The Bechdel Test

[Jabrosky]

And yes, I get the representation thing. I'm a minority and while I know what it's like when people who resemble you are absent from media, the fact that Batman is white does not cause me to writhe in existential agony. But it does annoy me when people add characters inorganically for diversity's sake, and not because they were interesting or necessary.

I don't mind Batman being white either, but I have to confess that, as an artist, I do sometimes enjoy taking a famous white character and drawing them as non-white. For example, I once drew an unmasked Darth Vader as African-American, thinking it would complement his accent well. That doesn't mean I would demand that filmmakers cast a black man to play Darth Vader simply for diversity, but given that he is from the distant and presumably more multicultural future, I don't see why he can't be black either.

 

[Ireth]

I don't mind Batman being white either, but I have to confess that, as an artist, I do sometimes enjoy taking a famous white character and drawing them as non-white. For example, I once drew an unmasked Darth Vader as African-American, thinking it would complement his accent well. That doesn't mean I would demand that filmmakers cast a black man to play Darth Vader simply for diversity, but given that he is from the distant and presumably more multicultural future, I don't see why he can't be black either.

Darth Vader's actor, James Earl Jones, is multiracial. Just saying.

 

[Jabrosky]

Darth Vader's actor, James Earl Jones, is multiracial. Just saying.

Technically he is, but for some reason I always saw him as a black man. Which is funny given that I'm normally reluctant to call biracial people like Barack Obama black, but that's for another thread.

 

[T.Allen.Smith]

That's entirely up to you, but I think a writer whose only purpose is to entertain is selling themselves short. Art can have many purposes. Entertainment might be the most important purpose (to you) but there's no reason it has to be the only one.

EDIT: More specifically, I would encourage all writers to do more than simply try to entertain. I believe that your art serves both you and the world best when you try to say something with it, rather than just entertain.

I agree that it's a laudable goal, as stated before. I'm certainly not trying to dissuade anyone from taking that approach. I only stated my opinion, that you don't have to concern yourself with these issues. You can just tell a good story. Never did I state that entertainment has to be the ONLY goal.

Maybe, later in my career, I may choose a loftier purpose. For now, telling a good story is enough.

 

[T.Allen.Smith]

Representation in the media is a problem, not just a quirk of a minority slice of your audience whose opinion ultimately doesn't really matter. These things are actually important, and belittling them with such word choices implies that a) there is no problem, and b) if there is, there's no point challenging the status quo, or at the very least, it's Someone Else's Job.

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.

 

[Feo Takahari]

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.

I'd like to note that the former paragraph's action by no means requires the latter's. There's nothing about having minority characters that, in and of itself, qualifies as social advocacy or directly draws attention to a problem. I think that representation is required for advocacy, but I also think that works that contain minority representation without having any sort of social advocacy still lay the groundwork for others' advocacy, and thus contribute positively to social change.

 

[Jabrosky]

Speaking generally, I haven't seen many people criticize a work for racism who weren't picking up on a problem. Often, they weren't picking up on a racial problem, but they were (mis)identifying something the author could have fixed. (To give a personal example, a beta reader thought the orcs in one of my stories were a thinly veiled copy of the "magical Native American" stereotype. Looking over her criticism, I realized I hadn't properly set up my planned criticism of the orcs' way of life--that criticism was intended to make them less idealized and bring them down to Earth.)

In my case, the usual complaint was that I sexualize my black female characters too much. Now, I admit that I often like to portray black women as sexy, so the charge isn't technically inaccurate, but these critics always threw it using a negative tone that implicitly accused me of racial insensitivity which I regard as unfair. The thought never crossed their minds that my intention was to portray black women as beautiful and desirable, as in the kind of women you would want to marry, which is actually a world apart from denigrating them as cheap Jezebels worthy of nothing more than sexual violence. It's one thing to draw a woman of color in a sexual way, but sexual does not entail degradation the way I see it.

That touches on one problem I see with this type of political correctness: it accuses writers and artists of anti-egalitarian attitudes based on the slightest "offenses" without taking into account the overall context of their productions. For example, one of my critics objected to my drawing a black female character wearing animal skins, saying it was stereotypical and racist. What they overlooked was that my character came from a prehistoric time period where animal skins made sense as clothing material, and more importantly that she was supposed to be beautiful and heroic. Said critic also ignored all the other black women I've drawn who came from more urbanized civilizations based on ancient Egypt, Nubia, or Mali and wore lots of gold jewelry and non-animal-skin textile clothing. This critic basically fixated on one minor, vague resemblance to a stereotype in my artwork while ignoring the more positive context surrounding it.

Of course, no matter how hard any artist tries, they're always going to offend someone. As artists and writers, we can only control our intentions in creating any given production, not how other people react to it.

 

[T.Allen.Smith]

Separate post for a separate issue.
I'm having a bit of trouble understanding the whole "honesty" thing, and ironically, it might be because I don't really care about categories very much--I just find it off-putting that the same categories keep showing up.

Feo,
Apologies. I missed this part earlier.

I'll try to explain what I mean by "honesty in writing" from two different angles.

As a younger writer, there was a piece of me that was once concerned whether certain people I know (relatives, friends, etc.) might read something I wrote and attach sentiments or dialogue words to me, as if the ideas or actions expressed by a character were my own as the author.

As I matured, I grew to no longer care what people thought about those scenes or ideas. They were free to infer anything they wanted from the prose, and it really didn't matter to me, as long as I was being true to the story. Being true to the story (honesty in writing) means only that I am willing, as the author, to write whatever I need to tell the best story I can.

This swings both ways. As much as I dislike the idea of self-censorship to keep people from thinking my views are in line with any character, I also don't want to force myself to include some aspect for no other reason than an expectation to include those elements...and if i don't then I'm not writing a worthy piece.

 

[Feo Takahari]

So are you saying that including minority characters would make your stories worse, or wouldn't make them better? Because those are two very different statements. (Or are you already including tons of minority characters, and just balking at an implied "should"?)

 

[T.Allen.Smith]

Neither. I don't try to make stories better by "searching" for opportunities to use minority characters or different gender ratios. However, if the story calls for ANY type of character I would write that way.

I feel that inclusion of any minority would only make the story worse if the only reason for writing a particular character was for the goal of inclusion alone.

 

[BWFoster78]

I'm all for writing the story that speaks out to you as the author, and rules and tests be damned. I don't think there is any harm in self-reflection and in looking at these issues, though, to see if you're unintentionally or subconsciously falling into traps with female characters that you don't have to fall into to serve your story.

Steerpike,

I didn't mean to ignore your post yesterday. I only had a few minutes to respond and never had a chance to get back to the board.

I think that this is a well thought out, measured approach that I agree with.

I'm all about analyzing all parts of writing: how, what, why, and who.

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.

If I am accurately interpreting this sentiment, I don't agree.

T.Allen has stated many times that "the story comes first" but, I think, has, perhaps, failed to adequately convey the why of the truth of that statement. Here's my attempt:

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.

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.

 

[Amanita]

I did try the Bechdel Test with my own stuff now.
When going through my original story waiting to be edited, I thought that this was a complete non-issue. The main character is female and of course she’s talking to other women about all kinds of things. Was actually completely natural to the story.
Looking upon my fanfic stuff I did realize that the situation was different though and I never realized that before. The female characters I’m writing there have very little female support, especially at the point of time where I’m writing. It’s quite strange because I never realized that before.
I do think that it can be a bit awkward if the story is told from a single point-of-view and the character is male. He might not naturally stumble over two female characters discussing something among themselves. Would it count if a female character walked up to him and told him about something plot-relevant she found out together with another female character? If the main villain is male, this would have been about a man again though.
If there are female characters who give important input, I wouldn’t consider the book sexist even if they never talked to each other alone on screen.

As far as the entire inclusion issue goes, I’m in two minds. My main character isn’t only female but also has brown skin. While I’m not worried about offending anyone for gender-related reasons, I do worry because of her skin color. In my world, skin color is a trait related to the climate of the place where the person comes from but has no history of slavery etc. attached to it.
Her people do suffer some discrimination for cultural and magical reasons however but there are other people of color in the story who come from different places and don’t have to deal with anything like that.
I keep wondering if making her white would be the less offensive choice there but it goes against my mental image and therefore I haven’t done it so far.

As far as the rest of the discussion goes, I’m somewhere in the middle again. I definitely want to see strong female characters but I don’t think anyone should write something he doesn’t feel like writing for social reasons. I also don’t think a writer has any obligation to research how to write people with outlooks on life very different from his own if it’s not relevant for the story he wants to tell.
The lack of characters of non-European background in fantasy as well as the treatment of women do bother me as well however. If there’s a war or quest without much female participation I might not mind that much but I have strong problems with stories where women only turn up as prostitutes, objects of quick affairs and rape victims. Especially if all of the above is condoned by the protagonists for reasons of “realism.”
I do think that this kind a thing can have effects on people especially if it’s becoming common and read again and again.
That actually belongs into the other thread but this is a problem I do see with the surge in “gritty” stories without any moral boundaries. Novels aren’t supposed to be moral guidelines, but if the opposite becomes too prevalent, there’s danger as well. I agree with Brian about the way the creative process works, it's similar for me as well. I also believe that a writer has a certain amount of responsibility for the things he actually does bring into the public. I might make myself unpopular with this statement but I think that not every dark twist the writer's mind creates belongs there.
This isn’t only about women’s roles by the way but about a variety of subject matters.

 

[BWFoster78]

I also believe that a writer has a certain amount of responsibility for the things he actually does bring into the public. I might make myself unpopular with this statement but I think that not every dark twist the writer's mind creates belongs there.

Not sure why, but I think you're on slightly less shaky footing with the argument that an author shouldn't advocate for something reprehensible versus arguing that an author has an obligation to argue against something reprehensible.

 

[Chime85]

Wohoo! I passed! Mind you, my story has quite a few female lead roles. On that trail of thought, I reversed the test for males, and I passed again!

Tests aside though, I don’t think it’s really a question of inclusion, more a question of character realism. One of the main reasons many dislike the female role being near silent and spending half the story with wide eyes and a skipped heart every time the male lead enters the scene is because that is an unrealistic (and somewhat insulting) portrayal of women in general.

Now when I say realism, I don’t mean how someone would act in this day and age (and world) but instead by the rules of the world the story is set in. As much as I try, I have yet to imagine a world where the women of society simply wait for a man to rescue them from whatever plight they find themselves in. If that was the case, there would be a whole host of men crossing a single woman across the street in the hopes of winning her heart. Somehow, I don’t think that is a typical case in regards to most stories.

Oddly enough, Jabrosky has found himself in an interesting situation. Where he has included many black characters, he has been accused of portraying them as a stereotype (I imagine the critic means a negative stereotype) because of reasons X Y and Z.

This is a rather unfair observation of poor Jabroski’s work (in my eyes, anyway) because frankly, it’s his world. He created it and has set up the history, civilisations and all the other countless things that make up a world. He also raises a good point when it comes to clothing his warriors. Let’s face it, they’re not likely to find a decent set of jeans at the local Gap any time soon.
Secondly, is the critic simply seeing the colour of his characters skin and joining the dots themselves? I gave this some thought and replaced his warrior into a “girl next door” type character with long blonde hair and green eyes and pale skin. I then placed her in this world and age and replaced her spear with a “Miss California” and dress her in a mini skirt and tube top. Then I wondered, would the same critic make the same accusation? Seeing as such examples exist in many movies (most of them cheesy horror movies. I’m looking at you, Freddy VS Jason!) and nobody bats an eye, I doubt Jabroski’s critic would.

Personally, I am a big fan of inclusion. Not because I feel the need to tick as many diversity boxes as possible (in fact, trying to do that is detrimental to the artistic integrity of the author). No, I personally enjoy making a varied world, along with characters from many different back rounds. That said, I can say that I have no LGBT people in my stories. This does in no way reflect my opinion on that group (for goodness sake, I cover two of those letters myself!) but because I have yet to find a reason to include sexuality or gender identity in my stories (as of yet). There is no room for it and any inclusion of that would be sideline and distracting at best.

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.

x

 

[SineNomine]

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.

 

[Ankari]

I'm of like mind with BWFoster78 and TAS.

A few points I would like to point out. From what I've read (about 90% of this thread) the general consensus is that a story lacking multiple female characters discussing other things besides men is outdated. 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.

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.

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.

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".

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?

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......

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.

 

[BWFoster78]

That being said though, I do think there is a shared responsibility that authors of SFF have, as a whole, to diversify their stories.

Why? From where does this "responsibility" originate? Why is THIS issue so much more important than hundreds of other issues that fiction could perhaps be somehow used to "fix?"

Do we have a responsibility to fix all societal wrongs?

What about drunk driving? I've read a lot of fantasy stories that feature drunk nobles riding around on horses. This could lead to someone somehow not realizing that they shouldn't drive drunk. Should SFF writers as a whole include more characters who suffer bad consequences of drinking and riding?

Where does this responsibility end?

 

[Chime85]

Why? From where does this "responsibility" originate? Why is THIS issue so much more important than hundreds of other issues that fiction could perhaps be somehow used to "fix?"

Do we have a responsibility to fix all societal wrongs?

What about drunk driving? I've read a lot of fantasy stories that feature drunk nobles riding around on horses. This could lead to someone somehow not realizing that they shouldn't drive drunk. Should SFF writers as a whole include more characters who suffer bad consequences of drinking and riding?

Where does this responsibility end?

You example made me laugh. "yes, yes, your story is very well constructed. The plot is tight and your style is refreshing. Just one nit to pick...."
"what's that? Is it the grammer? Is it the prose?"
"no, there are people riding horses while under the influence of alcohol"
"ok, so?"
"well, do you not think it sets a bad example. To us, it puts drink driving in a positive light, people are going to look to this hero of yours, you know!"
"For crying out loud! What about when he betrays his country and stabs people in the face, is that acceptable?"
"yes, yes that's fine"

 

[Jabrosky]

Things like the Bechdel Test probably work better when describing larger trends across multiple works by multiple authors rather than singling out one work or one author. 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. It works rather like cliches: one work having a given cliche doesn't necessarily condemn it all by itself, but if the same cliche exists across fiction, that's when people crave for something different.

 

[Chilari]

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...

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.

Do we have a responsibility to fix all societal wrongs?

The entertainment media we consume, be it film, TV, games or books, can have an impact upon the way we view the real world and can shape our opinions and guide our moral choices. The entertainment media we create, therefore, has the opportunity to influence others. What we chose to include, and how we chose to present it, can have an impact beyond the mere entertaining.

As a result, we could do harm or we could do good to society through what we produce. Sure, if we want to merely write for entertainment's sake then that's fine. But I do think we should at least consider the impact our words, and the presentation of moral choices, characters from different backgrounds, and situations which have a real-world parallel, have upon our readers. That doesn't mean we should change what we write in order to present a desired situation, especially not if it could damage the story, but I think we do need to be aware of what conclusions might be drawn, and what circumstances are presented as normal or acceptable, in our works.

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.