Bechdel Test Movie List

Only female conversation is between Morena Baccarin (Inara) and Jewel Staite (Kaylee) about Inara leaving over Nathan Fillion (Capt Mal).

River and her teacher talk about the Alliance's "meddling" in the dream/flashback.

The teacher isn't exactly a named character, though.

Mal isn't explicitly mentioned as the reason why Inara is leaving Serenity - it's only implied.

There are a lot of conversations with two or more of the women involved, but most also have some of the men as participants.

However, this doesn't, and is definitely not about a man:
(After Mal goes to find Mr. Universe)
Zoe: They're gonna get in.
Kaylee: Can close it from outside...
Zoe: No one's coming back from that.

River talking with her teacher is just about the only part where men are not explicitly mentioned, and it is clearly one female talking with another.

I have seen this film multiple times and there are definitely conversations with two or more women that are not about men,

There are a lot less lines in this film than in the tv series for characters like Inara and Kaylee, but it still passes the test. Examples have been given above.

There is also some crucial nonverbal communication between Zoe and River during the opening heist.

There's also the tricky video of Dr. Caron -- because it's a recording, she's not specifically having a conversation with anyone, but River is the one who plays the recording (thereby "initiating" the conversation), and River is the one who has an intense physical response to it.

The guidelines don't specifically say that the conversation happens when no men are present. Men and women participate equally in conversations throughout the movie, in addition to the one-on-one conversations listed above.

Why is this still listed as passing only 2/3 tests? It clearly passes 3/3...

I've updated the rating to 3/3 (was 2/3).

It should be noted that River and Zoe's non-verbal communication is in fact about a man.

I think that the comments given at the top for the 3/3 rating are not correct

1) the teacher, played by Tamara Taylor, is not named. In the script she is 'tacher' (see imdb)

2) Kaylee and Inara's conversation on the video capture is about Mal ("that man doesn't know what he wants")

3) The non verbal 'conversation' between Zoe and River is explicitly about a man.

4) The video from Dr Caron is not a conversation, it's a speech.

The only conversation is the one specified by Brooke, between Kaylee and Zoe about the Reavers. It's about a hoarde of people who are of indeterminate gender, therefor not about men. To my mind that passes all three tests.

If you believe that this doesn't pass the test as it includes men in the 'they're gonna get in' then the teacher conversation, and dr caron's speech don't count either as dr caron is talking baout reavers and the teacher is talking about the entire population of earth that was.

Given that the movie (and the TV show that it is based upon) has 3 very strong female charaters (Zoe, Kaylee and Inara) then I would be surprised if they didn't interact about something meaningful. I'm tempted to watch it again just to see it through the Bechdel lens (which I just heard about today).

It also has River Anthony

Serenity is another example of why the strict rules for the B-test are fine for a debate but not a good indicator if a movie is progressive or not. It just barely squeaks by on a technicality but its also filled with strong independent women and has a lot of higher level discussions about the human race and society and government. Also its a good example of how television has been much better for female characters than the big screen. The series was definitely a lot better but they had to dumb down the movie script so it would be palatable to mass audiences and make ticket sales.