i am going to explain the bechdel test for people such as those in the tags
here is the original comic strip:
what the bechdel-wallace test is not:
- an academic analysis of media
- a bar that determines whether or not a movie is “bad” or “good” (by which i mean if a movie doesn’t pass the bechdel-wallace test that doesn’t make it bad, and if a movie passes the test the movie is not automatically good)
- supposed to be taken seriously
what the bechdel-wallace test is:
- a personal litmus test created by a lesbian who was, presumably, frustrated with the fact that women could not exist in the movie without a relationship to a man
it is not a way to “police what women speak about” because it does not apply to real people. it applies to fictional characters. also, the bechdel-wallace test does not stipulate that there can be no conversation about a male love interest. the women just have to talk about something other than a male love interest.
the reason the male love interest stipulation is there is because like… this test was created by a butch lesbian woman to determine whether or not she wanted to watch a movie. removing that part of the test violates the spirit of the test. it’s silly because it’s not supposed to be serious.
tl;dr stop misinterpreting the bechdel-wallace test you losers. op is right. goodbye