The Bechdel Test - can we pass it?

One of the interesting conundrums we face with our show is creating scenes with all-women.

Women make it up - from left Jess Mallett, Linda Calgaro,
Jane Simmons, Karina Francis, Sophie Long.

With all women characters in our Pink Ladies show, we knew that women could play any profession (from architect to dentist to construction worker to policewoman to prime minister...), and found that when we played men (for love interests, for example), we would often refer to the male characters as "she" later in the show. 


We tried playing only women, since the gender of the character wasn't sticking. But this was avoiding what we thought were 2 problems: Firstly that our male characters were not manly enough (!) or that we were talking about previous scenes rather than creating new ones.


The problem of the "he/she" referring to characters disappears if we talk to each other about something besides the man (or about something that's IN the scene we're playing, rather than talking about a scene we've already seen!).


Which fits with the Bechdel test. Alison Bechdel laid down three criteria for movies she wanted to see:

1. It has to have at least two (named) women in it

2. Who talk to each other

3. About something besides a man.

It's a discussion for another day whether this is a worthy way to evaluate a show or a movie. In our improvisation practice we've noticed that when the women in a scene talk about how they feel, the narrative can move forward. When they are purely advancing the narrative by giving information, then it can stagnate (or move forward, but who cares?).

So come see our Fringe shows in September or our Roxbury shows in October 2010 and judge for yourself. Do we pass the Bechdel test?   

p.s. it's actually quite surprising how few films and television shows pass the Bechdel test. You can read which ones do pass (or pass some of the criteria) at the site!