The Bechdel Test

[BWFoster78]

So no, we don't have a responsibility to fix all societal wrongs, but we do have a responsibility to be aware of what we have written and consider the impact it could have, even if that awareness results in no changes whatsoever.

As I wrote in response to Steerpike, I don't ever disagree with the concept that analyzing our work is a good idea.

I think I've been pretty clear in addressing only those on this thread who seem to be calling for action and putting forth their agenda as so important that we all should work to address it. I think that my question has consistently remained, "Why is this issue more important than others?"

EDIT: I state the above because the post from which I quoted seems to seek to remove my question from its specific context and take it back to the general.

 

[Chilari]

My answer, and I'm sure others would have different opinions, would be that this issue is not more important than other issues, but that doesn't mean it can't be addressed. We've got potentially millions of words to address issues over the course of our writing careers. If we want to use those words to address societal issues, we can address whatever societal issues we want. And we can address as many as we want. Addressing issues of gender representation doesn't mean you can't address anything else you also feel is important, whether that is representation of PoCs, LGBT people, mentally illness or whathaveyou. There's nothing stopping you having a clinically depressed Zoroastrian trans lesbian woman of Chinese and Haitian descent, who believes gun ownership is a right but also a responsibility, thinks abortions are an occasionally necessary evil that shouldn't be freely available for those who just want one, and is vocally opposed to the dismantling of state pension systems, as your protagonist, after all. It might get a bit cluttered if you're addressing all of those issues in one story, but if that's what you want, then fine.

So it's not more important than others, necessarily, but it can still be addressed if you want to address it.

 

[Mindfire]

I think the best method of encouraging diversity in writing is to simply encourage diversity in writers. Get more minority writers into the action and more minority characters will appear as a result. I think that's a far better solution than trying to thought police already existing writers, which as you see meets with resistance. And I don't think this resistance is motivated by a desire to maintain homogeneity. (At least, not here. At Super-Mega-Media-Conglomicon it might be a different story.) I think it's motivated by the natural human impulse against someone trying to alter your creation in a way you don't believe is warranted. And I think there is a danger in trying to push an idea through your writing. If the writer is not careful, he can end up creating one ugly beast of a soapbox that nobody wants to read. I'm a Christian, and while my ideals do bleed through into my writing, I make an effort not to turn the story into a morality tale, because I think it has more to offer than just being a sermon. I say, if you want more diverse media, find more diverse media creators.

 

[BWFoster78]

So it's not more important than others, necessarily, but it can still be addressed if you want to address it.

Again, though, this does not address the issue of speaking to those who seem to be implying that it is authors should address it...

I have no quarrel with anyone who says, "It's good to analyze your writing; address what you want to address."

 

[BWFoster78]

If the writer is not careful, he can end up creating one ugly beast of a soapbox that nobody wants to read.

This sounds like someone who has read Sword of Truth.

 

[Ankari]

I don't think that's really what this is. The test isn't telling you that you must change male characters into female ones, or that scenes with men in them are worth less than scenes without. If you want a queen and a duke having a chat about resources, there's nothing wrong with that. The test, by my interpretation, is designed to provoke consideration about approach to women in fiction. There's no part of the test that says "if you fail this, you're a bad writer" or "if you fail this, you need to change your story". There's just the three questions. It's not an attack on stories that fail. It's an exercise to consider women's representation in fiction - and not even necessarily your own. It's fun to look at famous movies and books to see how they fare. Fight Club only has one named female character, for example. Lord of the Rings has two but they never meet, though they do present different types of women sympathetically.

We are all aspiring writers. We understand the power of words and the power of perception. To call something a "test" has a specific power. To pass or fail a test has a specific meaning. If the Bechdel Test wasn't meant to determine the success, or failure, of a fictional piece in the area it is testing, why would they use that word? Why not challenge or survery?See? The connotation is different.

Further, why is it considered misrepresenation if a cast of women are never seperate from men? I think to the Malazan series and how women are soldiering just like the men. They camp in the same area, share the same food, and talk to each other all the time.

 

[Chilari]

I think the best method of encouraging diversity in writing is to simply encourage diversity in writers. Get more minority writers into the action and more minority characters will appear as a result.

There's the crux of it, I think. Writing is often seen as quite a middle class thing to do; it is seen as requiring a certain amount and quality of education and because it is unreliable as a source of income it is not seen as a viable or useful pursuit as a profession. And because in general in western society, middle class people are on balance more likely to be white, there's also a racial bias too.

But I don't think it's the whole situation. Because entertainment media relies on building on what has gone before, I think there is still a tendency to write more and better male characters than female characters, and I think there's a male protagonist bias. This is far more prevalent in other media - blockbuster films probably have a 90/10 split for male/female protagonists. Computer games, too, tend towards male player characters where this isn't chosable by the player.

 

[Jabrosky]

I think the best method of encouraging diversity in writing is to simply encourage diversity in writers. Get more minority writers into the action and more minority characters will appear as a result. I think that's a far better solution than trying to thought police already existing writers, which as you see meets with resistance. And I don't think this resistance is motivated by a desire to maintain homogeneity. (At least, not here. At Super-Mega-Media-Conglomicon it might be a different story.) I think it's motivated by the natural human impulse against someone trying to alter your creation in a way you don't believe is warranted. And I think there is a danger in trying to push an idea through your writing. If the writer is not careful, he can end up creating one ugly beast of a soapbox that nobody wants to read. I'm a Christian, and while my ideals do bleed through into my writing, I make an effort not to turn the story into a morality tale, because I think it has more to offer than just being a sermon. I say, if you want more diverse media, find more diverse media creators.

I don't know if the issue is entirely due to a lack of literature by minorities. There's actually an abundance of that if you look in certain places. In fact African fantasy has blossomed into an entire subgenre in its own right called Sword & Soul. For me, the real issue is less one of minority disinterest than one of publisher disinterest. I'm sure black people write speculative fiction all the time, but mainstream publishers would prefer to distribute books with white main characters to major bookstores (that is, unless the black characters somehow conformed to racial stereotypes such as the pitiful victim or ghetto villain).

 

[Chilari]

We are all aspiring writers. We understand the power of words and the power of perception. To call something a "test" has a specific power. To pass or fail a test has a specific meaning. If the Bechdel Test wasn't meant to determine the success, or failure, of a fictional piece in the area it is testing, why would they use that word? Why not challenge or survery?See? The connotation is different.

Further, why is it considered misrepresenation if a cast of women are never seperate from men? I think to the Malazan series and how women are soldiering just like the men. They camp in the same area, share the same food, and talk to each other all the time.

Once again, it's not saying you can't have men and women chatting with one another. It's not saying these scenes are less valuable. Indeed, it was never actually intended as a test for writers - it was simply a means by which a comic book character decided on whether to watch a movie, inspired by what someone in real life said. It wasn't presented as a test to writers, it was a test by which a feminist character decided whether she thought she would enjoy a film. That's why it's called a test, because of the context it comes from, not because it was intended as a means to rate writers.

And it's not the be-all and end-all. It's a blunt tool and doesn't account for nuance such as your example from the Malazan series. Basically, it's nothing more than a vague indication, a consideration. It can be used however you want.

 

[Chime85]

The thing is, although the test is a bit clumsy, it still highlights the issue that some demographics are represented much less than others in media (in this case, writing). I’m not saying that anyone should set their writing in the rules of that test (be it for women, or any other demographic you care to replace women with), but instead, to take to mind what the test is trying to highlight.

The issue surrounding this isn’t a case of throwing in group X and people Y just to satisfy a number of people. It is giving whoever you place in your story the character development and traits you think they deserve.

The issues are more apparent to the group highlighted at the time. While in the opening test, it was women and the representation of them in media, this discussion has (and rightly so) taken a much more holistic view of the original point. Women do notice the trends much more than men do when it comes to media. It is these trends that go a little less noticed in the male population of the audience. Of course, as I stated above, you can swap these demographics around to fit many of the highlights in this thread. Replace the word women with black and men with white and still get the same trend of who notices what in media. Strangely enough, it is the group who feels under/unfairly represented who wish for change. The other group often tends to feel more comfortable with the status quo.

I think one of the shocking statistics from that video was the 11% female protagonist in the top 100 movies of that year. The thing is, there are people from every demographic who would like to see that change (for this example, I mean an increase!). So, why is this less apparent when it comes to a wider audience? Who is it who said “no, 11% female protagonists is fine. Don’t fix what’s not broken”?

I think Chilari is right when she stated there are many issues to write about, but there are also these ones. Of course, I still stand by an individual’s right to write about whatever he or she wishes. It is their work, and nobody else should have a say on what they ultimately decide. Of course, that does put you in the crosshairs of anyone you may upset with your works

 

[Mindfire]

But I don't think it's the whole situation. Because entertainment media relies on building on what has gone before, I think there is still a tendency to write more and better male characters than female characters, and I think there's a male protagonist bias. This is far more prevalent in other media - blockbuster films probably have a 90/10 split for male/female protagonists. Computer games, too, tend towards male player characters where this isn't chosable by the player.

Likewise, I would attribute this to a lack of women in the industry. More female creators will translate to more and better female characters. So if you want that to happen, your best bet is to encourage female filmmakers, game designers, etc. The logical corollary is, of course, that urging men to write about female protagonists will, speaking from a strategic standpoint, have limited success.

I don't know if the issue is entirely due to a lack of literature by minorities. There's actually an abundance of that if you look in certain places. In fact African fantasy has blossomed into an entire subgenre in its own right called Sword & Soul. For me, the real issue is less one of minority disinterest than one of publisher disinterest. I'm sure black people write speculative fiction all the time, but mainstream publishers would prefer to distribute books with white main characters to major bookstores (that is, unless the black characters somehow conformed to racial stereotypes such as the pitiful victim or ghetto villain).

And if that's the major obstacle, then I don't see how criticizing authors will help. If the publishers are the problem and you feel strongly about this, I would advise you to take the fight to them. (Using "you" in the general sense here.)

 

[saellys]

My original post came to 26,000 words, so this will be multi-part.

If one story lacks two women talking about something other than a man, that won't bother me. It's when you have a large proportion of fiction that lacks the same thing when you notice a problem.

When one story lacks two women talking about something other than a man, it bothers me because I've read a large proportion of fantasy fiction that lacks the same thing. The author of that story could have gone in a different direction, but chose--perhaps consciously, but more likely in a knee-jerk by-default situation--not to do so.

That said, I have no problem with gay people writing their own gay romances, because everyone has different tastes.

The extension here is that only gay people should write gay romances, only asexuals should write about asexuality, only polyamorists should write about polyamory, and so on. If you* choose to limit yourself only to heterosexual relationships in your writing, that is entirely your choice, and does not make your work homophobic by any degree. You should, however, be aware that the sentiment that gay people should write their own gay romances could be read that way.

So, the way to balance antiquated beliefs of male dominance is to force male characters from a scene, or create scenes that feature only women, to be considered as a modern thinking writer.

Think inclusion, not exclusion.

The problem I have with anything labelled a "test" is the inferred meaning that whatever is tested is either right or wrong. That the purpose behind the test is right and those that fail the test are wrong. The people who feel that such requirements are mandatory should create content on their own rather than force every writer out there into a mold.

As most of us who advocate the Bechdel Test have already stated numerous times in this thread, it's not a test of rightness or wrongness, but simply how you handle female characters.

The "write it yourself" argument is common and fallacious. The extension is that only women should write about women and only men should write about men--see the thread about writing the opposite sex for more on that. I'm not trying to force anyone into a mold; I'm making an appeal for greater diversity in the fantasy genre. That's all.

What is wrong with the stories of knights saving the damsel in distress from her dark fate? Are you saying that this isn't a story worthy of teaching males? That males shouldn't read such neandertholic stories because it features a somewhat outdated representation of a male saving a somewhat outdated representation of a female? Why are they considered outdated? Sure, a majority of the western women wouldn't sit around waiting for a man to show up and save her. A majority of western women.

Okay... You pretty much just made my point for me. I'm not saying it isn't a story worthy of teaching males. The virtues of chivalric knights were pretty awesome for the most part and a perpetuation of those qualities in modern times would be swell. But when the only story archetype males see, time and again, is about men rescuing helpless women, they will on some level come to regard women as helpless victims. This gets internalized for women too, which is why the two paragons of desire for women of my generation are creepy controlling stalker Edward Cullen, and his fanfic clone, Christian Grey.

What's so incredibly odd about this test is that is attempts to wipe out cultures and histories from our arsenal of things to build upon. There are posts I've read that lament the lack of diversity in fantasy settings. They ask why there isn't a story based on ancient Meso-Americans, or Africa, or the Far East. Are we to use these cultures only as clothing? The characters look the part, but don't deal with the problems faced found in the original culture. (The fact that we would even label these aspects as problems is a whole other post.) We can't incorporate the complete culture because they would fail some contrived "test".

I don't know how you're getting this from "two women with names talking to each other about something other than a man". I can guarantee you that happened in every culture ever. All of that culture and history is still there to build upon. The key term is "build upon culture and history," not "use the predominantly patriarchal nature of culture and history as an excuse to exclude women from fantasy stories".

Whenever a post hits the World Building Forums asking if this is right, or that can be done, the predominant answer is "Yes. It's you're world, do whatever you want." This rule applies to everything except gender (and other socially sensitive subjects) because it may infuriate a small population, or even a significant one? What is the saying? You can't please everyone so stop trying to or your writing will suffer. At the end of the day, isn't up to your wallets/purses/money clips/plastic to voice your opinions?

It is your world. You can do whatever you want. Just be aware that if you choose to present a female-excluding story, or a story that normalizes some harmful stereotype, you are likely to hear the opinions of your audience, and how you respond to those opinions will determine whether they remain your audience. (A real-world, names-naming example will be included at the end of this post.)

Another problem I have with this "test" is that a man and woman talking to each other about any subject matter isn't considered a proper representation of women. Why? Because a male is in the scene? So I can't have a queen address a duke in private about a need for resources. I have to think, before writing the scene, that it should be a duchess instead? Or, if I stay with that scene I have to comb over my outline to make sure another scene has two females talking about anything else except men......

You don't need to change a thing about that scene. In fact, two female characters can talk to each other about something other than a man while a man is in the same scene. It's actually painfully easy to pull off, and does not require adding an entire new scene. Tremors 3 passed by virtue of two lines in a one-minute-long scene (a man showed up toward the end of said scene); Thor passed thanks to some funny dialogue between Jane and Darcy while Dr. Selvig stood by. Seriously, having two women talk to each other is not a big deal. It's not unnatural. It happens all the time in the real world, throughout history.

No. Let me tell my story and I'll let you tell your story. I'll judge it for it's entertainment value. Whether you feature a whole cast of butt-kicking women or not, won't have any influence on my enjoyment. After all, the ultimate goal is to create something that we, and others, enjoy.

More on how a lack of representation diminishes enjoyment in that real-world example two posts down.

* Again, all instances of "you" and "your" are purely hypothetical.

 

[saellys]

I think this entire line of discussion points to why things like racial inequality are so damn persistent and hard to kill: It THRIVES on the shared responsibility of many where any individual can be slippery enough to not feel that same responsibility. I think there is something to be said for the fact, considering how ineffable most of our creative processes can be, no one should feel forced to include a character they otherwise wouldn't solely for the sake of diversity. That benefits no one, especially since if all your characters are white and you are feeling "forced" to include at least one PoC as a character, lets be frank, you may not do it very well.

That being said though, I do think there is a shared responsibility that authors of SFF have, as a whole, to diversify their stories. SFF has long, long suffered from being incredibly white-centric, and, to a lesser extent, male-centric. The goal isn't to create some sort of artificial tally of all characters making sure that they line up with real world demographics personally, it's to try and avoid alienating potential readers. PoC absolutely don't need every book filled with PoC characters to relate to, that's silly, but it is great to have heroes here and there that don't conform to the exact same body specifications (And this is about more than just PoC of course, this is the same with genders, sexual identites, etc).

Ultimately, it shouldn't be an issue. You shouldn't have to feel put upon to diversify because your stories just end up diverse naturally. Not ALL stories need to be, but the attitude should mostly be "Why SHOULDN'T I have non-white/non-male/non-straight characters?". If there is a good enough reason within the context of the story, that's fine. You only need to worry when you look back at everything you've written and it is CONSISTENTLY lacking in diversity. In that case, why not start slow? Take random, interesting characters and just choose to make them slightly different. In most stories, it's not going to be that big a deal. Just take extra special care to avoid negative stereotyping. Do it enough times and you will very naturally start producing more diverse stories.

It's just really sad to see so many people fall into the pit of "this is just the way fantasy is". THAT'S the real painful thing to hear, because it is a terrible reason, and more than that, it's just a shrug and acceptance of the fact that it will always be that way, as if it just can't be changed. Being based on medieval Europe doesn't mean that only white people exist. That wasn't even true in medieval Europe, it's mostly just a construct of, you guessed it, past trends in fantasy.

A great big plus one to all of this.

Do we have a responsibility to fix all societal wrongs?

Let me clarify something: your story is not going to fix anything. Sexism will not magically disappear because you wrote a story full of butt-kicking ladies in sensible armor. If you make a decision to write strong, realistic characters of various descriptions beyond "lily-white straight dude with a beard," you have contributed in a very small way to making the fantasy genre a little more welcoming to people who aren't white straight dudes. We'll read your story and see ourselves as something other than a victim, a prize, the first one to die when entering the dungeon, or the butt of a joke. It's not about being Civil Rights In a Box; it's about being a drop in the ocean, but it's still important. The alternative is to maintain the boys-only-with-a-few-minor-exceptions status quo.

Eg:

Aragorn: (from the film) Hold your ground, hold your ground! Sons of Gondor, of Rohan, my brothers! I see in your eyes the same fear that would take the heart of me. A day may come when the courage of men fails, when we forsake our friends and break all bonds of fellowship, but it is not this day. An hour of woes and shattered shields, when the age of men comes crashing down! But it is not this day! This day we fight! By all that you hold dear on this good Earth, I bid you *stand, Men of the West!* Btw, my love for Arwen is a sham, I loved Boromir

As you can see (from this very crude and slapped together example) it would serve no purpose. Which brings to my final point, why should (or should not) an author have the final say on who to include or how they should portray them? At the end of the day, any author worth his or her salt would consider the setting and situation before drawing upon a conclusion on how the characters in the scene would act. If a reader finds offense to that, that is their right to do so. As authors we cannot control or demand the reaction to our stories. However, as a reader, it is their responsibility to ask why did the story include (or not include) this person or that? Would that have changed the story for better or worse? Finally, the reader should understand that views within a story does not particularly reflect the views of the author.

I think I read that fanfic once.

Everyone who reads Heart of Darkness in high school or college comes to understand that the racism was intended as social commentary, and probably didn't reflect the views of Joseph Conrad. Generally, readers understand the views expressed by characters or establishments in a fictional world are not the views of the person who wrote them. But if an author includes a harmful stereotype and presents nothing elsewhere in the story to combat or contradict it, whether or not the author agrees with that view, they have just perpetuated it. That's what perpetuation is.

I think the best method of encouraging diversity in writing is to simply encourage diversity in writers. Get more minority writers into the action and more minority characters will appear as a result.

There's that Someone Else's Job thing again. I as a writer can't personally do anything about how many minority writers are out there (let alone how many minority writers manage to get past the societal obstacles that keep them from telling their stories, like the female screenwriter who was told by a professor that people don't want to watch movies about female protagonists). I can do something about my own work.

I just didn't feel that the subtext from some of the posts truly advocated such a measured approach. What I'm getting from this discussion is that some people think that an author has some kind of moral or ethical obligation to put forth a particular agenda through stories.

It's not an agenda. It's treating male and female characters equally.

The creative process, at least for me, is a mystical, mysterious thing. Unlike technique where I analyze everything and try to codify all that I can, I have no idea from where my ideas come. There are many times when I think, "I have absolutely no idea what's going to happen next." After a little bit of floundering, the words just start flowing and, all of a sudden, I have this really cool plot twist that I never saw coming. Cool.

I feel that a lot of my plot and character decisions come from instinct rather than analysis, and I'm wary of trying to inorganically insert anything at any stage of the process. I simply feel that such modifications, no matter the societal benefit, hurt the writing. Anything that hurts the writing is going to hurt my chances of success. If I don't succeed, nothing I write to "help" society is going to do much anyway.

Do you change things in your second draft? Add a line that wasn't there when the words were flowing in the first place? What exactly is the difference between that and noticing that a given character's gender is relatively inconsequential to the story and changing it might add something interesting, in addition to increasing the diversity of your cast? How is that any harder or less genuine than saying, "I need to set up plot point X by inserting another line here"?

On another note: Each person's moral and ethical compass is theirs to determine, and, quite frankly, I don't feel bad in the least if I don't take up an issue just because someone else feels that it's the most important thing in the world. There are a lot of issues out there, and there are some that I feel passionate about (for instance, not wasting words by using unnecessary speech tags ) I don't ask anyone else to take up the standard of my causes and don't feel that anyone is justified in expecting me to take up theirs.

Moral compasses are private; ethics concern how you interact with society, and that is where personal codes become a dialogue. Human beings are always changing in relation to one another, learning and growing. Our ethics are continually developing. An issue doesn't have to be the most important one in the world, or the most important one to you personally, for you to include it in your ethics and adopt it in your writing.

I can't wait to say this a dozen more times: I'm not asking you to take up the standard of a cause. I'm asking you to treat your male and female characters equally.

If the Bechdel Test wasn't meant to determine the success, or failure, of a fictional piece in the area it is testing, why would they use that word?

It's a test of whether you succeed or fail at including two women with names who talk to each other about something other than a man.

 

[saellys]

Although I recognize & agree that these problems exist, they aren't as important to everyone. Some of the sentiments expressed here imply that because they are so important to some, they should be of great concern to all. I just can't buy into that.

I'm certainly not trying to say that people should avoid these issues. Thats up to each writer to decide for themselves. I'm merely trying to state that they don't HAVE to inspect their characters with this level of scrutiny & still be able to tell a good story.

If your goal is to highlight societal ills or draw attention to what you perceive as problems, more power to you.

My goal is not to highlight societal ills or draw attention to what I perceive as problems. My goal is to write the stories I would want to read and stories I can be proud of writing. Those stories naturally involve equality and representation. I realize this is not going to be of great concern to you, but equality and representation should be of some concern to everyone, since treating everyone equally is literally the baseline minimum standard for being a decent human being.

Here's a real-world, (big-)names-naming example of how refusing to acknowledge the importance of these issues damages your reputation as a writer and diminishes the enjoyment of your story.

I used to watch the show Sherlock. It's a Sherlock Holmes modernization on BBC, a network which can usually be counted on to uphold certain standards of diversity in its shows. The first episode, "A Study In Pink," includes three women among its characters (aside from the corpse): Molly Hooper, a coroner; Sally Donovan, a high-ranking detective at Scotland Yard; and Mrs. Hudson, Holmes' landlord. None of them speak to each other once in the entire series--it's a total Bechdel Test fail. In this instant, that is only the first indicator of co-creator, episode writer, and show-runner Steven Moffat's ineptitude at handling female characters. People who watched Moffat's earlier original series, Jekyll, and his run on Doctor Who had already guessed this, but Sherlock truly drove it home for me.

Coroner Hooper is infatuated with Sherlock; he is oblivious, and belittles her in offhand conversation. She keeps coming back for more, and is generally presented as a pitiable creature whose professional life (she gets him access to corpses for examination and experiments, and at the end of series two she saves his life) is secondary to her romantic aspirations.

During Sergeant Donovan's introduction on the show, her antagonistic relationship with Holmes is established. Sherlock responds to her general hostility by pointing out, through his powers of deduction, that she spent the night with the head of forensics. He could say anything barbed and witty, but instead he slut-shames her. Literary Holmes' attitude toward women was often dismissive and at best ambivalent (see also: literary Holmes' attitude toward almost everyone), so this very direct insult, based not on Sally's capabilities as a detective but on her off-duty activity, feels very out of character given that the goal of Sherlock was to bring Doyle's creation into the modern era. I would argue that it tells us more about the writer than the character.

Mrs. Hudson is largely ancillary to the plot. Like her incarnation in Doyle's original stories, she owns 221 Baker Street and cleans up after Holmes and Watson. In series two, however, she becomes a helpless victim who requires rescuing in two out of three episodes.

So as I subconsciously looked for representations of the most basic classification of myself--a woman--in Sherlock, I found the Mother, Maiden, and Whore archetypes, with almost nothing painted over them. Though I was somewhat disappointed, I kept watching because Benedict Cumberbatch is just so very pretty. Call me shallow.

The next five episodes gave us some Yellow Peril ("The Blind Banker"--the goal of Sherlock was stated as transporting Holmes into the modern era, but this episode brought some good old Victorian values with him), calling out a gay man for being gay ("The Great Game"--again, it told us more about the writer than Sherlock Holmes), a gross mishandling of Irene Adler ("A Scandal in Belgravia"--more below), and endless queer-baiting (every single episode). Only two out of six Sherlock episodes were written by Moffat, but he is the show-runner and has ultimate control over what ends up in each episode, and ideally, ultimate accountability.

I'm not the only one who saw these problems. Until a few months ago, Steven Moffat had a Twitter account, and somehow he found time in his day to respond when people mentioned him in tweets. Often this was in the context of pointing out something problematic in his work. He demonstrated, time and again, a complete inability to tolerate the views of his audience. His responses ranged from dismissive to sarcastic to overly defensive; shortly before he deleted his Twitter account, he resorted to calling people rude if they were anything short of obsequious in their tweets to him.

He even contradicted things he'd established himself on his shows. Notably, a viewer pointed out the lack of non-heterosexual characters in his work, and he cited River Song (Doctor Who) and Captain Jack Harkness (Doctor Who and Torchwood) as bisexual. River Song's bisexuality was never addressed on the show (how would we ever know? She married the Doctor and was never shown in a relationship with a woman), and Moffat himself wrote in "The Empty Child" and "The Doctor Dances" that Harkness was omnisexual, the far-future equivalent of pan for those times when other species are an option. Here Moffat demonstrated a lack of understanding of the term bisexual (he said in another tweet that bisexual people aren't represented on television much because "you're too busy having FUN!" and in so doing implied that bisexuality means having sex all the time, and that bisexuals are solely responsible for their own representation), and many fans were disappointed to see these misconceptions reflected by someone who seemed to think he was doing a great job of representing every walk of life.

In an interview shortly after the second series aired, Moffat discussed the episode he wrote, "A Scandal in Belgravia." Regarding his interpretation of Irene Adler, he declared that Adler's triumphant getaway in Doyle's original "A Scandal in Bohemia" was "not a feminist victory". In Moffat's version, Adler is defeated by Holmes and flees London in fear of her life; Holmes later shows up to rescue her from an execution in Pakistan (tossing in some Islamophobia just for good measure). Adler goes from being a canny, self-reliant woman who outsmarts Holmes to a helpless victim, tail between her legs as she texts Sherlock one last time. That's Moffat's idea of a "feminist victory," another term he clearly doesn't understand.

Over the course of witnessing all these things, Moffat lost me as a fan and viewer. I could no longer enjoy his work when I knew the sentiments behind it and found, with each new episode, something that perpetuated a harmful attitude with no acknowledgment--in the writing or from the writer--that it was a problem. The attitudes Moffat portrayed in his creation hurt his story, and hurt his viewership.

Enough people pointed out his mishandling of female characters that Moffat and his friends felt compelled to respond more publicly. Caitlin Moran defends him whenever possible, and her reputation as a feminist has led Moffat's fans to declare that he can't possibly be misogynist in any way, because a feminist thinks he's great. During the presentation of Moffat's achievement award at the BAFTAs, Benedict Cumberbatch felt compelled to shoehorn a mention of Moffat being "non-misogynist" into his speech... during the only mention of Moffat's wife, television producer Sue Vertue. And there's a very vocal set of fans on the Internet who rip apart anyone who mentions something problematic in any of Moffat's shows. The fact remains that if it walks like a duck and talks like a duck and you've got a bunch of viewers telling you it's a duck, it might behoove you to sit down for a second and see if you pass the Duckdel--er, Bechdel--Test as a first step in improving your future work.

Sherlock is still hugely popular, of course, and Moffat interprets the majority's love of his work as confirmation that he doesn't need to change anything. It's a shame, because when it's at its best, Sherlock is the cleverest and most gripping thing on television. The cost of sitting through misogyny, racefail, and queer baiting, along with Moffat's conduct as an extremely public figure in response to criticism of his work, has resulted in me no longer being able to enjoy Sherlock as pure entertainment.

The lesson here is that being able to think critically about your own work and acknowledge the shortcomings your readers find, without caveat or sarcasm or protest that "you just don't get it my creative vision!" is an important skill, and may save you from a pretty serious backlash someday. I'm sorry if that comes off as PC or oppressive or whatever else--that's the state of the world right now. Diversifying your story is totally your prerogative, but if someone tells you your story disappointed them due to a lack of diversity/sensitivity toward issues/women talking to other women about something other than men, please take the time to listen to them and don't dismiss them out of hand.

 

[Mindfire]

Saellys, I don't think you've given my post a fair shake. First off, labeling my post as "someone else's job" is inaccurate because, need I remind you, I myself am a minority and am necessarily writing from a minority perspective. The way you ought to have read it is not "you minorities need to do it for yourselves", but rather "we minorities need to do something about it for ourselves." That slight perspective change makes a world of difference in interpreting my message. And that very sentiment played a role in starting me on the creative path. I lacked for black superheroes, so I started drawing my own. Eventually I dropped drawing and moved to writing and transitioned from superhero/sci-fi to fantasy. What I wanted wasn't available, so I decided to create it. I stand by my statement that, pragmatically speaking, you're going to get more mileage from encouraging minorities to create fiction than by encouraging non-minorities to tell our stories for us.

It's worth noting that different people have different sensibilities. At the risk of being pigeonholed as a derailer, I have female friends who LOVE Sherlock. You see misogyny because you've trained yourself to look for it. And that's not a bad thing. But I don't see enough evidence to call Moffat a misogynist. There is a difference between bigotry and mere unfortunate implications. Having an Asian villain =/= "OMG TEH YELLOW PERIL!". Having a Muslim extremist execution =/= Islamaphobia. Otherwise, we could never have Asian villains or show Muslim terrorists EVAR, which is, I think, a silly rule. And while you're coming to the defense of that one detective and the other gay man, you seem to have forgotten that the former was an extremely unpleasant person with a hate-on for Sherlock who (I thought) deserved the dressing down she got and the latter payed to have someone killed. These things should be taken into account. The creator is not obliged to handle bad people with kid gloves just because they belong to a minority group. (As an aside, two of the most annoying tropes in existence are this and this.) I thought Donovan deserved what she got. Dishing and taking, etc. Besides, if you saw the show to it's conclusion, you know that Sherlock's treatment of Donovan and the other detectives actually backfires on him, with a little help from Moriarty.

 

[Ireth]

Saellys, I don't think you've given my post a fair shake. First off, labeling my post as "someone else's job" is inaccurate because, need I remind you, I myself am a minority and am necessarily writing from a minority perspective. The way you ought to have read it is not "you minorities need to do it for yourselves", but rather "we minorities need to do something about it for ourselves." That slight perspective change makes a world of difference in interpreting my message. And that very sentiment played a role in starting me on the creative path. I lacked for black superheroes, so I started drawing my own. Eventually I dropped drawing and moved to writing and transitioned from superhero/sci-fi to fantasy. What I wanted wasn't available, so I decided to create it. I stand by my statement that, pragmatically speaking, you're going to get more mileage from encouraging minorities to create fiction than by encouraging non-minorities to tell our stories for us.

It's worth noting that different people have different sensibilities. At the risk of being pigeonholed as a derailer, I have female friends who LOVE Sherlock. You see misogyny because you've trained yourself to look for it. And that's not a bad thing. But I don't see enough evidence to call Moffat a misogynist. There is a difference between bigotry and mere unfortunate implications. Having an Asian villain =/= "OMG TEH YELLOW PERIL!". Having a Muslim extremist execution =/= Islamaphobia. Otherwise, we could never have Asian villains or show Muslim terrorists EVAR, which is, I think, a silly rule. And while you're coming to the defense of that one detective and the other gay man, you seem to have forgotten that the former was an extremely unpleasant person with a hate-on for Sherlock who (I thought) deserved the dressing down she got and the latter payed to have someone killed. These things should be taken into account. The creator is not obliged to handle bad people with kid gloves just because they belong to a minority group. (As an aside, two of the most annoying tropes in existence are this and this.) I thought Donovan deserved what she got. Dishing and taking, etc. Besides, if you saw the show to it's conclusion, you know that Sherlock's treatment of Donovan and the other detectives actually backfires on him, with a little help from Moriarty.

Well said, Mindfire. ^^ As a Sherlock fangirl, I very much agree with your second paragraph.

 

[saellys]

Saellys, I don't think you've given my post a fair shake. First off, labeling my post as "someone else's job" is inaccurate because, need I remind you, I myself am a minority and am necessarily writing from a minority perspective. The way you ought to have read it is not "you minorities need to do it for yourselves", but rather "we minorities need to do something about it for ourselves." That slight perspective change makes a world of difference in interpreting my message. And that very sentiment played a role in starting me on the creative path. I lacked for black superheroes, so I started drawing my own. Eventually I dropped drawing and moved to writing and transitioned from superhero/sci-fi to fantasy. What I wanted wasn't available, so I decided to create it. I stand by my statement that, pragmatically speaking, you're going to get more mileage from encouraging minorities to create fiction than by encouraging non-minorities to tell our stories for us.

Fair enough. I agree with your statement insofar as you'll get more mileage out of encouraging minorities to create fiction if you're in a position to help them get that fiction out there. Being an enthusiastic reader is also super important, but as Jabrosky mentioned, there are more obstacles than that. Since encouragement is only worth so much, it is absolutely no burden to us writers to contribute to the effort by diversifying our stories as well. I'm not trying to project a "white people have to do this to help the poor maligned minorities" thing--just a "we can, so why don't we" attitude.

It's worth noting that different people have different sensibilities. At the risk of being pigeonholed as a derailer, I have female friends who LOVE Sherlock.

And I see the "women like it, so it can't be that bad!" argument all the time. Just because someone likes something doesn't mean it isn't also problematic (pardon the double negative). I adored Sherlock in spite of all the problems I saw for a long time, but finally it was just too much for me.

You see misogyny because you've trained yourself to look for it. And that's not a bad thing. But I don't see enough evidence to call Moffat a misogynist.

I see it when it's there. Trust me, I'm not making this up, and I'm not the only one who's noticed. I've seen more than enough of Moffat's work and read enough interviews to label his statements and his work problematic and misogynist.

There is a difference between bigotry and mere unfortunate implications. Having an Asian villain =/= "OMG TEH YELLOW PERIL!". Having a Muslim extremist execution =/= Islamaphobia. Otherwise, we could never have Asian villains or show Muslim terrorists EVAR, which is, I think, a silly rule.

Are you actually trying to tell me that "The Blind Banker" wasn't a gross mishandling of Asian characters? The Karachi execution was more silly than anything, but coupled with the weird "fighting a guy in a turban" scene at the beginning of "The Blind Banker," it left a pretty sour taste in my mouth and was just one more thing on a pile of bad decisions by the show's writers.

And while you're coming to the defense of that one detective and the other gay man, you seem to have forgotten that the former was an extremely unpleasant person with a hate-on for Sherlock who (I thought) deserved the dressing down she got and the latter payed to have someone killed.

These things should be taken into account. The creator is not obliged to handle bad people with kid gloves just because they belong to a minority group. (As an aside, two of the most annoying tropes in existence are this and this.) I thought Donovan deserved what she got. Dishing and taking, etc. Besides, if you saw the show to it's conclusion, you know that Sherlock's treatment of Donovan and the other detectives actually backfires on him, with a little help from Moriarty.

The gay man I was referring to was Moriarty's "Jim" persona; Sherlock called him out primarily to mess with Molly. A snappy exchange between Donovan and Sherlock would have been a nice way to establish her hate-on; the slut-shaming was unnecessary.

 

[BWFoster78]

When one story lacks two women talking about something other than a man, it bothers me because I've read a large proportion of fantasy fiction that lacks the same thing. The author of that story could have gone in a different direction, but chose--perhaps consciously, but more likely in a knee-jerk by-default situation--not to do so.

You see, we have two different valuations of stories. You seem to place values on stories that meet some kind of social criteria of inclusion. (I deduce this statement from your use of the word "lack," which strongly indicates that something needs to be included for it to be "whole" in your view.)

Me, I don't care about that at all. I judge a story's value based on (1) it's ability to engage me and (2) it's ability to evoke an emotional response. That's all. (Not saying that anyone else has to follow, or even should follow, my valuation system. It's a pretty subjective kinda thing.)

As most of us who advocate the Bechdel Test have already stated numerous times in this thread, it's not a test of rightness or wrongness, but simply how you handle female characters.

And I would state that it completely pointless in that it has nothing to do with (1) the ability to engage or (2) the ability to evoke an emotional response.

Let me clarify something: your story is not going to fix anything.

Even more reason for me not to worry about this "test."

If you make a decision to write strong, realistic characters of various descriptions beyond "lily-white straight dude with a beard," you have contributed in a very small way to making the fantasy genre a little more welcoming to people who aren't white straight dudes. We'll read your story and see ourselves as something other than a victim, a prize, the first one to die when entering the dungeon, or the butt of a joke. It's not about being Civil Rights In a Box; it's about being a drop in the ocean, but it's still important. The alternative is to maintain the boys-only-with-a-few-minor-exceptions status quo.

Truthfully, I despise this kind of thing. How I interpret this is, "My cause is the All Important Cause. Everyone must write their stories and do whatever they have to do to make me feel better."

The truth is: I am not responsible for how you feel. You are responsible for how you feel. If you feel a certain way, change it. Don't tell me to write something different.

It's not an agenda. It's treating male and female characters equally.

I literally laughed at this. If that's not an agenda, what is? I'm confused.

Do you change things in your second draft? Add a line that wasn't there when the words were flowing in the first place? What exactly is the difference between that and noticing that a given character's gender is relatively inconsequential to the story and changing it might add something interesting, in addition to increasing the diversity of your cast? How is that any harder or less genuine than saying, "I need to set up plot point X by inserting another line here"?

It's different because you're artifically introducing an element that has nothing to do with the story. Introducing such elements can cause harm untold.

I can't wait to say this a dozen more times: I'm not asking you to take up the standard of a cause. I'm asking you to treat your male and female characters equally.

Which is your cause.

Maybe the confusion here, on my part, is that you see a distinction between not asking me to believe in your cause and promote it as long as I fall in lockstep with what your cause demands?

ethics concern how you interact with society, and that is where personal codes become a dialogue. Human beings are always changing in relation to one another, learning and growing. Our ethics are continually developing. An issue doesn't have to be the most important one in the world, or the most important one to you personally, for you to include it in your ethics and adopt it in your writing.

And I've still yet to see any cogent argument as to why I should include this particular issue in my own ethics over any one of a hundred other issues. Personally, I feel that advocating for not including excess speech tags is far more important. I should introduce a character who is a writer who espouses that viewpoint at length. Except that that character would have no real purpose in the story, so, even though I'm passionate about the topic, I think I shall have to leave said character out.

I'm aware that this post probably came off as a bit snippy, and I do apologize if it's taken as me being too harsh. It really is hard for me to properly convey just how much I do not care for the arguments expressed in the quoted sections. I do hope it doesn't come across as a personal attack as I meant it to be a pointed attack on the arguments and not on any person.

EDIT: Tried to remove some of the stuff that might make this sound too harsh...

 

[Jabrosky]

The extension here is that only gay people should write gay romances, only asexuals should write about asexuality, only polyamorists should write about polyamory, and so on. If you* choose to limit yourself only to heterosexual relationships in your writing, that is entirely your choice, and does not make your work homophobic by any degree. You should, however, be aware that the sentiment that gay people should write their own gay romances could be read that way.

Realistically speaking, most writers write about the kind of romances they personally find attractive. Since most people are born heterosexual, of course most writers will write heterosexual romances. That includes yours truly. That doesn't mean a straight writer can't or shouldn't write a gay romance if they so desire, but odds are they won't enjoy it as much as a gay writer would (assuming the gay couple is the same sex as the writer in question of course).

Look, I don't have any problem with writing female characters who talk to each other about non-sexual or non-romantic subjects. I've done it before and will doubtless continue to do so, and the same could be said for almost everyone in this thread. The problem is that the position you are apparently taking is symptomatic of a larger mindset that writers are obligated to bend over to external social pressures instead of writing whatever they please. Writing female or minority characters is inoffensive by itself, but demanding political correctness isn't.

 

[Feo Takahari]

If there's one thing I hope everyone gets out of this thread, it's "what do I write when I write at whim?" I know I have certain tendencies that could be viewed as problematic (for instance, my tendency to romantically pair witches, demonesses, and other fantastical constructs with ordinary men.) I haven't stopped doing this since I recognized it--I've just put more effort into building the relationships from both directions, showing what each partner likes or admires in the other. I think this has made my writing a lot better.

PS: At risk of totally discrediting myself, part of why I reacted badly to some of the arguments made in this thread was because I've heard them made before, and the people who make them often make other arguments I disagree with much more. I've been unfair, assuming ill faith where there was none. (I read the comments on Kotaku, and a lot of the commenters are pretty much this.)

P.P.S. Posted this before I saw the last few posts. That is a LOT of vitriol. Maybe we should all take a break and calm down.