1) there are at least two named female characters, who
2) talk to each other about
3) something other than a man.
It is ironic... reflecting this test against 30 Rock, which as been incorrectly described as the most liberal show on television. Yes, the main character is a successful career woman. At the same time, her knuckle-dragging conservative boss is always right, she constantly fails to balance her career against aspirations for family and children, and whenever she tries to make her workplace more healthy or less racist/sexist, she crumbles and decides she still needs the crutches of her feminine status and professional entitlement.
How does the show add up with the Bechdel Test? There is only one character on the show (as a regular) besides Liz Lemon who is female, and their conversations are usually about managing Jenna's crippling psychological issues or... men. I think there is an argument to be made that all this conservative victory and content on the show is presented effectively as satire, but still... there is a remarkable conformity along these lines.
Another fun fact about the 30 Rock: Rachel Dratch was originally cast as the star of the Girlie Show (supplanted by Tracy Jordan and feeling sucky and vulnerable). NBC balked, deciding that they needed a hotter female lead, so Rachel Dratch dropped to a series of cameos in season one, and disappeared after that. The new Jenna was awkward in early episodes, but the soon hit their stride with her playing a two-dimensional hot chick obsessed with her age, appearance, and exerting her own sexuality as a weapon.
The blog post where I found is a female screenwriter talking about all of the direction she received as a film student, from teachers telling her that the only way to get movies made was to write scripts that bring white males to the forefront and drop females into virtual-prop supporting roles. She has a lot to say about how the entire thing is framed as what "audiences want," while characters like Ellen Ripley and Sarah Conner are habitually rejected as one-off flukes. Though, interestingly, those characters fail the test too--that even though they are bad ass female characters, they don't have any female characters around them to interact with, essentially a definition of "token minority."
I'm reminded of a favorite scene from Farscape, a show I've always kind of thought as scifi's ultimate chick show. There is a new character, Jool, on the show, learning the ropes, figuring out how to use a pulse rifle and stuff. Chiana is going to leave her guarding the shuttle on the diseased spaceship infested with cannibal hippies, and they have a conversation about violence. Chiana punches Jool in the nose, Jool cries for a moment, and then punches Chiana back. Chiana says, "See? Violence. You'll get the hang of it."
Do you really believe in the argument put forward by all those coked out white guys to excuse so thoroughly dismissing female characters from normalized roles on the screen, that audiences just aren't interested in it? I simply don't... Farscape had a massive fanbase, and the show ran out of money because its audience growth couldn't keep up with the growth of the show's budget. Why didn't they keep the budget more conservative and keep the show on the air? Why is there a formulaic chick flick released once a month for peanuts, but so few dramas or gritty gangster indie flicks based around female characters?
Or any other damn thing... my point isn't even about women in film. It is about how consistently frustrated so many people I know are by Hollywood. The system just isn't set up to give people what they want.
Which is to say, my bottom line is:
Bring back Arrested Development.
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