Bechdel's Law
Alison Bechdel, cartoonist and author of Dykes to Watch Out For, has an interesting observation on movies — a little test she applies to them. It's a very short checklist, viz:
1. Does it have at least two women in it,
2. Who [at some point] talk to each other,
3. About something besides a man.
I bring this up as a point of interest, because of what it says about the blind spots of popular entertainment. Most Hollywood movies fail this test; if you extend #3 only slightly, to read "About something besides men or marriage or babies", you can strike out about 50% of the small proportion of mass-entertainment movies that do otherwise seem to pass the test.
The reason Bechdel's test is important is because it's a diagnostic indicator for the objectification of women. It's designed to identify the kind of film where, if two women talk to each other at all, the only subject of conversation is men (or babies). What it tells us is that our current movie and (to a lesser extent) our TV culture is pathologically misogynistic — be it in in the adoption of conservative Kinder, Kuche, Kirche values or the more extreme violence of women in refrigerators.
The current decade is characterized by security anxieties writ large, a socially conservative culture of retreat from liberalism, and a strong anti-feminist backlash. Our popular media, far from being the bastions of liberal values that conservatives say they are, are actually belwethers of popular culture, amplifying, reinforcing, and reflecting our culture's normative values back at us the silver screen. What they're showing this decade is really rather disturbing if you happen to agree with the core feminist ideological belief that women are real people too, not just baby factories and sex objects.
TV has always been bad — a hypothetical alien trying to make deductions about humanity by watching our TV signals would conclude that our normal gender ratio is four males to each female, and that's just for starters! — but of late, the messages coming at us out of the mass media are nothing short of toxic. If movies and TV objectified people of colour the way they do women, the only reasonable conclusion one could draw would be that a concerted propaganda campaign was under way to return us to the unquestioned institutional racism of the 1950s.
It's interesting to apply Bechdel's test to written fiction, although under some circumstances it breaks down; if the book you're analysing is a first-person narrative from a man's point of view, then it's relatively unlikely to pass: similarly if it's a depiction of skull-duggery in a mediaeval monastery (thank you, Umberto Eco). But it's a chastening warning when you apply it to your own fiction and find out that large chunks of it fail the test. I looked at my own novels: I've habitally made an effort to include strong female characters who are not just there to serve as a trophy or handmaiden for the Hero Protagonist, and even so, a couple of my books fail. Looking at my recent reading in the SF genre in general, the picture isn't good; while written SF comes off a lot better than Hollywood overall, with the exception of fiction set in all-male environments, passing the Bechdel test should be the norm, not an unusual occurrence.
PS: From now on I intend to start applying this test to my fiction before I embarrass myself in public. And (I realize this is offering up a huge hostage to future fortune) if anyone ever offers me a movie or TV deal, I am going to hold out for a clause in the contract requiring a scene lasting at least 30 seconds per hour of running time that passes Bechdel's test. Because? What hurts my fellow humans hurts me, and I can in conscience no more lend my implicit support to an anti-feminist backlash than I can lend my silence to a racist or homophobic campaign.
Comments
Does she have a name for this specific test? Or is there a link to where she describes the test?
Posted by: GregLondon | July 28, 2008 6:40 PM
Greg, see this strip.
Posted by: Charlie Stross | July 28, 2008 6:46 PM
I've got the impression that, especially in SF, movies or books that pass the test still present the female characters as either cliches or male fantasies, e.g. the beautiful women that will kick your butt if you've been a naughty boy, or the cute little nerd girl that outwits the male techies. These are the traps that well-meaning male writers step in to quite often if they want to convey their pseudo-/quasi-/para-feminism.
Posted by: manuel | July 28, 2008 6:55 PM
You are full of win, Charles Stross.
What stood out for me on first reading The Family Trade was that it passed Bechdel's test by page 6. I deeply appreciate this kind of thing in fiction, especially sf, because relatable female characters are so very rare. It would be nice if more sf authors (and hey, comic-book authors, why not) would make the same pledge.
Posted by: Tlönista | July 28, 2008 7:05 PM
Charlie, personally I think you're being too harsh on yourself. Or maybe I just don't recall all your books and stories as well as I think I do.
The "Clan Corporate" series for one passes the test nicely.
Likewise, i think "Halting State" is a "pass".
I admit I don't recall many multiple-female stories, but where you have female characters, the ones I remember are not at all "trophy" or "fluff".
Posted by: Howard S Modell | July 28, 2008 7:05 PM
The Laundry stories are, I think, a fail. (Not 100% certain.) Singularity Sky is a fail. My most recent novellas are fails. I need to pay more attention.
Posted by: Charlie Stross | July 28, 2008 7:08 PM
Well, that still leaves Barbarella :-)
Posted by: Stephen Harris | July 28, 2008 7:11 PM
Charlie@2, thanks.
My last short story passes. The one before that fails. Hm. It's kind of hard if you've only got a couple of characters to work with before you run out of space. Both of those stories had the main character be a woman. The one that failed the test she only talked to one other person during the story, which was a man. Oh, wait, she talked to another character who was a throwaway character, but was male. I suppose I could have made that throwaway character a woman. But it was a really small part, so I don't know if that would count.
Posted by: GregLondon | July 28, 2008 7:35 PM
Greg, I'll grant a free pass to short works where there aren't enough characters.
The natural fictional equivalent of a 2 hour feature film is a novella. Novellas or novels -- hold their feet to the fire, is what I say.
Posted by: Charlie Stross | July 28, 2008 7:38 PM
Ten minutes of thinking, and the only film I can ever recall seeing that might not violate this rule would be "King Lear".
William Hyde
Posted by: William Hyde | July 28, 2008 7:42 PM
Thanks for this, you rock Charlie!
Perhaps there should be a search function on Amazon, like: Include only books that pass Bachdel's Law.
So from now on I'll buy every book you ever write. Well, perhaps not all of them, but I'd definitely buy when you include a gay-related storyline. (Like a gay flatmate ;) )
Sometimes in SciFi I'm already pleased when an author hints that same-sex relationships might exist in his universe.
Posted by: ubik | July 28, 2008 7:44 PM
Charlie, you are a mensch.
Posted by: Clifton Royston | July 28, 2008 7:46 PM
A question for the authors... what makes a character male or female? Some of the Heinlein juveniles were written with a female protagonist but, really, you could have swapped the character out for a male one with minimal changes.
Or is the question meaningless?
Is there a difference between a female character written by a man to a female character written by a woman? (And, equally, a male character written by....)
Posted by: Stephen Harris | July 28, 2008 7:47 PM
I was just telling my husband about the Bechdel test this weekend. We were stumped to find many movies currently in release with two speaking women characters period.
I've recently started reading Chabon's Kavalier and Clay, and at 80 pages in, the only women have been a nagging and sexually unsatisfied Jewish mother and the wordless hooker-mit-heart-of-gold who took Joe's virginity. Now, I trust Chabon and will keep moving forward, but I admit I'm finding it offputting.
One of the things that made me swoon over Glasshouse was how deftly you handled gender and sexuality, so while it's great that you're concerned, you might have less to worry about on that score than some others. I'm looking very much forward to seeing you in Glendale tonight!
Posted by: Angelle | July 28, 2008 7:54 PM
The last movie I saw that passed the test was "Mama Mia". Yesterday. And all I can say about that movie is Pierce Brosnan shouldn't sing.
Posted by: GregLondon | July 28, 2008 7:59 PM
I have some stuff working through on an amateur fiction site, and I doubt it has the word-count to fall foul of the rule, but I think I have a chance to tweak a scene or two. Though it feels like cheating.
On the other hand, I'm fairly happy about the female characters as people, even if they don't get much chance to talk with each other.
Posted by: Dave Bell | July 28, 2008 8:03 PM
Huh, interesting test.
Let's see, the last few novels I read were:
Dzur, by Stephen Brust. I don't think it passes, though I'm inclined to give it a pass because it's a first-person-novel with a male protagonist.
The Years of Salt and Rice, by Kim Stanley Robinson. Certainly passes (for example, I and B discuss the nuclear bomb at length, when they're both women, and that's only one of many).
Saturn's Children, by some dude whose name I can't remember. Passes (for example, Freya and Juliette talk about Rhea).
The Prefect, by Alastair Reynolds. Fails, I think. There are several female characters with significant speaking roles, but I don't think that they ever talk to each other.
And movies:
The Dark Knight: I think that this technically passes: Rachel very briefly talks some politics with Bruce Wayne's date. Of course, the subtext of that scene is about their romantic interests (in men). Or, now that I'm thinking about it, maybe Rachel doesn't speak up there?
Wanted: Fails.
Posted by: Michael B Sullivan | July 28, 2008 8:09 PM
I find the idea of this test fascinating. (And Charlie, I'm sure your books come out better than many authors' - if the Laundry ones don't pass maybe that's because of the originals you're playing with?)
It maybe makes more sense though as a diagnostic than an end in itself - I mean, you could make almost any film or book pass by adding in the appropriate characters or scenes, without changing the basic picture.
Posted by: David | July 28, 2008 8:19 PM
My partner is reading Bruce Schneier's Beyond Fear (can we pause to appreciate the hotness/coolness of this?), and even she thinks he tries too hard to avoid this.
Even so he only passes if you assume Alice and Bob can be two women.
Posted by: Alex | July 28, 2008 8:26 PM
Bravo!
Posted by: Till | July 28, 2008 8:29 PM
You know I was thinking about something similar while on the sitting on the bus the other day, hearing the conversations going on all around me. Women talked about men, other women,(usually that bitch) food, babies, family, sex and work in that order. Men talked about alcohol, sex, women, food, other men,(usually that asshole) family and work. It was all not very interesting really, so to expect movies to reflect anything different most of the time is probably unrealistic. People talk about their relationships with the things most important to them right now. Politics, religion , quantum physics and large social issues not so much.
Posted by: Another Charlie | July 28, 2008 8:33 PM
Nice, timely post. Have to remember this. I also try to keep in mind the great line from "Snow Crash":
Occasionally I even remember this *before* the fact.
PS: To be clear, I'm not pointing a finger at anybody except me for my own lapses.
Posted by: JDC | July 28, 2008 8:34 PM
That is a damn good test.
As I've just noted at my blog I think if you extended point 3 to "fashion" you'd wipe out even more movies than extending it to babies.
But somewhat to my surprise most of the books I've read recently seem to pass that test as does my one and only piece of published fiction - a short story.
Posted by: Francis | July 28, 2008 9:12 PM
Shouldn't this rule to be extended to ethnic groups, plus stereotypes? Don't most "chick flicks" pass the rule for women, but not for men - e.g. "The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants"?
Posted by: Alex Tolley | July 28, 2008 9:23 PM
Wow. Impressively powerful test. I must bear it in mind when reading and watching in future. I suspect I will be depressed.
Given that the adverts are on TV at the moment, I wonder what the equivalent would be for adverts....
Posted by: Kevin Murray | July 28, 2008 9:40 PM
Hi Charlie, Just to be picky.....I just had a look at the link you posted and "The Rule" should be attributed to Liz Wallace...but oh so right, Another couple of authors who pass the test (and probably not surprisingly as they're women) Elizabeth Bear and Karen Traviss
Kepp up the good work, half way through Saturns Children and enjoying it, although I still thing Accelerando and Glasshouse are your top two so far
Posted by: mike | July 28, 2008 10:04 PM
That's great Charles. While you're revisiting elements you stick in your novels, can you do away with the trope of two people falling in love and uniting to deal with the problems facing the characters? I get the feeling that you secretly want to write romance novels.
Posted by: Craig | July 28, 2008 10:16 PM
The test seems like it's an accurate measure of the respect and attention a film or book gives to women; it's a real shame that so many films, especially, fail the test.
And some films pass the test, but have other kinds of fail in them. I'm thinking particularly of "Female Perversions"*, because I just saw it a few weeks ago. Much of it is really about what the woman characters are thinking about and talking to each other about, and where they talk about men and cosmetics it's, IMHO, intended to be a reflection on how limiting these conversations are, but there are scenes that certainly look like they were written and shot purely as exploitation**.
* You can tell from the title that the marketing types were trying to spin this from word one; the German title, "Phantasien einer Frau" is less sensational.
** I have trouble believing that the lesbian sex scene has any other purpose than getting its male viewers off. Of course, it may be that the purpose in this case was to titillate the men who had a say in getting the film finished ad distributed, but that still says nasty things about the film industry.
Posted by: Bruce Cohen (SpeakerToManagers) | July 28, 2008 10:26 PM
Well, you can have your two women chatting in a summer action picture, as long as something nearby explodes.
I'm willing to negotiate here, but some things are just too important to remove.
Posted by: Michael | July 28, 2008 10:29 PM
Interestingly, quite a few Dr. Who episodes pass without any problem, because there's generally (1) a major female protagonist, (2) plenty of women in whatever world they're visiting, and (3) relatively few plots about romance.
But I'm most interested in the Dr. Who episode "Turn Left". I can't remember any scene where two men talk to each other (the Doctor only has a few short appearances). I can't think of any other science fiction movies or TV shows where I can't remember a conversation between two men.
Posted by: Eric | July 28, 2008 10:41 PM
But it's a chastening warning when you apply it to your own fiction and find out that large chunks of it fail the test. I looked at my own novels: I've habitally made an effort to include strong female characters who are not just there to serve as a trophy or handmaiden for the Hero Protagonist, and even so, a couple of my books fail.
You have to wonder how many people noticed that, in Snow Crash, Juanita was doing braver, more vital stuff that the lead character so aptly named...
Posted by: Tony Quirke | July 28, 2008 11:28 PM
Heh, It's going to be fun hunting through your future books looking scene that passes the bechdel test. I think it's obvious why most fiction (written by men) fails this test. We don't really know what women talk about when we're not around, so we assume they talk about what we would like to think they talk about.
Obviously this is no excuse, just something to think about.
Posted by: Ben | July 28, 2008 11:39 PM
Ben,
You could, like, you know, ask some women what they talk about. Maybe even get them to read the scenes in question.
Posted by: abi | July 28, 2008 11:43 PM
I would also like to point out the delicious irony, as noted above, passes this test with flying colors, although the main character is literally a sex-object. Pretty funny.
Posted by: Ben | July 28, 2008 11:45 PM
ubik @11: so you missed the non-heterosexual folks in "The Atrocity Archives" and "Halting State", hmm? (Memo to self: be more blatant in future.)
Ben @34: the technical term for this thing is "irony". HTH.
Posted by: Charlie Stross | July 28, 2008 11:57 PM
The Laundry stories being a fail is plausible because the protagonist is a *geek*. Given the gender ratios in the geek world, the thing that nearly blew my WSOD was that there were any women in his field at all. (Only one of my jobs has had a gender ratio >3% female in technical roles. I think this is deeply deeply wrong, but I can't see any way to fix it.)
Posted by: Nix | July 29, 2008 12:23 AM
Charlie:
How could you possibly be more blatant in 'TAA' about P&B's sexuality? There's the whole section about being dragged to the annual Pride parade, plus snarky references to "breeders"... There would have to be graphic sex to be more blatant.
No basic disagreement that men are massively over-represented and female characters poorly developed, (especially in supporting roles) in basically all fictional formats that aren't erotica. In which case well-developed takes on a decidedly sexist meaning.
Posted by: Brett L | July 29, 2008 12:24 AM
@32:
The point of the test is not to encourage authors to throw in a single scene that checks off all three requirements like some sort of quota. If I write a script that has some hot love-interest that falls from tall buildings and also, at one point, asks a female janitor where the bathroom is, that doesn't really count as "passing," you know?
It shouldn't be a lot to ask that creators allow women to perform some function other than to be the object of desire for men.
Posted by: Owen | July 29, 2008 12:41 AM
Ben@32,
I think it's obvious why most fiction (written by men) fails this test. We don't really know what women talk about when we're not around, so we assume they talk about what we would like to think they talk about.
you could always try listening to women talking to each other.
Slightly different tack: I saw the pornographic parody of Pirates of the Caribbean, which had three major female roles...and sadly, all were better-realised than Keira Knightley's POTC charater. Step it up, Hollywood.
Posted by: Tlönista | July 29, 2008 12:48 AM
Weirdly, the only Hollywood movie I can remember seeing in the past couple of years that passes is Mr and Mrs Smith. And there's explodey-stuff.
Posted by: Charlie Stross | July 29, 2008 12:52 AM
There is a reason for this beyond the enigma of 'what do the other gender talk about when my gender is not around?'. BetaCandy went to film school and got it straight from the professors' mouths:
"According to Hollywood, if two women came on screen and started talking, the target male audience’s brain would glaze over and assume the women were talking about nail polish or shoes or something that didn’t pertain to the story. Only if they heard the name of a man in the story would they tune back in. By having women talk to each other about something other than men, I was “losing the audience.”"
So the professors systematically teach that you MUST NOT have a female lead, or multiple named female characters talking about anything other than Teh Menz, or else The Only Audience Segment That Matters would tune out.
Read the full account at The Hathor Legacy
Posted by: Rozasharn | July 29, 2008 1:29 AM
Rozasharn: I already read it (what do you think triggered this rant?) but thanks for the pointer. (I'd lost the URL.)
The falacy in this circular reasoning is breathtaking and simple. Trouble is, in the context of film, I don't know how to break it; it costs so much to make a major release movie that there will always be some idiot with their hands on the purse strings who'll raise the issue and use it to drag even the most enlightened director back towards the nobody-got-fired-for-following-it orthodoxy.
But in novels, there's little enough at stake that there is no excuse for doing this (not even, "the boss said I had to do it or he'd hire a new scriptwriter").
Posted by: Charlie Stross | July 29, 2008 1:39 AM
@39
If I'm listening to two women talking, doesn't it make that 2 women and 1 man, unless I'm doing something creepy like eaves dropping from behind a curtain or something?
Posted by: Ben | July 29, 2008 2:17 AM
@41
insteresting, since that means its not something that's subconcious.
@38
I was being sarcastic, and I apologize for not making that clear. I realize how poorly plain text gets that across.
Posted by: Ben | July 29, 2008 2:21 AM
I didn't know you didn't know about this test!
I should have passed it along years ago!
Posted by: John | July 29, 2008 3:05 AM
Hmmmm . . . doesn't some sf as 'the literature of ideas' get a pass? I finished Egan's new collection a few weeks ago, and while there may not be enough females to pass the test, I don't think you can fairly say that there are enough males either.
The second thought: isn't this to some extent a matter of marketing, not sexism? At the end of the day, the writer has to pay the bills, and writing is his - ahem - her way of doing it. And frankly, faced between the choice of selling 4,000 copies and feeling good about getting it right, and selling 40,000 copies and getting it wrong, I'd rather be wrong every time.
Now, this is not to say that there isn't a market out there for stories that pass this test, and this is not to say that current situation is in any respect okay. It just means that those guys who are up front about writing to pay the bills get more of a pass than guys (in the generic sense!) who go on about Art. The latter don't really have much of an excuse.
Finally, sad to say, but most of what I read is trash[1]. I make no apologies for that, or for eating Cheetos in bed while I'm reading, or for feeding the dogs Cheetos in bed while I'm reading my trash. But the guys I read the most, well, any attempt to pass this test will cause them to lose sales, they will be so wince-inducing bad at it. When all is said and done, I don't think John McDonald had the insight or the experience to write dialog like that, or Raymond Chandler, or Keith Laumer, or - well, you get the idea of how execrable my tastes are :-)
[1]That's on the fiction side. For every 'Blind Assassin' or 'Tortilla Road' I read twenty Punishers. Nonfiction is a little different, of course.
Posted by: ScentOfViolets | July 29, 2008 3:26 AM
Charlie, you're welcome for the URL. I commented mostly to provide that link to your readers; I was quite willing to believe you'd found The Rule and seen its usefulness on your own.
Posted by: Rozasharn | July 29, 2008 3:34 AM
If all it takes to be female is a pronoun, you'll love Stars in My Pocket Like Grains of Sand!
(Not linking to the Wikipedia entry because it's one damn spoiler after another, although I'm not sure how you write about why the novel is interesting without making it far less interesting to read. Also the imagining of an information network may read a bit...differently to audiences these days.)
Posted by: Jay Carlson | July 29, 2008 3:45 AM
Thanks Charlie, a great article. Hopefully other authors will take your comments to heart.
Posted by: Chuck LeDuc Díaz | July 29, 2008 4:44 AM
Arthur C Clarke's and Stephen Baxter's Sunstorm series of books would, I think, pass with flying colors.
The central character is a woman and many of the secondary characters are women in very high level political and professional jobs, who often spend time talking to each other or other women about all kinds of things that have nothing to do with men, like physics, politics, their families (in a caring but distinctly non-sexist way) and saving the world. Often in one conversation and usually in that order.
Posted by: Soni | July 29, 2008 5:07 AM
One problem with this law as applied to prose fiction is that in many novels and stories, supporting characters are *only* shown onstage when they're talking about the protagonist. That's either because the story is told from a tight first-person PoV, so you only see the other characters when the PoV is present and active in the scene (tight first person demands a very active character) or because it's a third-person PoV where the action is focused solely on the plot and hence on the twists and turn of the protagonist's journey.
Posted by: Cory Doctorow | July 29, 2008 5:39 AM
ScentOfViolets @46: interestingly, women buy about two-thirds of all books sold, and constitute the majority of readers of SF.
I fail to see how doing down the gender with which two-thirds of one's readers identify can be construed as pandering to the needs of the most important market segment.
Jay @48: so I take it you're unfamiliar with Polari? Or with the use of "she" as a pronoun among gay men to refer to someone in whom one is sexually interested, rather than someone who is biologically female? (Hint: think about where Delaney was coming from ...)
Cory @51: yes, you can only really apply Bechdel's Law with its full rigour to fiction that's written in omniscient third person. But I think third person narrative is common enough in fiction to make it a useful test; and more importantly, what it teaches us is a lesson that should carry over, right?
Posted by: Charlie Stross | July 29, 2008 6:17 AM
I was initially quite shocked by the implication of the test, as someone who likes to think he's an open free thinking chap (and watch those thoughts very carefully).
But before everyone starts self flagellating too firmly, is it worth considering that lack of female to female interaction in fiction, is an artefact of the intrinsic nature of the masculine and feminine?
Fiction thrives on conflict. Conflict is an overwhelmingly masculine occupation that is solidly grounded in biology and that ain't gonna change until we can all upload and start diddling with personality in the same way we can fiddle with contrast on a monitor ie no time soon.
Shouldn't we be more shocked about the preoccupation with conflict in film? Perhaps... or maybe not... I mean it's fun right? It's body chemistry.
So is this more about male collective guilt? The confusion here is that women *are* still suppressed in society and we (still) enjoy reading and watching conflict which necessarily doesn't involve women much. We are only just beginning to unpick this. I personally don't think a form of positive discrimination is going to help.
More films like Babettes Feast would however.
Posted by: Greg Eden | July 29, 2008 10:57 AM
Ben @43 - To take you seriously for a moment, if you take public transport you'll often find yourself inadvertantly overhearing conversations (as noted @21). Your 2 women and 1 man scenario would work too, if you keep quiet and listen (and nod etc.) when appropriate.
(I note that this would technically fulfill the requirements of the rule)
Owen @38 - The conversation(s) we're looking for should arise naturally out of plot and character. So to pass, we need two female characters, interacting normally within the plot, meaning that at least one of them is integral to it and the other has information, control or reponsibility over something related to it. So a supporting female janitor could well fulfill it, but if we aren't just hacking in a scene to do so, she should keep asking the janitor for help and directions every time we're in the building. Suddenly we have a woman doing a job and interacting professionally with our heroine, which can also become a running joke.
Last Movie Night: an episode of Wonder Woman (Pass - the topics being Nazi secret agents)
South Pacific (as you might expect from 1958 - Fail)
Posted by: Neil Willcox | July 29, 2008 11:32 AM
I'd expect Quentin tarrantino's "Death proof" to pass the test, but given the raging sexism of the camera's movements and the lap dancing scene, it might constitute a form of disproof - at most the test is indicative...
Posted by: Red Deathy | July 29, 2008 11:59 AM
Greg@53 I think that only holds if you take the narrowest interpretation of conflict. Yes males tend to have more role in violent conflict, but interpersonal conflict is a game open to all comers.
Posted by: David Formosa | July 29, 2008 12:25 PM
Red Deathy@55: Death Proof passes, because there is more then one female character, they have a conversation with each other, and it's not about a male.
The test has nothing to do with the sexism of the source material, - although sexist material is less likely to pass, of course - and it's not indicative of *quality* at any point. The test is mostly there as a way for you, the observer, to examine your own assumptions.
Posted by: John | July 29, 2008 12:39 PM
But I think third person narrative is common enough in fiction to make it a useful test; and more importantly, what it teaches us is a lesson that should carry over, right
I would be careful of taking this too far; I know that I for one will now be on the lookout for the Bechdel Moment in future Stross stories...
And I would also disagree with this: "What it tells us is that our current movie and (to a lesser extent) our TV culture is pathologically misogynistic — be it in in the adoption of conservative Kinder, Kuche, Kirche values or the more extreme violence of women in refrigerators."
No. What it tells us is that the bits of our world which make interesting cinema - or rather the bits of our world about which interesting cinema is presently made - are still male-dominated. A perfectly accurate fly-on-the-wall representation of, say, a homicide investigation could still fail the Bechdel test, because CID is still a male-dominated environment. (Even "Prime Suspect" could fail the Bechdel test - because the whole point of the drama is about a competent woman trying to cope on her own in a man's world.)
Posted by: ajay | July 29, 2008 12:40 PM
http://www.viruscomix.com/page444.html
is another comic illustration of the problem.
Posted by: Michael Stevens | July 29, 2008 12:48 PM
John@57 " they have a conversation with each other, and it's not about a male."
Although, on reflection, surprisingly little is not male related - the discussion around the lakeside shack revolves around boyfriends and father, the stuff about the poem is about men coming up and chatting up, the whole business about the relationship with the director - technically, even the conversation about taking the gun to the launderette is male related (threat of rape)...it passes, but in relation to the amount of dialogue...hmmm...
Posted by: Red Deathy | July 29, 2008 12:50 PM
I took a couple of improv acting classes taught by a woman. After the first few classes, she pointed out that people were improving fairly basic stuff because it was easy. People were putting their finger and thumb in the shape of a gun and pointing it at the other person on the stage. It gives immediate conflict, it's pretty much universal, and you're off and running with a show. But after a couple days of this, it got a bit old.
And having been up on the stage and have my mind go completely blank, I admit sometimes it's about all I can think of.
Obviously, movies and such aren't teh same as improv, but I think part of the tendancy towards violence is that its "easy" to generate conflict with violence, and its "hard" to generate conflict based only on internal character development and dialogue.
I need to learn to write stories with a lot more characters in them. It'll make me a better writer, it'll make my stories more realistic, and as a side benefit, it'll make it far more likely that my stories pass the above test.
Posted by: GregLondon | July 29, 2008 12:51 PM
Charlie @ 52:
I've got to stop trimming posts so brutally---I keep on killing off essential context.
I first heard the phrase "Boy Scouts with tits" with regard to some of Heinlein's female characters. It's not really enough to pass to just change clothes and pronouns on half your cast. This was brushed by a couple times upthread. So my mind wandered to "what's the messiest case for a rule literalist", thumbed through Le Guin (A Wizard of Earthsea: EPIC FAIL), bounced off The Player Of Games (I'm a few thousand miles from my copy, but now I'm really curious about whether it literally passes) and then settled on Stars in My Pocket Like Grains of Sand, which now goes in my "reread for the nth time" stack. Surprised that book isn't burned more often here.
Didn't know nothin' about Polari, which I guess I was just assuming was just another vein of that incomprehensible class-based slang out of your island. Television Anglophilia has its limits. But I think I heard that use of "she" in the wild growing up in the American Midwest.
Posted by: Jay Carlson | July 29, 2008 2:40 PM
Jay @62 I think "Player" fails as do some other Iain M Banks though of course partly that is because that the book is very much focused on the male POV hero.
Posted by: Francis | July 29, 2008 2:49 PM
Rozasharn @ 41
Oh, the irony. That line, "Only if they heard the name of a man in the story would they tune back in" reminded me of the Gary Larsen cartoon captioned "What dogs hear" that shows a man talking to a dog named Daisy, and all the dog hears is "Blah blah blah blah Daisy blah blah". Do those marketing idiots in Hollywood realize what they're saying about themselves?
Posted by: Bruce Cohen (SpeakerToManagers) | July 29, 2008 2:55 PM
#58: For Prime Suspect, there are usually one or two other female cops and Tennyson eventually speaks to them about the case.
Interestingly, Jack McDevitt novels often pass this test, and I don't think of him as a standard bearer for avant garde gender discourse.
On the other hand, Melissa Scott and the late Lisa Barnet, lesbians partners who occasionally co-wrote novels, probably often failed, as their protagonists were gay/bi men.
Posted by: PrivateIron | July 29, 2008 2:58 PM
I'm very pleased to report that my movie passes. Sort of. There's certainly quite a bit of two women talking to each other - about quantum physics, parallel universes and violence, and I don't think at any point do they discuss men. The only caveat is that both of the women are parallel world versions of each other, so do they really count as separate people? I kind of think so as they are really different characters. On the other hand, most of my short films are EPIC FAIL... I really think I can do better.
I think Greg Egan needs to be given a pass as he does usually write very sensitively about issues of gender and sexuality. I think 'he' is, in fact, a hyper-advanced being of arbitrary gender, observing us all from 'his' secret Antipodean base.
It would be nice if we had some kind of Bechdel-Approved tag for movies and books! Because it's the 21st Century now and this Victorian crap has to end.
Posted by: Huw Bowen | July 29, 2008 3:10 PM
Oh, whoops, forgot to add - I went to film school in Hollywood, and briefly taught at a film school, and I NEVER heard anything as outrageous as the comment in 41. Never. In my experience, most filmmakers tend to be on the progressive side. I dunno about the execs, though, they may well have a different attitude as by-and-large they are not filmmakers or artists at all.
Posted by: Huw Bowen | July 29, 2008 3:13 PM
The Prefect fails, but its written as a Chandleresque detective story in a tight 3rd person. Unless the protagonist was made female it wasn't going to. However Pushing Ice, Redemption Ark and Revelation Space all pass.
Iain Banks is going to be awkward to work out- does Excession pass because one of the characters changes gender at one point? And what do you do about the AIs?
My only knowledge of Polari is from Kenneth Williams on "Round the Horne". It isn't necessarily a bad place to start...
Posted by: Dave Godfrey | July 29, 2008 3:14 PM
Francis @ 63:
Yeah, I suspect you're right about Player. But it's a little problematic in that the apex sex gets a masculine pronoun in the little essay about power, with the clear statement that from the apex point of view, males and females have equally subordinate roles.
Posted by: Jay Carlson | July 29, 2008 3:23 PM
Charlie @52: Weird, isn't it? As an aside, someone recently asked for some sf to introduce unenthusiastic adults to the genre, and it was generally thought that "The Witches of Karres" was the all-round best, followed closely by the Trigger stories, the Telzey stories, and "Agent of Vega". So yes, I agree, the market is out there, and that the average reader really doesn't care who's breaking stuff, so long as stuff gets broken.
It's just that this hasn't penetrated yet for a lot of writers, mid-list and otherwise, and that they sincerely believe that this is the way to move product. And to the extent that all a writer cares about is moving product, I them a pass. The ones who sort of make a deal about having more 'social consciousness', whatever that is, I'm apt to be a little harder on. Although, part of the calculation, as I noted earlier, may be that they are incapable of writing those sorts of scenes. 'Write what you know' and all that.
Huw @66: Agreed on Egan. Speaking of Heinlein's 'Boyscouts with', er, you know, it strikes me that Egan goes exactly the other way: you could replace all the males (such as they are) with females, and it wouldn't change a thing.
Posted by: ScentOfViolets | July 29, 2008 3:44 PM
@Charlie: No, I didn't miss them. They were his flatmates, weren't they? Maybe I don't remember correctly. That's what I was hinting at, to acknowledge that you're already inclusive in this respect. Thus the emoticon. But of course I wouldn't mind if you were even more blatant...
I meant many of the other SciFi authors who have no trouble to envision a totally different, or futuristic, posthuman society, but almost always stick to the present image of (hetero)sexuality.
Of course there are notable exceptions, like your Glasshouse, Iain M. Banks "A Gift from the Culture", Le Guin of course, China Mountain Zhang by Maureen F. McHugh or Iron Council by China Miéville.
I would love to be proven wrong though, so if anybody can give some more reading recommendations like Privatelron above let me hear them!
Posted by: ubik | July 29, 2008 3:47 PM
65: OK; it's been a long time since I saw Prime Suspect.
68: hah. Good point.
But isn't the "viewpoint character" issue the same in films too? If you have a single protagonist (ie just one, not unmarried) and he's male, then almost all the scenes are going to involve him, because he's the protagonist; so you aren't really going to get many chances for two supporting characters to interact with each other in his absence.
So the question then becomes: why aren't there more films with a female protagonist? And I'd go for the explanation I gave above, which is that the bits of the world that make good cinema are also the bits of the world that are male-dominated.
Posted by: ajay | July 29, 2008 3:51 PM
Another Charlie @21: "Women talked about men, other women,(usually that bitch) food, babies, family, sex and work in that order. "
Abi@33: "You could, like, you know, ask some women what they talk about. "
At the risk of being labeled a misogynist, I'm not sure I see how it is the responsibility of men to create a "positive" image of women in general, or who gets to decide what is positive and what isn't. It has been my experience that many women talk a great deal about men and relationships and enjoy doing so. The majority of "chick flicks" that I've watched are filled with women worrying about their weight, fashion, and obtaining their chosen male. I'm really not sure how many women are craving a movie with lots of females discussing engineering.
Women are half of the population. To compare all women to miniorities, most of which are single digit components of the general population (at least in geographical areas were they are a minority), seems falacious. I'm not aware that women are being prevented from publishing books, or that books that sell well and are not male-oriented are rejected. Publishers will publish whatever sells so if books that depict women "incorrectly" are selling then either women are buying them, or women aren't buying books.
I think the fact that women care what men say about them has a lot to do with the problem. If women produce movies that are uninteresting to men, or even portray men negatively, most men simply don't care. They don't feel victimized so they just ignore it. Women however seem to care much more and feel the need to be viewed correctly by men. I would go so far as to say that an assumption is being made that does a disservice to the goal of equality, that being to assume that women require men to empower them through their opinions and media portrayals.
I feel that the "test" is fine if you're looking at broad trends and statistics, but to apply it to individual works and imply that they are inferior if not sufficiently female-centric is not advisable. If a woman wants to write a book with all female characters, or a man with males, or a Jewish person with Jews, I don't see the problem.
Posted by: Stephen A. Russell | July 29, 2008 4:18 PM
Ubik @ 70: Peter Hamilton often doesn't do too bad a job of having homo/bisexual characters. Of course there are also a few multi sexual, self sexual and other...odd stuff. Of course it's also generally explicit as opposed to a 'relationship', which I think is a shame.
A glassfull of whatever he drinks would not be good before bed.
I thikn this rule could be harder to hit without going completely the other way. Novels, stories, etc are supposed to garner interest in the characters - the conflict may not be physical but emotional. So yes, perhaps the protagonist is saving the universe for the woman he/she loves. But does changing the he to a she (and matching partners) really change what's being written?
As a complete swinging aside - I finally got an in joke Charlie (without having to research it because I think I get the joke).
Halting State - hating whomever created the Slaad. 20 minutes, laughing till it hurt.
Posted by: Serraphin | July 29, 2008 4:31 PM
They don't feel victimized so they just ignore it. Women however seem to care much more and feel the need to be viewed correctly by men.
Hey, we going to have a discussion of privilege here? Last one on ML got sat on, it was most annoying, I was just on the point of coming out with a whole bunch of things which might well have turned out to be inappropriate.
Posted by: Adrian Smith | July 29, 2008 4:34 PM
ajay@71: But isn't the "viewpoint character" issue the same in films too?
books and movies have very differnt POV things going on. Books let you get into a character's head and keep you informed of what they're thinking at all times. Movies can't easily reveal the character's thoughts without voice-overs or "as you know bob" dialogue and so on.
Books can easily be a tight third person POV (or "limited", can't recall the nomenclature) which means the "pov" is a camera perched on the character's shoulder, seeing what the person sees, but with a mental link to know what that one particular person is also thinking.
Movies are are different kind of third person pov (again, cant remember the nomenclature), but basically its the camera, standing off of any particular character, and unable to tell what any character is thinking.
The differences don't seem like much until you try taking a story your wrote and converting it to a screenplay format and you start smacking your forehead at all the internal thought processes of the main character that disappear before your eyes.
I used to have a bookmark to a really nice page that described all the different POV's in little cartoony-style depictions, and gave them the proper names, but I can't seem to find it now.
I'm not sure if the different pov styles would make passing the test easier or harder or the same.
Posted by: GregLondon | July 29, 2008 4:36 PM
Oh, hey, "Stranger than Fiction" passes the test. The author and her assistant spend a number of scenes talking about writing and smoking and deadlines and ideas for killing characters and to some extent, the male character she is writing about, which turns out to be Will Ferrell's character. (Hm, not sure if talking about Will counts or not, if its talking about a man, but not in a relationship/marriage/children sort of way)
But that one passes the test.
My wife didn't like it much though, but I thought it was neat.
Posted by: GregLondon | July 29, 2008 4:47 PM
Aliens.
Ridley to alien queen: "you bitch"
Posted by: Adam | July 29, 2008 5:09 PM
Ripley talks with Newt quite a bit
Posted by: GregLondon | July 29, 2008 5:14 PM
At least we can expect that the Y: The Last Man movie will pass this test. Although a lot of the comics dialogue does concern the lack of men so it could fail on number 3...
Posted by: Liam | July 29, 2008 5:36 PM
The current SF tv show "The Middleman" passes the test quite easily in most episodes - the two female roommates go off on regular riffs about art and society (very funny ones sometimes). Admittedly, one of them has a crush on the title character, but he has a crush back, so that's fair. Funny show, by the way.
Nobody mentioned "Buffy the Vampire Slayer," either.
Or "Battlestar Galactica," which passes with flying colors. Yeah, the women often talk about babies and men, but it's usually about whether the subject is a Cylon, so that's not quite the same.
Funny how recent TV shows manage to break the rule so easily...
Posted by: cirby | July 29, 2008 5:39 PM
That's an interesting litmus test, but it's wayyyyyy too vague to stigmatize any single fail, IMHO. It's a cute snark for sure, but there are way too many fully justifiable exceptions for the test to be damning. A feminist monologue would fail, while a blatant porno with 30 seconds of stilted dialog about hunger (leading to ordering a sausage pizza) would pass. That a large majority of fiction fails is telling, but any specific instance is not, IMHO.
(Tangent: how much does non-fiction fail?)
Regardless of test, I do not think Charlie devalues the basic humanity or contribution of women in his fiction, full stop.
This only leaves the question: "Do I think Charlie could work harder for social justice?" Sure, everyone could. As a popular and talented author, he probably even should, as long as he can avoid being too anvilicious about it. The whole family trade series seems like a great start to me.
Posted by: martin | July 29, 2008 6:02 PM
"Gilmore Girls" easily passes and was one of few series I would watch on TV for a while. It jumped the shark after a few seasons, and I stopped watching. But it had a couple years of really good dialogue between mom and daughter.
Posted by: GregLondon | July 29, 2008 6:08 PM
Serraphin @ 73: Really, Hamilton? I just began reading The Dreaming Void and don't know his earlier stuff, so this was pretty much the kind of gender-wise dissatisfying Space Opera I had in mind. There's even have a male secret-agent character rescuing a woman Quatermain-style, carrying her on his shoulder while she is beating ineffectually at his buttocs and "sobbing hysterically".
I already thought that The Dreaming Void doesn't quite work as a stand alone book, so I want to go back to earlier novels in his Commonwelth Universe, so I'll see if my first impression was wrong.
@ GregLondon: Although I found "Stranger in a Strange Land" to be homophobic, there's a more positive approach by Allyn Howey on Strange Horizons: "Junior, you aren’t shaping up too angelically": Queerness in Heinlein’s Stranger in a Strange Land, which made me reconsider my view. Maybe I'll give this one another try.
Posted by: ubik | July 29, 2008 6:37 PM
So what does it mean if you write a female protagonist who kicks action b*tt while lugging a baby around (Given that said baby, also female, seems to have her own contribution to Mama's kicking b*tt as well)? Simply housewifely wish fulfillment?
What does it mean to have power struggles in the political and corporate world between females, which also include reproductive issues (which I think Charlie nails pretty solidly in the Clan Corporate world)?
I think there's a point to Bechdel's Law, but I also think downplaying or eliminating the knife's-edge of reproductive issues, among females of reproductive age, is also trying to turn females into men without certain appendages. Women get pregnant, willingly or no, irrespective of gender orientation, power and status level, or class. Managing that situation can either be a fallback to old structures or a leap into something new.
So how many strong and politically/corporately powerful female protagonists do you encounter who have to deal with children? I mean, really deal with the parenting issues, besides handing them off to Nanny?
(looks around, listens to crickets chirping).
Worth a thought.
Posted by: Joyce Reynolds-Ward | July 29, 2008 6:53 PM
Been racking my brain to come up with something useful to add, can't.
Someone asked for reading suggestions.
Delany's been mentioned.
How about the recently departed Disch,
or Joanna Russ' "The Female Man"
And of course, James Tiptree Jr./Alice Sheldon's "The Women Men Don't See".
Posted by: JamesPadraicR | July 29, 2008 6:56 PM
I think that people may be misinterpreting the test. Nobody's saying that you have to derail your summer action flick so that two women can chat about stress at the offices, where they got their nails done, and, you know, their feelings.
The idea is, it would be nice if in your summer actioner, two women said something like:
"What's the plan?"
"You do a frontal assault with that monster gun of yours, and while they're distracted, I'll grab the goods. You ready?"
"I was born ready."
(Also, I think it passes the spirit of the test if women are discussing a man in the sense of, like, "How do we capture the Joker," rather than, "You bitch, you stole my man.")
Posted by: Michael B Sullivan | July 29, 2008 7:11 PM
Stepehn A Russell @72 - Charlie and Alison Bechdel may not agree but I don't think the problem is so much men writing about men for men, as in The Name of the Rose or Saving Private Ryan for instance. Nor is it that the women in fiction spend a lot of time talking to men or about men and relationships. It's that if they talk about nothing else amongst themselves it becomes unrealistic and bad characterisation. For myself, I do want to see women occasionally talking about engineering in fiction, just as in real life when I've sat between two female friends discussing Mini maintenance and had nothing to say, or when my Mum talks about how she's repointing her wall to her friends and I've been the only one with no bricklaying experience. Women who talk a lot about men are realistic and good characters; women who talk about nothing else is bad lazy writing.
(Also what Michael Sullivan said above)
Posted by: Neil Willcox | July 29, 2008 7:54 PM
Stephen @72: boy oh boy, you really have a good big load of invisible privilege, don't you?
Hint: it's not about comparing women to minorities, it's about examining the systematic disempowerment of half the human population on the basis of an accident of birth.
Posted by: Charlie Stross | July 29, 2008 9:10 PM
This is vaguely reminiscent of the change in SF to make it more character driven. Stories once only sketched characters raced along and finished in around 150 pages. Then the new style entered, dialogue exploded and the plots didn't finish for 350+ pages. Oh, and let's not forget about the "obligatory" sex scenes that were added. Sf certainly looked more "main stream" stylistically, but something was lost too, if only the hours spent reading unnecessary dialogue.
I also think that it is not a bad idea to stick with writing what you know. Trying to write believable female to female dialogue is going to be based on relatively little experience, which might easily sound false to women readers.
If the buying public is mostly women (I note that women buy most underwear too, even for the men), then I would expect that the readership is catered to quite well. Is there really a shortage of women authors? By chance most of my acquaintances who identify themselves as authors are women. Could we see the statistics that show that women readers are 2/3 the market and that they feel that there is a shortage of books addressing their reading desires?
Posted by: Alex Tolley | July 29, 2008 9:16 PM
For those of you wondering what women talk about when there are no men around, I can relate the subjects I've just discussed with a friend of mine, in approximate order: a recent holiday taken by one of us, cats, food, beading workshops, crap cider, early British jet fighters, G-PSST in particular, the local airshow, driving, gay nuns, Doctor Who, mediaeval women's headgear, arranging to visit one another, etc.
Hope this helps.
Posted by: Feòrag | July 29, 2008 9:48 PM
(@ my post above: Oh damn, i want want a comment editing function. English language not so easy for me, sorry.) Anyway: i like this thread. Please enrich it with some more positive examples of novels with progressive gender politics, if you know any.
Posted by: Ubik | July 29, 2008 10:14 PM
I did a quick assessment of my self published stuff and online videos, and I think it comes out about even pass/fail.
On tv the CSIs pass the test, I reckon. The original series had almost no relationship related plots for anyone for the first few series, so the female characters were always talking about the case in hand. Miami lets it down a bit with it's insistence on portraying David CAruso as a love god when the truth is he's a short man who looks like a gargoyle and walks like his tracking's off.
Posted by: Ian Pattinson | July 29, 2008 10:54 PM
Ubik @91: I have been up since 3am this morning and don't get off work-duty until 10pm tonight. And I have to head for the airport at 6am tomorrow. (The glamorous lifestyle of the author on a signing tour. Economy class, natch.) Thus, I am slightly short of time with which to post long, eloquent blog entries.
Posted by: Charlie Stross | July 29, 2008 11:04 PM
Most of my conversations with other women are about project management, engineering, and corporate politics...because I work with other women (as well as a whole lot of men), and we talk about our work. So I think the argument that men don't write about women because they don't know what women talk about is silly. Characters in a book or movie talk about whatever the author needs them to talk about. If the characters are women, they can talk about quantum mechanics or flight engineering if that's what the story is about.
If you think that's unrealistic, because all the women you know seem to talk about shopping or television or diets, consider what the men you know talk about. If it's barbeque and television and sports, they probably aren't featured in your SF novel either.
Posted by: Mary Dell | July 29, 2008 11:36 PM
Wow, that strip linked in #2 couldn't be more true. I'm not really sure why we do so little turning of sex roles on their heads anymore (though I suppose those guilty of lack of action are just trying to move with a perceived majority, as any money laden riskless industry tends to :/ )
Charlie said something rather relatable at his books signing down in Glendale, CA; "I like to scratch itches in fiction I feel no one else is scratching."
Honestly I swear I must have four arms like that girl from the begginning of Glasshouse, because I've done a lot of itch scratching in my own work and found it pretty rewarding.
First off; it's fun making the male lead a bit of a damsel and distress and giving the fem. number one an attitude "problem" (she'd call it anti-idiot defenses) and such qualities as supreme athleticism and a height of seven feet. It's made for good fiction so far.
Anyway, I'll be trying to keep to the Wallace-Bechdel test as best I can from here on out, though I'm the culprit of Stross' aforementioned "character in first person has facial hair and dangly parts" paradox.
Posted by: AaronLee | July 29, 2008 11:55 PM
For what it's worth, I was watching "Pitch Black" last night, and I would say it passed the test, because the last thing the three female characters talked about were men or fashion. But I don't think any of the blockbusters I saw this summer would pass.
Thinking of some past stuff...
Stargate, at least for the first season fails, except for the gloriously tacky episode where all the men fall under the spell of a Femme Fatale.
The Justice League cartoons would pass, since they have a number of non-man conversatins between women. Superman and Batman animated series might barely pass as well. Teen Titans passes the test easily.
In Books: Jonathan Strange andMr. Norrell passes I think, because IIRC,the conversation between the female characters concerned an illness. Likewise, TheSong of Ice and FIre passes. The Dresden Chronicles doesn't pass, AFAICT, and I'm tempted to think that most first-person male viewpoint books wouldn't.
This is a fun game.
Posted by: Eric Tolle | July 30, 2008 12:05 AM
Stephen @ 73:
If women produce movies that are uninteresting to men, or even portray men negatively, most men simply don't care. They don't feel victimized so they just ignore it.
Really? Did you catch any of the press coverage when Sex and the City broke box office records its opening weekend? I heard and read an awful lot of mockery and disdain expressed for the film and the audiences which flocked to it. I've never watched the TV show, but even I got tired of reporting like this.
By the way, I've often seen a caveat added to the Bechdel Test that the conversation be between two named characters -- so that the lady of the house making an offhand request of her maid doesn't quite cut it.
The last time I started trying to categorize movies, I realized that many of my favorite films failed: Star Wars (the original), Real Genius, The Princess Bride, Casablanca, even Serenity, which comes closest in a conversation between River and her teacher. And according to other reports, only one Pixar film actually qualifies: The Incredibles. Isn't it disturbing that something so fundamental as women talking with other women can be so ignored?
Posted by: Lis Riba | July 30, 2008 12:27 AM
Charlie @94: sorry, I don't quite get it. As I said above, english is not my first language, so sorry if I said something that came across as demanding longer, more eloquent blog entries from you. Not sure how what I said could be interpreted in that way though...
I just said that I wanted comment editing function for correcting my typos and words left over from editing after clicking preview, (the "have" from my post #84); and that some more reading recommendations would be nice. Not from you specifically, but anybody in this thread who knows a novel that passes the Bechdel test, or is generally progressive on the gender front...
But perhaps I'm just derailing the thread?
Or did you mean post #91 by Feòrag (I wrote #92)
Posted by: ubik | July 30, 2008 12:53 AM
Ubik @99: What Charlie read as a call for him, personally, adding to this thread was Please enrich it with some more positive examples of novels with progressive gender politics, if you know any. It reads like an appeal to everyone here myself. Still he's sleep-deprived at the moment, and bound to misinterpret things.
Posted by: Feòrag | July 30, 2008 1:16 AM
The position Delany took in Trouble on Triton is not progressive gender politics in invented futures for its own sake. Rather, it's partially tied back into his construction of science fiction as a literature that has a much wider range of narrative and meaning available.
One naive translation of this to engineering-speak is that there are simply more good stories out there to be told than in the subset limited to hetero (yet sexless) white boys riding some phallic objects and pointing different phallic objects at the Other. So this is a pragmatic/aesthetic, rather than a political, argument. The test is then a quick sample to see if the story's in the superset rather than the boring subset. Although, if the test fails the story is not necessarily in the subset....
That translation is also, I think, a distortion of the context back in the Seventies. The SF books we're talking about from that era were elaboration and extension of contemporary gender politics. An analogous reaction to illiberality today would not reach for equality but would be more prodding of unintended consequence or force a fresh look through strange eyes. (That sort of political thing viscerally worked on me in Iron Sunrise and didn't in The Algebraist---Beating-Up-Banks day.)
Don't take either of those two points as statements of personal preference.
I'm getting dangerously far from areas I feel confident in my understanding of. I might as well just start posting dum/b/ass stuff like "HETEROTOPIAN DELANY IS HETEROTOPIAN." It'll look better on my record when ML shows up.
At some point there was a fuss over Tinky-Winky allegedly being gay. The response that stuck with me was, "that's an error---toddlers aren't straight *or* gay." (They were alien toddlers with televisions in their bellies, appropriately enough....)
Posted by: Jay Carlson | July 30, 2008 1:21 AM
I don't do sleep deprivation well -- I run on 7-8 hours a night (rising to 9-10 hours in midwinter darkness). I am currently running on 4-6 hours a night. This is not good for me ...
Posted by: Charlie Stross | July 30, 2008 1:22 AM
It was asserted about Jane Austen that she never wrote any dialogue which did not have a female observer. Men are in a similar position with regard to observation.
Posted by: Adrian Midgley | July 30, 2008 1:30 AM
Lis: I heard and read an awful lot of mockery and disdain expressed for the film and the audiences which flocked to it.
My wife was an avid fan of the show. Watched it for years. But she hated, hated, hated the movie. I think it was the first time in a while she came home angry because of a movie.
I didn't see it, so I can't comment on the quality. (I made her see Dark Knight. She made me see Mama Mia. But sometimes we'll encourage the other to go alone or with a friend. I'll watch Hellboy by myself, and she watched "Sex in the City" with a girlfriend.)
Star Wars (the original)
Lucas