That’s hard to believe if you get your cues from the movie industry. Here’s how you can figure it out. It involves conducting the Bechdel Test (hat tip to BoingBoing).
The Bechdel Test is a simple way to gauge the active presence of female characters in Hollywood films and just how well rounded and complete those roles are…It is astonishing the number of popular movies that can’t pass this simple test. It demonstrates how women’s complex and interesting lives are underrepresented or non existent in the film industry. We have jobs, creative projects, friendships and struggles among many other things that are actually interesting in our lives… so Hollywood, start writing about it! (Feminist Frequency)
Now watch this video and learn what to look for when conducting the test:
I sheepishly admit that I had never considered this stuff. It demonstrates how we can accept certain cultural norms without even being aware of them.
It’s odd, too: Hollywood prides itself on being so progressive and liberal-minded, then it produces cartoonish depictions of feminism that have all the depth of a puddle. For example:
Maybe the whores can now focus on that dissertation about how empowered they are.
Sex and the City 2 makes Phyllis Schlafly look like Andrea Dworkin. Or that super-masculine version of Cynthia Nixon that Cynthia Nixon dates. Or, like, Ralph Nader (wait, bad example—Schlafly totally does look like Ralph Nader in a granny wig). SATC2 takes everything that I hold dear as a woman and as a human—working hard, contributing to society, not being an entitled cunt like it’s my job—and rapes it to death with a stiletto that costs more than my car. It is 146 minutes long, which means that I entered the theater in the bloom of youth and emerged with a family of field mice living in my long, white mustache. This is an entirely inappropriate length for what is essentially a home video of gay men playing with giant Barbie dolls. (West)
That, by the way, is from a simultaneously funny and sad review of Sex in the City 2 at The Stranger. Admittedly, that film is the low-hanging fruit.
But what’s less clear to me is what we can do to remedy this problem. How could writing letters help? Sure, Hollywood’s depiction of women is a problem, but so is their depiction of humans.
Being aware of the situation helps me, though, and I hereby pledge to mock this problem wherever I see it. It’s the best option amidst a bunch of bad ones. And hell, when I’m punchy and on a conversational roll, I’ll get a lot of mileage out of it.
I hope you do, too. Remember what Woodsy the Owl said: “Only you can set wolves upon the main cast of Sex in the City, gag them, trap them in a closet, and then set fire to the whole mess.”
Or something like that.
