Instructions
When we examine the social, we find that almost every part of it is “gendered.” Back in 1985, Alison Bechdel proposed what has come to be known as the “” for evaluating films and other mass media programming. The test asks just three simple questions.
Answer the following three questions for the last movie you watched:
(1) Does the film contain two or more named female characters?
(2) Do the female characters appear together in the same scene?
(3) Do they have a conversation with each other about anything other than men?
Analyze your answers using your Sociological Imagination, explaining the ways in which movies (as a form of mass media) socialize us to understand gender. In your opinion, is the “Bechdel Test” still applicable 35 years late?
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