Bechdel Test Movie List

There are several female characters including Elizabeth I and head of UNIT Kate Stewart, so I assumed it would pass with flying colors. But I was surprised to see that there was only one, brief qualifying conversation with no asterisks - in the 44th minute, there's about 30 seconds of talking between Kate and her assistant Ingrid Osgood (relative of Clara's?), as Ingrid frees Kate from Zygon tentacle thingies.

Yes, I am being picky, as there are a few other not-about-a-guy conversations apparently between two women, but in each case one of them is a Zygon impersonating a person and we don't know what gender the Zygon is (or if they haven have gender). Even including those conversations it would be a few minutes total out of an hour and a quarter, although granted one exchange is about the fate of London and the whole planet.

To be fair, Elizabeth I and Kate Stewart are both very strong characters, but the Bechdel test is aimed more at relationships among women than having one or two strong female characters, and on that front The Day of the Doctor passes, but certainly not with flying colors.

Does this really count as a movie? I thought it was just a TV special.

The central story here is an internal conflict between three versions of the same male character. But basically, everyone important to the plot other than the Doctor himself is a woman.

The Queen, the head of the British MIB, the head of the British MIB's assistant, the Doctor's assistant, the AI that talks the Doctor out of blowing up his home planet.

The movie passes in nearly every scene not involving the Doctor, especially if we count the "female" Zygons.

This does pass with flying colours. Apart from the doctor (played by lots of different men, but that's a different argument) practically all of the characters in this are female and they talk about plenty of things including the batteries in the ravens at the tower of London, analysing rocks and the Black archive.

I think this passes easily.

Kate Stewart and Osgood have an exchange about Ravens in their first scene.

Kate and Clara have a lengthy conversation about the black archives and about Clara's previous visit to the archives with Kate.

Kate and Osgood have a conversation when Osgood saves Kate from the Zygons.

Plus, there are multiple conversations between Kate, Osgood and their Zygon duplicates (who are played by the same actresses). Osgood and "Osgood" talk about her sister. Kate and "Kate" discuss blowing up London to prevent a Zygon takeover and later negotiate a peace treaty. Osgood and "Osgood" talk about the aliens as well and the science of their transformation and exchange inhalers.

While the last set of interactions are more dubious, (it depends on if aliens can truly be afforded the same gender binaries as this test requires) the others certainly qualify.

Zygons are technically hermaphrodites, but when imitating female humans they are played by women and are essentially indistinguishable from women, and so should count as women for the purposes of the test. Excluding them because of innate genetic differences opens up a whole can of worms.

I say Zygons in the form of women count for the purposes of the test. Especially in the long stretch where Clara is in the Black Archive with the Zygon Kate. You don't even know until the end of that sequence of "women talking about alien technology" that she's a fake.

During the other scenes it gets murkier because everyone is talking to an alien double.