We can do better than The Bechdel Test
The Bechdel Test, originally inspired by a 1985 installment of Alison Bechdel’s comic Dykes to Watch Out For, features a character with three basic requirements for a movie: it has to have at least two women in it, they have to talk to each other, and they have to discuss something besides a man. Although the rule is no guarantee of quality — or well-developed female characters — it’s long been considered a useful tool for assessing how often entertainment excludes women, and whether they are portrayed as three-dimensional characters whose lives do not revolve entirely around men. In 2016, a third of the top 50 films at the box office still did not feature female characters talking to each other in any meaningful way.
While the Bechdel…
