Yes, the general problem is the pattern, not the individual. You still have to question the individual uncritically contributing to the pattern without necessity. There are various good reasons why something like Gravity or Das Boot fails the Bechdel - neither of which apply to Star Trek or Star Wars. Why wouldn't…

Frozen doesn't fail the reverse Bechdel - it has reindeer-guy haggling with a shopkeeper about carrots for his reindeer.

A lot of my favourite movies of the last couple of years (Drive, Rush, Weekend) fail the Bechdel. I think it's a very useful tool but I would never use it as a metric for individual watching decisions.

People try, but they don't get the funding. Coming up with tests and griping on the internet costs less.

Would you have to change all that much, though? Even if they're very wedded to their gender roles as developed so far, one of them could be turned into a butch lesbian and retain all her tics and macho affectations and crushes on women for instance. Of course you would have to change how the environment reacts to her…

Do female led movies generally fail the reverse Bechdel though? I'd be surprised.

I admittedly don't watch a lot of rom-coms, but I wouldn't be so sure. Love Actually, Pretty Woman and American Pie don't fail the reverse Bechdel. Bridesmaids, maybe, my memories are vague. Still, more of an outlier, no?

Of course men also talk about women, but again, they are rarely portrayed as _only_ talking about women. I can't think of any movie that fails the reverse Bechdel, off the top of my head, even factoring in female-led movies and romantic comedies.

We absolutely need to do both. Heroic female characters are awesome, but they don't do much for female solidarity, if they operate on the smurfette priniciple.

You know, the Bechdel test doesn't suggest that women should never ever again be portrayed talking about men. It's just sad if that's _ the_ only_ thing_ they get to talk about.

Ensemble pieces are rarer in cinemas than on TV, but they exist. The fact that movies that passed the Bechdel grossed highter than movies that didn't this year makes me suspicious about your assumptions as to what female audiences like or don't like to see. (I don't think that all those were woman-led, althogh…

Exactly. They have a civilization, it's just different from the Anglo Saxon's, and many of those differences, especially with regard to "savageness", can be largely explained by different resource constraints. The answer to such resouce constraints is often colonialism, which is hardly unique to Viking culture. I…

There are indeed fan-theories that one of the cats in King's Landing is warged by one of the backstory characters.

Amen to that,especially the last line.

Joan owes Don very little. His attempts at stopping the partners from pimping her out were very feeble. And then he shit all over her sacrifice by ditching the account without even talking to her. She's been doing quite a bit better since he's gone. Cutler might have opened that door for her for purely selfish…

I'm objecting to both scenes for different reasons to different degrees, because I'm capable of nuance, I guess.

Because there's no reason why it couldn't be better.

Oh absolutely, it's a toxic textbook example of co-dependency. Still there are a lot of toxic relationships that don't culminate in rape.

You've been watching a different show than the rest of us. Don's power has always been a mere facade waiting to crumble.

Yes, and it also provoked quite a lot of complaints. People have been objecting to this from the start. At this point it's a war of attrition. Some people are sick of having these endless discussions. Other people are more sick of that kind of bullshit spoiling otherwise compelling entertainment.