I would bet 90% of movies would be 1 minute or shorter if you edited them down to the Bechdel test passing moments. Considering the amount of movies that don’t pass the Bechdel Test at all, LOTR is probably in the top 50% even with only one line.
Yettan
yettan
Gimli has one funny moment in the books (where he eats too many lembas) and they gave it to the hobbits!
Exactly there was so much Jackson invented:
Gimli is just so...happy.
The simultaneously scolding and pre-emptively defensive tone doesn’t exactly do the article many favours either.
The Bechdel test can be a useful indicator but was created to look at representation in all movies and broader trends. If a movie fails the Bechdel test, it doesn’t mean its bad and sexist. There can be movies that center around male stories. Focusing on a story about men is not inherently sexist. There can also be…
She’s a great artist who deserves better than being used as clickbait fodder for AV Club
I was hesitantly, HESITANTLY, scrolling my way down the article preparing for some serious doomscrolling, and was pleasantly surprised at the response. People fully aware that yes many of the things that LotR is flawed for is not deliberate but a product of a white british man living post WWI with a very different…
I thought it was … interesting that Jackson chose to cut out the line where Eowyn calls out Aragorn (and her world’s) sexism: “All your words are but to say: you are a woman, and your part is in the house. But when the men have died in battle and honour, you have leave to be burned in the house, for the men will need…
Frodo asks The Fellowship for directions. Then he asks Gollum for directions.
At some point, the people started putting more weight on the Bechdel test than it was meant to carry. It’s a brilliant device that underscores a broad truth about how male-centric Hollywood entertainment is - but it’s not a way to judge if a movie’s gender dynamics are good or not. Heck, the LOTR movie above would…
Especially with Gimli. It’s stated that non-Dwarves often can’t tell their males from their females as they both have beards and deep voices.
This article and video fail to acknowledge that Frodo and Sam are lesbians.
Article pitch: What if I made the same point as a 40-second Youtube video, only longer, and in a way that made every reader wish for death?
The Bechdel Test was always more useful in the aggregate than as a critique of individual works, which is the opposite of how it’s usually deployed. It’s possible to make a good movie about just men, or just women, so often it’s easy enough to defend any given film. It’s only really damning when you realize that most…
I don’t think the Bechdal test is the end all be all of how well women characters are represented. It's a good indicator, but not the only one. For instance, there is also the Mako Mori test, which I would say LOTR passes.
>LOTR is great, but
For the record, the Bechdel test requires that both characters be named, so I don’t think even this one line qualifies (unless the little girl was named somewhere and I missed it).
...it’s important to contextualize them as a means to often support larger, more complex and diverse stories.