Bechdel Test: Female Representation in Movies

Introduction

Do you know what do the following movies have in common?

• Bullet Train
• Dead Poet’s Society
• Slumdog Millionaire
• The Lord of the Rings trilogy
• The Prestige
• The Shawshank Redemption

They all fail the Bechdel Test.

What exactly is the Bechdel Test?

Since we’re talking about movies, imagine the following scene -

Two women discussing movies; one remarks that she will only see a film if it meets a certain set of requirements involving female characters and their depiction.

This exact dialog that started as a joke in one of Alison Bechdel’s comic strip - “Dykes to Watch Out For”, sparked a critical conversation and often comes up when thinking about female representation in media.

It is a simple 3-question litmus test to gauge gender bias in movies. These are fairly basic questions -

1. The movie must feature at least two women in it.
2. The women must talk to each other.
3. Their discussion must be about something other than a man.

Insights

1. Distribution of total movies release each year and the movies that pass the first rule of the Bechdel Test

2. Movies featuring atleast Two Female actors

3. Percentage of movies that pass the first rule of the test directed by each gender

Data

Dataset Sources:

• Top 10,000 IMDb Movies (1915 - 2023)

• Actors’ Gender

• Directors’ Gender