The Bechdel Test

[Mindfire]

Yes and no. Once upon a time I was a little girl. While I tolerated stories with male protagonists, it was more because I had no choice. The men got to do all the cool things in these stories and the female, when they even appeared, usually were dull or sounded fake.

It happened in games also. One of the games that "redeemed" this industry to me was Kyrandia II: The Hand of Fate, because I got to play a female. When I first played it I had a strong feeling of "At last!".

Because I tolerated those stories, it doesn't mean I was happy about it. I must admit I never got over it, even if the times are changing now.

I won't force you in a personal crusade to portray cool kickass females and ethnic diversity. However, I am selfish. I want to show the women I never got to see in my childhood, the MCs who do not have blond, straight hair and blue eyes. I don't care if some average male reader don't identify himself with the protagonist, he got a plenty of other stories - and they're good! - to read.

The other thing I want to do is to draw characters who wears more than one set of clothes (c'mon, their eternal clothes always bothered me!).

I can relate to that, being a minority. But did you ever watch Kim Possible? That show was quite aggressively "girl power!", to the point where all the male characters were evil, complete doofuses, or both. Except for Wade and the Twins, they were cool. That's the flaw with so many shows that try to be feminist. They don't make the male and female characters equal, they just make the females super-competent and make the males idiots.

EDIT: To clarify, I'm not slamming shows with a pro-girl message. My intent was to:

1. Suggest to Nihal a great show with a female protagonist that she might enjoy if she hadn't seen it already.

2. As an aside, mention an aspect of that show that kinda annoyed me and illustrate the dangers of overcompensating.

And as long as I'm editing this post, I'm also going to shamelessly shill for another satisfying show. (Yay alliteration!) Avatar: The Last Airbender and it's sequel Avatar: The Legend of Korra are both excellent shows with awesome male and female protagonists- and of color no less! Legend of Korra even took the jump and decided to have a female main character, and it worked! I cannot recommend these shows enough. (And as another aside, they make their female characters awesome without making the male characters into idiots.)

 

[Mindfire]

I don't. Not fully, anyway. What does it mean we except the bolded line when it refers to the description of the character? My writing is awesome, the story is outstanding, but because it involves a white (which I'm not) male, the writing is subpar?

Not what I was saying at all. But if your writing includes minority characters who are only shallow stereotypes, tokens, or otherwise flimsy characters, then there is something wrong.

 

[Mindfire]

The problem with that extremely diplomatic and mitigated example is that it cannot be extended beyond one character in one story, and it gives no indication that a problem of characterization might be connected to a much larger trend. There is no opportunity for consciousness that continues beyond the story that person is working on at that moment, and might shape the way they portray a particular kind of person for the better later on. It leaves room to keep writing the same problematic things indefinitely, rather than encouraging awareness of a given issue that each writer, consciously or un-, may contribute to solving or perpetuating.

I have given exactly the kind of critique you recommend right here on this forum, but I have connected it to larger issues when I did, and both parties were every bit as receptive as I could have hoped.

...

I came away from both exchanges totally satisfied because neither of them dismissed my views out of hand. They even both clicked Thanks on my posts--hooray for validation! I had, at some level, got them thinking about what they had presented and whether they would do anything different in the future.

You've actually provided an example that supports my suggestion. You did it the "diplomatic" way and got results. But when you try to "soapbox" it, you're more likely to get resistance and less likely to get results. Better to go case-by-case. Path of least resistance and all that.

 

[Nihal]

I can relate to that, being a minority. But did you ever watch Kim Possible? That show was quite aggressively "girl power!", to the point where all the male characters were evil, complete doofuses, or both. Except for Wade and the Twins, they were cool. That's the flaw with so many shows that try to be feminist. They don't make the male and female characters equal, they just make the females super-competent and make the males idiots.

EDIT: To clarify, I'm not slamming shows with a pro-girl message. My intent was to:

1. Suggest to Nihal a great show with a female protagonist that she might enjoy if she hadn't seen it already.

2. As an aside, mention an aspect of that show that kinda annoyed me and illustrate the dangers of overcompensating.

And as long as I'm editing this post, I'm also going to shamelessly shill for another satisfying show. (Yay alliteration!) Avatar: The Last Airbender and it's sequel Avatar: The Legend of Korra are both excellent shows with awesome male and female protagonists- and of color no less! Legend of Korra even took the jump and decided to have a female main character, and it worked! I cannot recommend these shows enough. (And as another aside, they make their female characters awesome without making the male characters into idiots.)

Hey, hey, it's not like if I want to see pro-girl shows.
I don't want to see something with a political message, I want diversity.

I just missed seeing more females in this kind of story. As a child we to try to identify ourselves with the characters, and I couldn't fully do this. It's not like if I'll turn around if I see a story not about a woman, I just want to read the both and many more.

What I won't allow is someone trying to change something I created because the male readers aren't going to identify themselves with this, while women are mysteriously inclined to accept these stories.

In the past you hadn't too many stories about women, now they exist, being more and more common. I don't think men reject the stories with female MCs because they're genetically inclined to do so, or something like that. They're just not used to read these stories, you could even say they're "spoiled".

It's not impossible to a men to like these stories, you only need to look at anime/manga, there are a plenty of stories about female MCs, shounen stories (targeted to male teenagers). They have been around for a while now. They're not always about fanservice, yet the public accept these stories really well.

--
I've never seen Kim Possible, I can't stand this kind of animation, not my taste. I've watched the first Avatar, then Korra, and liked it (more or less, suddenly the story hurried the f* up). Not exactly because it's a woman now, I admit I liked to see one female Avatar now, but what I liked more was how the world changed.

 

[Mindfire]

Yeah, the way the world of Avatar was actually dynamic and changed because of the protagonists' actions is something I liked. They inspired me to do it in my WIP. It's an interesting alternative to "fantasy stasis lock" and provides interesting story ideas.

 

[Ghost]

I think the Bechdel test is a fun tool for criticism that can make people aware of issues they weren't aware of. I also think reflecting on the story and characters helps us grow as writers. It's cool to share these things like Guru Coyote did in the OP. But once people start talking social responsibility and mandatory equality, I head in the other direction. I do not like to be told what to do. I already have my own vision for each story, thank you very much. And no one has the right to expect my support for his or her cause.

Worrying about the Bechdel test, TVTropes, mythic journeys, and Mary Sue quizzes seems unproductive. Some writers seem to rely on these tests and systems to do the thinking for them. Focusing on theories and systems isn't natural for me. I work from the individual outward, from the specific to the abstract–not the other way around.

If you're covering up not giving a crap by saying your creative process or sacred vision is being damaged by the Bechdel Test, that's something else.

I don't think anyone felt harmed by the Bechdel Test. The problem was the idea that we as writers have a duty to represent all people and/or worry about perpetuating this or that. We aren't Congress. We have no such duty. Not everyone needs equal representation from every author.

Inserting or adjusting characters to validate someone else's experience can easily dilute your own. Sure, feedback can make you aware of blind spots and lapses in characterization, but if you're sticking Micronesians into your fiction for fairness and diversity...ugh. Do it because it's interesting or it means something to you or it's part of the story's truth. Don't do it to fill a quota. That's not fair to the character or the reader because it’s not genuine.

Jabrosky mentioned how minorities in fantasy are put into niche markets (I'm paraphrasing badly here), and Mindfire mentioned encouraging diversity in writers. I think these are far more interesting angles. Exposure for the authors who feature minorities and desegregating fiction so we don't have sections like "urban" or LGBT would be a start. There are plenty of women writing fantasy, though. Perhaps a lack of interesting female characters in epic/high fantasy drove many women to YA and paranormal romance/urban fantasy because they didn't see themselves in the stories?

Nevertheless, brushing off a minority opinion because "nothing would appeal to everyone" seems unwise where valid criticism is concerned. Obviously no one's goal is to appeal to everyone, as that would be fruitless and frustrating. However, somewhere in the list of goals we want to accomplish as writers, "not thoughtlessly perpetuating some harmful idea" and "acknowledging our mistakes without caveat when we do and trying to do better next time" should be line items.

My problem with this is that what some consider "valid criticism" others see as personal opinion. If the extent of the criticism is "Well, I found the story less enjoyable because this small segment of the population wasn’t represented," I wouldn't be bothered. Not everybody can be in every story unless I make it horribly abstract. Who would relate to that? The best a writer can do is touch on specific human emotions and concerns so readers can identify with those instead of the categories.

Surely, we can think less about labels and see people as individuals who do things differently. This would also keep folks from making condescending posts about how decent writers will do this simple thing and follow their rules because they'd realize we don't all share the same goals or process.

Fiction is subjective. Even though I write fantasy, my fictional world reflects what I see in the real world, and I don't write about people unless I relate to them. Anything else obscures the emotional truth, creating a façade instead of a reflection.

It's not my job to make readers feel better about themselves. It's not my job to think for them.

I'm assuming (and if I'm wrong, by all means correct me) that those of you in this thread who have been most vocally opposed to the application of the Bechdel Test and any potential subsequent action regarding your writing are white men (excluding Mindfire).

 

[saellys]

You've actually provided an example that supports my suggestion. You did it the "diplomatic" way and got results. But when you try to "soapbox" it, you're more likely to get resistance and less likely to get results. Better to go case-by-case. Path of least resistance and all that.

Except you recommended that I avoid mentioning the broader issues at all, lest someone think I was "soapboxing" it.

What I've gotten from this thread can be loosely summed up as follows: don't be preachy, unless you're famous, in which case people might listen to you, because nobody will do anything about the problem without some guarantee of reward, even if they recognize that it's a valid problem and in theory they could help solve it, but they care about something else more, and therefore can't be bothered to support any other cause.

So those of us who aren't famous yet, and who are doing exactly what we recommend with our own work without compromising the sanctity of our creative vision, should probably just quit because we'll end up being the lone voice in the wilderness and our peers won't throw in with any movement that doesn't directly affect them, and fantasy as a genre will remain as it has been (in terms of what gets represented and how) basically since its inception.

Kind of a downer.

 

[Mindfire]

Except you recommended that I avoid mentioning the broader issues at all, lest someone think I was "soapboxing" it.

What I've gotten from this thread can be loosely summed up as follows: don't be preachy, unless you're famous, in which case people might listen to you, because nobody will do anything about the problem without some guarantee of reward, even if they recognize that it's a valid problem and in theory they could help solve it, but they care about something else more, and therefore can't be bothered to support any other cause.

So those of us who aren't famous yet, and who are doing exactly what we recommend with our own work without compromising the sanctity of our creative vision, should probably just quit because we'll end up being the lone voice in the wilderness and our peers won't throw in with any movement that doesn't directly affect them, and fantasy as a genre will remain as it has been (in terms of what gets represented and how) basically since its inception.

Kind of a downer.

I think you should have stopped with "don't be preachy." And as has been mentioned in this thread, if you want to make a difference in the larger picture, your best bet is to encourage people from more diverse backgrounds to pursue writing and/or try to convince those with power in the publishing industry to stop shoving books with minority leads or authors into a niche section where they never see the light of mainstream readership.

 

[FatCat]

I'm working on a project that will by no means pass this test, the MC doesn't have that great of an opinion of women and therefor the narrative is focused on men. I wonder, am I excluding a whole group of readers by going that route, even though it pertains to the story. Will women readers say, 'I can't relate to this, there's no women involved!' I hope this is not the case, because I really like the idea of what I'm working on and would hope that, just because of the lack of representation of a gender, the story can still be appealing.

 

[saellys]

Surely, we can think less about labels and see people as individuals who do things differently. This would also keep folks from making condescending posts about how decent writers will do this simple thing and follow their rules because they'd realize we don't all share the same goals or process.

Just so you know, the instant where I used the word "decent" was in reference to treating everyone equally being one of the base minimum requirements for humanity. The instant where I referred to writing quality was to point out that any writer with skill would find no difficulty in implementing changes that lead to greater diversity in their work. Provided they want to, of course.

 

[saellys]

I think you should have stopped with "don't be preachy." And as has been mentioned in this thread, if you want to make a difference in the larger picture, your best bet is to encourage people from more diverse backgrounds to pursue writing and/or try to convince those with power in the publishing industry to stop shoving books with minority leads or authors into a niche section where they never see the light of mainstream readership.

You're free to think that, but "don't be preachy" is not the only thing people have told me in this thread. And as stated before, encouraging people from more diverse backgrounds to pursue writing and coaxing publishers to reach out to more diverse authors is important, but it's far from the only possible course of action, and things will change much more quickly if we do that in addition to taking other measures of our own.

 

[saellys]

I'm working on a project that will by no means pass this test, the MC doesn't have that great of an opinion of women and therefor the narrative is focused on men. I wonder, am I excluding a whole group of readers by going that route, even though it pertains to the story. Will women readers say, 'I can't relate to this, there's no women involved!' I hope this is not the case, because I really like the idea of what I'm working on and would hope that, just because of the lack of representation of a gender, that the story can still be appealing.

I question the connection between your MC not having a great opinion of women and the narrative exclusively focusing on men. Surely your MC has chances to encounter some women somewhere?

Knowing only what you've told me, I can't say it would be a dealbreaker--I "relate" to lots of different kinds of people in fiction as long as they're well-written, and I'm writing a male protagonist in my own work who has all kinds of crappy opinions of women. The narrative, however, supports the women around him, rather than his biases.

 

[Mindfire]

You're free to think that, but "don't be preachy" is not the only thing people have told me in this thread.

Well, that is what it is, I suppose. I can't take responsibility for any opinion but my own. I just wanted to make sure I hadn't made a terribly bad impression with regard to my views on this issue.

 

[Zero Angel]

How entertaining is it?

That's my criteria for evaluating books. Now, that's not why I am writing. I actually am writing to inspire people to be better and promote good in the world, but the way I'm going to do that for my own books is through being entertaining and interesting. When I read, watch, or otherwise consume something of someone else's though, I don't care if there's a social message or not (if there is, it had better be organic), when I am reviewing it, the question I ask is, "How entertaining is it?"

 

[saellys]

Well, that is what it is, I suppose. I can't take responsibility for any opinion but my own. I just wanted to make sure I hadn't made a terribly bad impression with regard to my views on this issue.

Not at all! I've consistently looked forward to your posts, actually. We most definitely agree that encouraging more minority writers is important, but if you maintain that it's more important than, or not compatible with, making changes in our own work as well, that's where we differ.

 

[FatCat]

Well what I'm saying is that this character would either 1: Not really care what two women are talking about, and then why would I write about it, and 2: relationships to him are not mutual, to him women are objects to be used and, in some way, more of a trophy than anything. And yes, he has encounters with women, but within the scope of the POV those biases will always be present. I guess what worries me about this, and many other 'tests', is that the meaning of the implementation of these tests are all well and good, but worrying about the outcome can be detrimental, especially to a new writer like myself. It's not that diversity in characters won't make the story more in-depth, it's the idea that the lack of diversity should be seen as something to be fixed, whether it fits the story or not. That's the danger with any type of writing test, as I see it, they're far to black and white.

 

[Jabrosky]

For the thousandth time, no one in this whole thread is opposed to representing PoC, women, or LGBT fairly in fantasy. It's the whole "representing something merely out of a social obligation" that we're taking issue with. To put it bluntly, we don't like being told what we should write. We want to write whatever we want to write.

As it happens, a lot of the subject matter I truly love already is underrepresented in the fantasy genre anyway. It's not like we all want to reprint Lord of the Rings.

 

[saellys]

Well what I'm saying is that this character would either 1: Not really care what two women are talking about, and then why would I write about it, and 2: relationships to him are not mutual, to him women are objects to be used and, in some way, more of a trophy than anything. And yes, he has encounters with women, but within the scope of the POV those biases will always be present.

Yeah, I definitely see what your saying about POV, but the problem with point 1 is that in this case, two women talking to each other would be part of the world around your character. If you're capturing or describing anything at all beyond your MC's internal monologue, it's just as easy to add two lines of dialogue and then have your character interrupt them to demand which of them would like to sleep with him. Or, if strictly passing Bechdel doesn't appeal, have a female character or two who actively works against his biases by not letting him use her. He can react to that however you want, but the point is to show that his biases are unsupported by the women around him.

Not trying to tell you what to write here--these are just two examples of how to show your reader in concrete ways that your character's views are not your own, and how to not perpetuate the same cycle of misrepresentation by omission. I know some dudes just like your character in the real world, but whatever they think about the women they know, they still interact with women who don't fit into their biases on a daily basis. Realistically, in the amount of time a novel can cover, your MC can meet at least one.

I guess what worries me about this, and many other 'tests', is that the meaning of the implementation of these tests are all well and good, but worrying about the outcome can be detrimental, especially to a new writer like myself. It's not that diversity in characters won't make the story more in-depth, it's the idea that the lack of diversity should be seen as something to be fixed, whether it fits the story or not. That's the danger with any type of writing test, as I see it, they're far to black and white.

I'm sorry this is a stumbling block for you, but I'm really glad it's making you think about your content. The great thing about Bechdel is that it is black & white, and kind of jarring. It's so simple that a writer will probably be able to recall, almost instantly, whether their work passes, and from there they can start to think about the greater implications, as you have done. It's not meant to cripple your writing process; it's just meant to get you thinking about what you're presenting.

For the thousandth time, no one in this whole thread is opposed to representing PoC, women, or LGBT fairly in fantasy. It's the whole "representing something merely out of a social obligation" that we're taking issue with. To put it bluntly, we don't like being told what we should write. We want to write whatever we want to write.

As it happens, a lot of the subject matter I truly love already is underrepresented in the fantasy genre anyway. It's not like we all want to reprint Lord of the Rings.

This point has been well and truly driven home. Everyone agrees that broader diversity in fantasy among both readers and characters is good, but no one feels like doing any purposeful work to get there. Check. Acknowledged. Moving on.

 

[Mindfire]

Well that was interesting.

 

[Chime85]

Disclaimer: In this instance, every time i mention "say" (or variation of), it is coupled with the remark (or didn't say)

I may not necessarily defend what someone says. However, I will shout from the rooftops for their right to say it.

xXx