No Unnecessary Touching: A Conversation with C. Kubasta
C. Kubasta discusses her new collection, ABJECTIFICATION: STORIES & TRUTHS.
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Posts Tagged: the Bechdel test
Stories We Tell Ourselves: A Conversation with Miranda Popkey
Miranda Popkey discusses her debut novel, TOPICS OF CONVERSATION.
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The Rumpus Mini-Interview Project #101: The Dardenne Brothers
Aware of The Bechdel Test or not, the Belgian brothers keep churning out movies that pass with flying colors.
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Learning to Live Alone through the Legacy of Mary Tyler Moore
Characters like Mary and Rhoda hadn’t been turned into stereotypes of single women in their thirties or career women or divorcees. They couldn’t be: they were the first.
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Macho Prey: Homophobia and Unlikely Victims in Tickled
The film only grazes the issue, but homophobia is the fuel of the harassment that the targets face.
...moreHello, My Name Is Doris
It’s a popular yet strenuous question: What are you doing this weekend? For once I have an easy answer. As a Showalter superfan (of filmmaker Michael Showalter and leading feminist literary critic Elaine Showalter), I’ll be front row for Hello, My Name Is Doris when it opens in NYC and LA today. The synopsis: Sally Field stars as an oddball alongside […]
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#OscarsSoWhite: Calling Out Academy Bias
Instead of influencing our movie-going habits, The Academy can take its cues from us. We can continue to speak up through social media and—more importantly—our dollars.
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The Saturday Rumpus Essay: In Defense of Not Cooking
Should there be a Bechdel test for women in the kitchen?
...moreBinary Codes
No identity is visible from just one angle. Corinne Manning explains the importance of Alison Bechdel‘s “double representation”: It’s not that there are stories that are impossible to tell, just complicated—as storytellers we want to capture and express every nuance, to enable the reader, or the person listening to you, to fit something impossible, like […]
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The Saturday Rumpus Essay: The Sword and Her Sister
Frozen is a study in what happens when imagination is constrained to a single narrative arc
...moreBechdel Test Gets New Name
The Bechdel Test has a new name: the Bechdel-Wallace Test. Cartoonist Alison Bechdel popularized the test for assessing films on their portrayal of women. To pass, a film must contain a scene with two female characters talking to each about a subject other than men. (Few films pass.) However, while Bechdel popularized the test through […]
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The Saturday Rumpus Essay: Dead Girls Sold Here
Why then are we comfortable with women routinely being cast as the victims of violence? Why don’t we see that as sexist? Where is the outrage?
...moreFamily Secrets
Memoirist, cartoonist, and creator of the famous Bechdel Test, Alison Bechdel talks to The Millions about the evolution of her art, winning a MacArthur “Genuis Grant,” and searching for answers in her past: I feel like in a way that’s just what my work is, it’s just these albums that I’m arranging and then rearranging, […]
...moreDen Bechdel Testet
You may have heard of the Bechdel test, named after cartoonist Alison Bechdel, who popularized it in one of her comics: A movie or book passes the test if it contains a) at least two female characters, who b) talk to each other, about c) something other than men. It’s long been a way to […]
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