***SPOILER ALERT!***
Pacific Rim
Iron Man 3
One of the first topics brought
up in any conversation about gender politics in pop culture is the Bechdel
Test. You probably know what I’m referring to, but in case you’ve been living
under a rock or need a refresher, here’s
a helpful link that not only explains the test’s rules, but also evaluates
recent movies based on well they fulfill those requirements. When explaining the test’s purpose, it’s
tempting to say that it shows how “feminist” a movie or TV show is; however,
that’s not quite accurate, and such an explanation is both overly simplistic
and misleading.
Really, the Bechdel Test has very little to do with indicating what films
are women-friendly or the overall quality of the work itself, and as an arbiter
of individual movies, it’s a next-to-pointless exercise. Nowhere is there any
criteria dictating how complex or plot-essential a female character should be
in order to count, though a sometimes-included rule requiring the characters to
have a name means passing movies will have two women who aren’t just glorified
extras. Even then, they could be horribly offensive stereotypes (see: Anne
Hathaway’s shameful post-first-Oscar-nomination dud Bride Wars). In addition, its pass/fail grading system makes it
easy for people to turn the test into the be-all-end-all of feminist pop
culture criticism, potentially shutting down more in-depth conversations about how
the work actually deals with gender. Again, just because a movie passes, it
doesn’t mean that it’s feminist or a good movie, and a movie that fails isn’t
necessarily sexist or bad.
This isn’t to say that we should straight-up burn the Bechdel Test. In
fact, even almost thirty years after it was first conceived, it remains an
important and (sadly) relevant tool. Its problems arise less from the test
itself and more from people who misuse or don’t completely understand it. The
test works best when you broaden the scope and critique entertainment on an industry-wide
scale; whether one specific film does or doesn’t pass is of no consequence, but
after looking at enough movies, a trend emerges: the fails are way more
numerous than the passes. Considering how rudimentary the test is, this
knowledge is sobering, to put it mildly. ‘Cause women never have anything more
fascinating than dudes to talk about, amiright?
I think these ladies would beg to differ.
What makes the Bechdel Test such a durable, successful indicator of
systematic gender bias, beyond its simplicity, is the fact that, as Ben Adams
points out in this
top-notch think piece, it’s almost completely objective. There’s some
leeway in determining what exactly counts as a conversation and whether it
relates to men (if two ladies are talking about how late the mail is today, to
use a mundane example, and their mailman happens to be a guy, does that count
as talking about men?), but people can generally agree about whether or not a
movie passes. The same pass/fail standard that makes the test tricky when it
comes to detailed analyses of specific films becomes ideal for a more
scientific, numbers-based study, and like with any scientific study, it’s still
up to us to decide what to do with the findings. No one can debate that the
test effectively proves that there’s a severe lack of female representation in
media, though people may disagree about how to handle such a persistent
problem.
Contrast this with some of the
alternative Bechdel Tests that have popped up lately, a few of which are also
covered in the Adams article. While a POC version of the test developed
by Alaya Dawn Johnson seems to work because it’s really just the same as
the Bechdel Test, only with a focus on race instead of gender, tests like the
Vito Russo Test for LGBTQ representation stray further from the original
structure and, as a result, become more questionable. The most relevant
alternative for our purposes is the Mako Mori Test. Created and named thusly
because fans of Pacific Rim felt that
the film, which resoundingly fails the Bechdel Test, might
be dismissed as sexist despite boasting a prominent female character (of
color, no less), the test requires:
1. At
least one female character
2. Who
gets her own narrative arc
3. That
is not supporting a man’s story
This isn’t a bad idea, per se, and could be useful for analyzing works
on a case-by-case basis. While the Bechdel Test aims to show merely the
presence (or rather lack thereof) of women and, to an extent, of female
relationships, the Mako Mori Test puts more of an emphasis on the depth and agency
of individual characters. It’s a good starting point for talking about how
women are characterized in pop culture, though it’s not necessarily any better
an arbiter of how “feminist” a movie is than the Bechdel Test, as even the
test’s creator reminds readers.
However, there are notable drawbacks to the Mako Mori Test, reasons why
it needs to be considered a companion to its predecessor, rather than a replacement.
The most glaring issue is that it doesn’t address the main concern of the
Bechdel Test: quantity. The Mako Mori Test requests quality, but does it really
demand much of a change from the status quo? After all, I’d wager that there
are tons of films that could pass due to the presence of a single token woman
amidst an otherwise mostly or entirely male ensemble. And then, there’s the
fact that the Mako Mori Test still has more gray area between pass and fail
than the Bechdel Test. You can physically count the number of times two or more
women exchange words with each other, but what counts as a narrative arc and
whether it supports a man’s story is a bit more debatable. Does this
automatically rule out any movies that don’t have a female lead – or even ones
where the woman is a co-lead with a man? Supporting characters might have their
own agenda and personal growth, but they still exist in the narrative to
support the central protagonist; their role is defined by their relationship to
the lead. As for stories with co-leads, even if the woman’s arc doesn’t carry
the man’s story, it’s likely still dependent on his arc (and vice versa).
On this basis, I’d argue that Pacific
Rim itself doesn’t even pass. Sure, Mako Mori has a backstory and
experiences some form of internal conflict, but every single step of her
development, such as it is, is guided by a man. She only gets to try out to be
a Jaegar co-pilot because Raleigh asks her to. After a male rival calls her a
bitch, she simply stands to the side while the dude and Raleigh get into a
juvenile fist fight instead of speaking up for herself, trying to break up the
brawl, or just walking away. When she experiences complications while entering
the drift for the first time, Raleigh, not Mako, tries to convince Stacker that
she can still handle the stress of operating a Jaegar. It never occurs to any
of the characters – or the movie itself – that Raleigh might not be fit for the
task either, given that his brother was killed when they were in the drift
together. Her main relationships are with a male colleague and a surrogate
father figure. She never speaks to another woman, let alone develops a relationship
with one, because there are literally no other women around (okay, there’s the
female co-pilot in the Russian Jaegar, but does she even have any dialogue?).
Not a single decision in her plot arc is actually made by her; it’s all Raleigh
and Stacker trying to figure out what she wants, what’s best for her.
Narratively, she serves as an object of admiration for Raleigh and an object to
protect for Stacker.
This demonstrates just how subjective the Mako Mori Test really is.
Like the Vito Russo Test, it attempts to measure qualitative factors using a
quantitative method. While, again, this test is useful as a loose outline or
starting point for analyzing female characters, it’s in no way indicative of
the actual feminist value of an individual movie, and frankly, the fact that
people created the Mako Mori Test in the first place, seemingly out of an odd,
defensive need to justify liking Pacific
Rim, emphasizes how misunderstood the Bechdel Test is. Coming up with an
entirely new “test” doesn’t cover up or excuse the fact that Pacific Rim absolutely bombs the Bechdel
Test and has major female
representation problems.
There’s another problematic concept when it comes to people talking
about women in entertainment: the strong female character. People too often
interpret “strong” to mean physical strength or assertiveness, leading to a
belief that a female character is good simply because she knows how to – and is
willing to – fight or blow shit up real good. Not only does this imply that
women are worthy of respect only if they display behavior and attitudes
traditionally associated with men, but it suggests that more traditionally
feminine women and women who show emotion or vulnerability aren’t worthy of respect; they’re scoffed at and dismissed for not
living up to a masculine idea of strength. There’s nothing wrong with women who fight and kick ass, of course, but saying that
it inherently means a female character is praiseworthy or upholds feminist
ideals carries more than a hint of misogyny and contributes to the
glamorization of physical violence in an industry obsessed with explosions and
blood.
Apparently nothing says feminism like cold-blooded murder.
Moreover, this approach often
results in lousy writing. Filmmakers and studios seem to think putting a gun in
a woman’s hand will be enough to appease women in the audience, an attitude
that’s pretty condescending in and of itself, so they don’t bother giving her
the depth or narrative agency that might make her seem like an actual human
being. Exhibit A: the faux
action heroine. This is essentially a female hero who has admirable traits
like independence, courage and intelligence, along with the ability to fight
and defend herself, but who is consistently undermined by the narrative, which
renders her incompetent or in need of rescue whenever she’s actually supposed
to do something.
Take, for instance, the French
Manouche fortune teller and ex-anarchist Madam Simza Heron played by Noomi
Rapace (who really deserves more and better roles) in Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows. Guy Ritchie’s Sherlock sequel
is about as far from a cinematic masterpiece as you can get without going into so-bad-it’s-good
territory, but Simza is especially thinly written, a prime example of what
happens when writers simply slap a couple of basic personality traits together
and call the result a character. Simza may not be a professional assassin or
soldier, but early on in the film, they position her as street-smart and tough
enough to take care of herself, in part thanks to her skill with throwing knives.
Yet, despite these assets and her apparent high standing in the gypsy troupe
she travels around with, she never actually does
anything. Instead, she spends nearly all of her screen time scrambling around
Europe on the heels of the obnoxiously
bromantic Holmes and Watson (queer-baiting,
much?). The one time she gets to use her knife, when she tosses it into the
chest of a man sent to kill her, it turns out he was wearing a protective vest and
gets away unharmed. During the climax, she’s forced to waltz around in a puffy
ball gown so she can tell Watson what her brother looks like. That brother is,
by the way, the only reason she exists in the movie in the first place, because
God forbid a woman’s role isn’t dependent on her relationship with a dude who’s
the real focus of the plot. Giving a lady kickass characteristics on paper
can’t make up for a complete lack of genuine depth and narrative agency.
For whatever reason, this issue
feels particularly prevalent in this year’s blockbusters, which is disappointing
given that last
summer saw a number of female characters who, despite largely occupying
supporting roles, were compelling and well-rounded. Unless I’m forgetting a
film or two, Gravity and the buddy
cop comedy The Heat, both of them maybe
not-so-coincidentally starring Sandra Bullock, are the only big-budget studio
projects so far this year to feature only female leads. As great a character as
Uhura is, she (and Zoe Saldana) was underutilized by Star Trek into Darkness, which largely reduced both her and Alice
Eve’s Carol Marcus to their relationships with men, and Man of Steel made Lois Lane and the villainous Faora-El seem more
like stock plot devices than characters.
Then, there’s Iron Man 3.
Rebecca Hall’s Maya Hansen is supposedly a brainy, brilliant scientist, but you
wouldn’t know that from watching the film, since not only was the
part apparently shredded for the final cut. She doesn’t do anything except promptly
die when she gains a conscience after realizing she still cares for ex-lover
Tony Stark. Despite having had a major role in both previous Iron Man films, Pepper Potts somehow doesn’t
fare much better. Yes, she protects Tony from being crushed by rubble at one
point and technically vanquishes the bad guy, but she only accomplishes those
tasks because men give her – and, right afterwards, take back – the means to do
so. What’s more, after she takes out Guy Pearce, lest audiences think of her as
a tough, capable person, Tony quickly
reminds us how the movie really wants
us to see Pepper, who’s dressed in a sports bra for some reason, by smirking,
“You should dress like that more often.” In
other words, this wasn’t about giving Pepper an empowering moment; it was
about, hey aren’t women sexy when they fight? And check out Gwyneth Paltrow’s
amazing abs! Outside of those moments, she’s nothing more than a put-upon
girlfriend and eventual damsel-in-distress. Plus, just as Maya never gets an
opportunity to show her intelligence or do anything science-related, Pepper
never seems to work despite being the CEO of a multi-billion dollar
corporation.
Many would argue that Mako Mori is better than these examples, and given
that, as mentioned before, she has a full backstory, she feels a tad more
three-dimensional (though I thought Uhura was better developed, mostly because of
the first Star Trek). At the very
least, Mako is the closest thing any of the movies have to a female co-lead.
Still, it’s hard to say she transcends the Strong Female Character mold. Along with
the fact that her storyline is really more about the men around her as I detailed
above, she’s treated as special, an exception to All Those Other Girls (if
there were any other girls around). The Jaegar co-pilot tryouts is perhaps her
defining scene, and she’s the only woman in a room filled with guys, who are
predictably disgruntled when Raleigh says she should participate too, then
surprised and impressed when she emerges as the only person capable of matching
him in a martial arts fight. While Mako doesn’t have the macho,
get-the-fuck-outta-my-way swagger typically foisted onto action heroines as if
to compensate for their gender, Pacific
Rim goes too far in the other direction. It’s perfectly fine for female
characters to be introverted, but in Mako’s case, that’s all she is,
personality-wise: a timid Asian girl too respectful of authority to speak up or
act on her own behalf. The movie mistakes submissiveness for courtesy, making
the situation even worse by using her ethnic and cultural background to justify
her passivity and utter lack of agency. Even though it mostly takes place
around Hong Kong, Pacific Rim only
features one Asian actor in a major role and fetishizes Asian, specifically
Japanese, culture as cool and exotic rather than treating it something
involving real people and places.
Ron Perlman is awesome, but this reveal was the worst.
Mako Mori’s silence is
especially evident because she doesn’t say a
single word when inside a Jaegar. Ever. Overlooking that there’s no need
for the co-pilots to talk since they’re literally connected to each other’s
minds, the reasoning I’ve seen for this not being problematic is that she can’t
speak because she’s
too busy kicking kaiju ass. I guess that’s badass, but excuse me for not
thinking punching aliens is an adequate substitute for a female character having
a voice. Also, it’s not like she ultimately defeats the kaiju; when it comes
time to enter the monsters’ home, she’s rendered unconscious, and without even
a hasty attempt to wake her up, Raleigh jets her off in an escape pod so she
can wait for him while he saves the world on his own.
My point with all this ranting
and rambling is that a few superficially cool traits or moments thrown together
don’t make a great female character. There’s no formula or specific character
type that can provide a universal solution, which is a good thing, since women
in fiction should be like women in real life: complicated, diverse and not
bound to one story or mode of thinking, feeling or behaving. There aren’t any
more secrets to writing a fantastic female character than there are to writing a
male one. Good characters are good no matter what their gender, race,
sexuality, etc. is. That isn’t to say those traits can’t or shouldn’t be
integral to an individual character, rather that it shouldn’t affect your
approach when creating and writing them. The truth is there are plenty of amazing female characters
already out there, but women still have a disproportionately small presence
compared to their male counterparts, both in the actual works and behind the
scenes. This is where the Bechdel Test helps, because the more ladies we get,
the more likely they will be compelling, have their own personalities and
occupy different roles and narratives. Quantity will lead to quality.
To sum up what I’ve spent six
pages babbling about in a few sentences, here’s
an excellent quote from the talented and wonderful Natalie Portman:
I want every version of a woman and a man to be possible. I want women and men to be able to be full-time parents or full-time working people or any combination of the two. I want both to be able to do whatever they want sexually without being called names. I want them to be allowed to be weak and strong and happy and sad — human, basically. The fallacy in Hollywood is that if you’re making a “feminist” story, the woman kicks ass and wins. That’s not feminist, that’s macho. A movie about a weak, vulnerable woman can be feminist if it shows a real person that we can empathize with.
Preach it, Natalie.
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