John Scalzi applies the Bechdel test to recent SF movies...

...with predictably depressing results.

Comments

[Mikki]

Whoa... That just hurt my brain a little.

[hope]

So. Do you think this is a meaningful test?

That's not a snarky question. I'm serious.

I think it was made up as an off-the-cuff remark, and I love it. On the other hand, it's starting to squick me out the way it is being taken as a serious tool for evaluating a movie. I wouldn't want film makers sticking a side conversation into a movie just to pass the test and get some sort of gold star from the feminists. That's stupid. I want so much more than that.

[:paula]

Gonna start applying the Bechdel Test to the YA SF that I review. Hell, to YA in general.
Charlie Higson's The Enemy? CHECK!
Karen Healey's Guardian of the Dead? CHECK!
Cherie Priest's Boneshaker? CHECK!
Cory Doctorow's For the Win? CHECK!
Incarceron... hmm!

[RTBoyce]

I recall one long-ago episode of Star Trek Deep Space Nine where two female characters head out in a shuttlecraft to do something daring near the wormhole - and it just felt weird! Ladies' night at the wormhole, everybody! I had never seen two women take off and accomplish something on their own on Star Trek before.