Of the top 100 domestic U.S. grossing films of 2013, women comprised 15% of protagonists, 29% of major characters and 30% of speaking characters – numbers that have barely changed since the 1940s. Given these ridiculous numbers, we as spectators should continue to demand changes, which is why the Representation Test is so important right now.
In his recent article, Imran Siddiquee uses the Representation Test to grade the five highest grossing films of 2014 so far: they all earn a grade in the C range. These films are X-Men: Days of Future Past, Godzilla, The Lego Movie, The Amazing Spider-Man 2, and Captain America: The Winter Soldier. Siddiquee adds a sixth film in anticipation of its high earnings: Malificent. Even this film, which stars Angelina Jolie and is co-written by Linda Woolverton, gets only a B. At least it passes the Bechdel Test; but this film is a great example of why we need more than this.
The Bechdel Test, which has reached mainstream film criticism in the last five years or so, originated in a 1985 comic Dykes to Watch Out For by Alison Bechdel. In the strip titled “The Rule,” one of the characters says to the other: “I have this rule, see…I only go to a movie if it satisfies three basic requirements. One, it has to have at least two women in it who, two, talk to each other about, three, something besides a man.” This rule echoes Virginia Woolf’s sentiments in A Room of One’s Own (1929). Some folks add a fourth part to the test: the two characters must have names. The Representation Test expands on the Bechdel Test because the Hollywood problem goes far beyond the issue of the underrepresentation and stereotyping of women; the dominant cinema also tends to marginalize people of color, people with disabilities, and LGBT people.
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