Bechdel Test Movie List

In fairness it is a film about one man trapped inside a coffin. He communicates to the outside world via his mobile phone.

I agree with Craig. This movie isn't really isn't compatible with the test because as good as the only ones talking with each other is main character and whoever he's taling to and when the main character is male, then what are they supposed to do? Have a random two girls talk? Make the main character female? How do you solve this?

For the continuing argument about whether it's "fair" to use the Bechdel test on a given movie: it's compatible with the test.

The Bechdel test is a thought experiment about how movies focus mainly on men. A movie where all of the dialogue happens between a male character and someone else will fail the Bechdel test based on format. A movie where all of the dialogue happens between a female lead character and someone else will fail the reverse Bechdel based on format.

On this database, about half the movies fail the Bechdel test. This database doesn't track it, but there are one in every few hundred that fail the reverse Bechdel, for all reasons combined (format or otherwise) - whereas just about every third movie on this list has a commenter saying "but the main character is male, it's not fair to judge it because it couldn't reasonably pass the test!" Just the sheer number that fail the Bechdel test based on 'format', without any matching number that fail the reverse Bechdel, tells us something.

So even if perfect equality was achieved, you'd expect a few rare movies to fail Bechdel just based on format (and approximately the same number would fail the reverse Bechdel.) If there was equality, there wouldn't be a rush of commenters feeling they needed to defend movies that fail based on format- because there'd be less than a percent failing. More like people would be pointing out this 1-in-300 rarity as a curiosity with an unusual format, and no one would feel defensive.

Thus, we can agree that it's a chauvinist movie.

Nope, Alex. No we definitely can't say that. Just because the protagonist is male it doesn't make the movie chauvinistic. That is ridiculous logic.

Passing or failing the Bechdel test has almost nothing to do with whether any one particular movie is chauvinist or feminist or anything else. That is not the point of the Bechdel test. The point of the Bechdel test is to tell us things about the film industry AS A WHOLE. It's when you combine all of these various test scores together that you see an overarching pattern.

As for whether or not this test is compatible with the Bechdel test, it most certainly is. If, for example, the main character had been a woman instead of a man, then the movie would have passed. Would that have made the movie any more feminist or any less chauvinist? I don't know, probably not, but again, that's not the point of the test.