Bechdel Test Movie List

This pass rating proves to me that this test isn't necessarily good at all in determining whether or not it is 'feminist friendly'.

You mean there's actually a part in that muck where the females talk about something other than Adonis-like Edward?

I completely agree with Andrew. This movie's pass rating proves the test is certainly flawed.

@Victoria: The test doesn't have anything to do with whether or not a movie is good or feminist-friendly.

It's a movie about a teenage girl trying (and failing) to deal with a really bad break-up and the loss of her best friend. There aren't going to be a lot of girl-to-girl conversations that aren't about a guy, but there are at least 3 of them in this film. What bothers people IMO is that Bella doesn't really start to feel like a whole person until she starts getting attention from a guy. Having gone through an awful break-up at a young age myself, I think I could forgive the film (and book) for going that route if not for one thing: the author decided the best way to get the action rolling was to cast the female lead in the role of "damsel in distress" and surround her with shirtless guys who were her only means of survival.

Still passes the Bechdel test, though. *sigh*

As mentioned before, the Bedchel test is about representation. It's not about feminist value; it's to access whether women exist in their own right in a specific universe. It is not a "flawed" test; it does exactly what it sets out to do. The fact that you demand it go beyond that to include other things you find important makes your thinking flawed. In short; New Moon passes. If you have a problem with this, make your own test.

I think the point of the Bechdel test is not to evaluate whether an individual movie is feminist-friendly. It's to measure a problematic trend in film: that most content will contain or concern a man, and very little doesn't, whereas content which contains or concerns a woman seems unnecessary by comparison (given that so many movies fail a Bechdel test and so few fail a reverse Bechdel test). The trend as a whole is significant- movie by movie it doesn't always mean very much.