leia, who was anything but a helpless flower, whose metal bikini images felt like a natural and normal part of the plot. And Leeloo from fifth element, who (while not strong in a classical way) was a forceful and important part of the plot and didn't feel like a tacked on T&A piece at any time.
Sexism is (and I think we all agree on this) NOT the way someone looks. Characters all being classically beautiful is the symptom of a more pervasive problem which affects everyone equally and is nothing to do with sexism. Sexism is when female characters are nothing except their beauty, or where they behave in unbelievable ways to allow the audience to 'observe' some T&A. There's nothing 'wrong' with this, but it is sexist. Just because powergirl has brought enough boobs for the whole class doesn't mean she's sexist, how she acts and behaves does that. Sometimes she is, and sometimes she isn't.
What you claimed was that the definition in the dictionary is objectively true. Specifically:
Which is still not true. Dictionaries are not objective truth. They are subjective books made by subjective people whose definitions change all the time. So more to the point: That you personally think something is racism and even if something fits whichever dictionary you happen to pick out definition of racism does not mean others agree it's racism. They can very easily claim both you and the dictionary have it wrong. Hell, they might have their own dictionary that even says so!
Which brings us back to: Media can not be objectively sexist. Which is part of the problem since you get idiots who just deny blatant, obvious sexism because they decide to define it differently for themselves.
Like yes, women with large breasts are not "being sexist" because they have large breasts. They're built how they're built.
But the not-actual-person that is an image drawn on the page with large breasts can in fact be sexist. It's possible!
Edit: I mean, we've had like 6 explanations of the boob-window, and they all boil down to "but actually it's ridiculous my character would ever do this, really it's for jerk-off material".
It's not so much that those characters aren't any good, but that selectively picking out examples is dumb.
also, what you just did is one of those things that really annoys me. this article has a mention of it.
Like all comic characters whether she's being a sexist character or not depends on whose writing and drawing her at the time.
Admittedly it's a male character who eventually rescues both of them, but I recall that having less to do with his hyper-competent maleness and more to do with him being fucking telekinetic.
That's the outfit she's wearing when she turns on her captor (who is many times her size and strength) and kills him with the chains he used to bind her, isn't it?
Cherry-picking indeed.
Except that all of that was in response to the first image. You know, the one where whoever created it missed the irony of putting Lady Gaga in as an example of "sexism"? The point of the first part of that article is that sometimes people who are trying to pretend like they aren't sexist.... are actually being kinda sexist.
"Geek culture is better because our women aren't scantily clad!"
Except when they are.
No, you have. Don't speak for other people.
Except you are measuring whether we are getting better or worse vs an arbitrary and useless criteria.
It's like Pirates vs Global Warming all over again.
I don't understand what you're suggesting.
Are there people arguing that things are worse than they've ever been and that's the only reason to attempt to change things? I'd happily say things have been getting better in general. Just, why bother to stop asking for better stuff? TV has gotten better overall, I'd still like fewer Real Housewives shows.
Editorial, more like. Individual writers and artists can't really change long-standing costume designs. The newest one might be better? It hasn't really made it into the public consciousness yet, though.
I don't know why some are looking at the picture at the top. Fuck the picture, the story is the text below.
As to the whole article, it always seems to be like "geek culture"'s problem is that because for many it's some sort of safe-haven from emotional abuse, there's many members who are less then well adjusted and any criticism is seen as a very personal attack on their last stronghold.
The severed head belongs to her boyfriend who was bitten by zombies. Severing his head was the only way to save him from zombification.
How can men even handle playing such a feminist game?
Nope, all the women in the 'geek culture' example were independent and interesting characters in their own right. Every single one of the five on the geek side is a great character who would be an excellent role model for any young woman. Not being scantily clad was a bonus which made the point a little more visually obvious. Hell, one of them IS scantily clad in a tank top.
On the 'pop culture' side we've got a lot of people who use sexuality in the 'planet of the space lesbians' way. What would sell more crap? Boobs and submissiveness you say? Well, I can't think of a logical way to achieve that so here they are!
Fifth Element spoilers
The green lady is an Orion Slave Girl from classic Star Trek. Y'know, that horribly sexist/racist show that had powerful female officers, nurses, and so forth and used people of different races in ways that didn't have to do with them being of different races. It's more cherry picking.
It's like getting a cracked link and then only looking at the pictures. The content is in the text, you guys.
Apparently not
That it lists multiple, endemic issues with the culture is irrelevant. Pictures are easier.
Also I did not know that one about Aisha Taylor. Good on her.
And both of those images in the context of the article are to make the point that cherry picking examples is not necessary to demonstrate the problems in gaming culture. In fact, the images (both of them!) are almost irrelevant to the article.
It's an article which is attempting to rebut a visual representation of a theme with words, and a worse visual retort. I read the article, it's a lot of random examples of bad things happening, revealing that (shockingly) geek culture is not a monolithic thing which accepts all peoples. However, those five women from geek culture were BETTER role models than the 5 from popular culture. Even the ones she chose as bad visual examples were better than the pop culture examples. So she failed to address the key point of "Screw barbie, I'm buying my daughter a raygun"
Geeks are far far far from perfect, but they do better than most insulated communities. And they do better than popular culture as a whole. Her examples are without fail people who come in from outside criticizing the culture for not being what they want and thus saying it is garbage, and (even if they are right) receive a hostile response. This would be true of ANY community from people who love Twilight to people who love dancing with the stars. Or guys who love football. Or women who love ice dancing. Or women who love football. Or any group who likes anything! Noone likes the criticism of the outsider, or to feel betrayed by an insider. The community doesn't respond that way to her examples because they are WOMEN. They respond that way because they are criticisms from an 'outsider'.
Hell, I'm sure if I went onto a feminism forum and said, "Hey, I'm John and I think your forum design is crap because guys don't like the color green so much. You should get rid of your crappy green background" then I would be attacked and it wouldn't be because the people there were sexist.
Do they? Any proof?
The whole point of the article was to look at this very point and show that there's absolutely no proof of that concept.
And plenty of evidence of ridiculous misogyny getting brushed off by vocal sections of the "geek community".
Why read the article when there is a picture? Doesn't the picture explain everything?
The saddest thing about this thread is that there have been dozens of very well written articles posted about sexism, most of them easy to digest. And the people who could most benefit from the knowledge contained in those articles refuse to read them.
On my sleeve, let the runway start