A Filmmaker Who Champions the Bechdel Test Fails It in His New Movie

Jemaine Clement stars as a recently single father of twin girls in People, Places, Things. courtesy Sundance Institute

PARK CITY, Utah—In recent years, the dearth of strong female roles in movies and TV has meant a lot of talk about the Bechdel Test. The gauge of gender bias is based on a 1985 strip by cartoonist Alison Bechdel; to pass the test, a film must have 1) two female characters who 2) talk to each other about 3) something other than a man. But even though critics and film buffs discuss it frequently, it’s rare for actual filmmakers to cite it. (At least in public.) Writer/director Jim Strouse is a rare exception—but while he knows the Test, he also knows that his latest film, while championing the work of Bechdel, also flat-out fails it.

Strouse’s movie, People, Places, Things, is about a graphic novelist named Will Henry (Flight of the Conchords‘ Jemaine Clement) who is trying to get his life back together and be a good father to his twin girls after a break-up with his wife. He’s also trying to re-learn dating, and in the process of doing so begins seeing a woman (Regina Hall) who is a professor of American literature and (minor chord) doesn’t consider graphic novels to be worth her time or reflection. In a pivotal moment, Will realizes she’s coming around to his way of seeing things when he discovers a copy of Bechdel’s Fun Home in her apartment.

The placement of the book is intentional—Strouse calls Bechdel’s graphic memoir about growing up in her family’s funeral home “phenomenal”—but he’s also familiar enough with the cartoonist’s work to know his movie failed the test that bears her name. “You were talking when we were filming about how, ironically, the film doesn’t pass the Bechdel Test,” Clement tells his director during an interview after the film’s screening at Sundance. “It also wouldn’t pass a reverse Bechdel Test of two men talking about something other than a woman.”

Grading on a Curve

This isn’t that uncommon; sadly, lots of films don’t live up to the seemingly no-brainer conditions. In fact, quite a few films here at Sundance—from the buzzy Dope to The Stanford Prison Experiment—wouldn’t pass. (Unexpected‘s tale of two women’s unplanned pregnancies, however, passes with room to spare.) But when your movie goes so far as to point to Bechdel’s graphic novel as a great work of American literature, it’s even more disappointing.

Strouse is well aware. When he’s not writing or directing movies, he’s a teacher at the School of Visual Arts in New York —and one who tries to instill gender equality in his students. “I teach screenwriting and the first thing we talk about in the first class is, ‘Do you know the Bechdel Test? Have you heard of it?” he says. “I think it’s important. But I failed it.”

But in another way, he didn’t. The Bechdel Test became popular because it was a handy gauge of how often the movies revolve around men and leave female characters to be the foil. Its function isn’t to show that films that fail it are bad (Strouse’s film clearly is not), or those that pass it are always good. If anything, it has historically been used to show how filmmakers—a profession in which men vastly outnumber women—have told stories from their own perspectives and left women out (similar tests could easily be made to show disparities in racial or sexual diversity). But consider it from a broader cultural context: the more aware people are of its existence, the more likely filmmakers are to apply it to their own work.

So the fact that Strouse, whose movie actually has more female main characters than male ones (thanks to Will’s twin daughters), is even aware of his film’s shortcomings proves that the test is working, even if just incrementally. (Further proof of this could be found in Park City this week in the heavily-attended conversation between Jane Fonda and Lily Tomlin and in the “Power of Story: Serious Ladies” panel discussion last weekend with Lena Dunham, Mindy Kaling, Kristen Wiig, and Orange Is the New Black showrunner Jenji Kohan.)

Does just knowing he failed the Bechdel Test let Strouse off the hook? Probably not. But maybe one day he—or one of his students—will write the People, Places, Things sequel where those twins grow up and get a movie of their own.