Bechdel Test Movie List

Sarah and her stepmother talk to each other briefly at the beginning of the film.

Sarah also talks to the bag lady later on.

When Sarah's arguing with her stepmother at the beginning of the movie, her stepmother says she'd hope Sarah would tell her if she has a date because she should be dating at her age.

Just because Sarah and her step mother are talking about dating doesn't mean it's about a man/boy. Maybe Sarah's not into guys.

Sarah talks to the bag lady about her old toys.

Sarah's step-mother wants her to be dating boys and the bag lady doesn't seem to have a name.

Sarah's step-mother doesn't have a name. (I'm not sure if the "name" condition is required on this site, but I personally think it's important)

Sarah and her mother's conversation (although brief) covers, Sarah being late, her babysitting, the dog being wet and then (briefly) dating.

As much as I love this movie, and as happy as I am to see it have a good, strong female protagonist, this movie actually gets a 0 out of 3. Sarah talks to two female characters, but neither one of them are NAMED. In contrast, there are numerous other male characters with names: Hoggle, Ludo, Ambrosius, Jareth the goblin king, Toby, and Didymus. They didn't think to give Sarah a single female companion, with a name? Even all of the unnamed creatures and talking doorknobs, hands, false alarms, etc were male. WTF?

Although there certainly could be more females for my taste, the "name" criteria is optional. There are more than three female characters who talk about something other than a male. Sarah talks to her stepmother about being late, etc., the worm has a female voice and is voiced by a female puppeteer (when she says "meet the missus" I have always assumed she is into girls), the junk lady talks about how important the toys are to Sarah.

The name requirement is especially problematic in anything based on fairy tales because fairy tales tend to have archetypes--the dad and the door knockers don't get names, either.

It could sure be better (why did the door knockers and false alarms have to be guys?) but it passes the test 3 for 3).

Sarah's stepmother is upset because she's late to take care of the baby, a boy, and how it would have been OK to not babysit so much, but only if she were out with a boy. It sounds to me like they're talking about men there.

The bag lady, although she's talking about toys, is doing so to distract Sarah from her quest to rescue her brother from David Bowie. It was very "lalala you have problems with men that I'm trying to keep you from thinking about."

I know that there were plenty of women involved in this movie, but it would have been nice if some more of the many creatures she encounters had been female. She sees those sexy little fairies, but they are being systematically wiped out by a bigger, stronger male character. It could well be intentional that she's struggling with becoming an adult woman in an unfair world full of men, and that she has to stand up to the villain alone in the end, but it's a rather sad message that her only friends along the way are male.

I think it's dubious since Sarah is the only one with a name.

The female characters that Sarah speaks to aren’t actually named however the film is similar in many ways to the fairytale genre in which many characters are left nameless so I personally wouldn’t label the lack of representation as sexist. That being said, most of the characters are male when it’s entirely unnecessary for them to even have a gender.

I love this movie but there is only one named female character in it. Bag lady and stepmother are not names.

The worm is most very clearly a male, voiced by the well-established British actor, Timothy Bateson - the same man who voiced Kreacher in Harry Potter. He speaks in a very standard, though slightly squeaky, Cockney accent, that, to me, always sounded male. "Meet the missus" even more confirms a male since same-sex marriage wasn't recognized in 1986. The puppeteer may have been a woman but several women were puppeteers on set -- but for male characters with male voice actors. Even the person performing in the Hoggle costume was a female dwarf. But, the Bechtel test doesn't rate how many females Henson had in production, including Gates McFadden as the choreographer. It is an empowering film and metaphor for coming of age in a man's world, but there could have been more female puppets or a female baby. I would count "junk lady" as a character since most of the male puppet characters are not named, but "stepmother" just doesn't cut it. Ironically, though, "junk lady" meets dialogue criteria but is a character actively trying to dis-empower her.