Saturday, May 07, 2011

The Bechdel test



The best illustration of the Bechdel test since the original.

The Bechdel test was invented in 1985. Almost 30 years on and the movie industry is still completely dominated by stories about men.

I finally tracked down this woman's name - Anita Sarkeesian - she has an entire Youtube channel Feminist Frequency. She is just awesome. She had a piece that gave a shout-out to Katha Pollitt's immortal NYTimes essay The Smurfette Principle, so I posted that on Facebook, making sure to share it directly with my FB friend Katha Pollitt.

Although I don't like the harshing Pollitt does on The Little Mermaid in the original Smurfette essay. I don't think she gives it enough feminist cred. It was the first animated female lead I ever saw - especially in a Disney movie - lusting after a guy. And he was pretty hot too.