The Other Woman fails Bechdel Test, most critics dislike like it yet BO looks good

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  • The Other Woman fails Bechdel Test, most critics dislike like it yet BO looks good

    I haven't seen the movie yet but, since it clearly fails the Bechdel Test, I was curious to see how the BO was going and critics reviews.

    As per BO Mojo -- it's been out 22 days and has a worldwide gross of $133,414,000 ($40-mil budget). Also interesting, the worldwide figure is virtually 50% split between US and foreign audiences. Then I went to RT and see critics clearly dislike it.

    I also found this Daily News Review review which poo-poos this film, plus 'Walk of Shame' and 'Blended,' yet praises the "strong women" in Hunger Games and Divergent.

    Quote:

    The Other Woman' may have done well at the box office, but it was no success...

    Interestingly, the best roles for women these days are not in comedies but in action films like “The Hunger Games” and “Divergent” — both of which are based on books written by women, for a broad range of audiences.
    And thanks in part to these franchises, a new generation of actresses can already feel more empowered than their predecessors. It’s frankly impossible to imagine Jennifer Lawrence or Shailene Woodley ever agreeing to a script as empty and shrill as “The Other Woman.”

    Being the contrarian I am I can't help but notice the reviewer equates "strong" female protags with those who have physical prowess and "special" abilities. (Disclaimer: I like the protags of Hunger Games and Divergent but I also think average women living average lives can be "strong" when facing a challenge.)

    So what are the characteristics of a strong woman character? Kickboxing skills? Ease with weaponry? Supernatural talents?

    While the premise of The Other Woman totally fails the Bechdel Test, and this is a comedy not action, these women are being proactive and trying to right a wrong committed against them. Why isn't this considered "strong." It's also clear from trailers the two leads -- wife and mistress -- become friends instead of foes, join forces instead of seeing each other as the enemy. Why isn't this trait considered "strong?"

    I'm starting to wonder if the Bechdel Test brouhaha is doing more harm to creating female roles than good.
    Advice from writer, Kelly Sue DeConnick. "Try this: if you can replace your female character with a sexy lamp and the story still basically works, maybe you need another draft.-

  • #2
    I think they're being short-sighted regarding the definition of strong and it doesn't always need to be physical, regardless of gender.

    Plus, the arc for Leslie Mann's character is that she starts out weak, but finds strength along the way. It caps with her developing that strength, so it makes for a nice arc.

    It had notes of "Nine To Five", but "The Other Woman" doesn't quite get there in execution. Nine To Five just sets the bar so so high. I'm wondering, does it pass the Bechdel Test?

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    • #3
      Re: The Other Woman fails Bechdel Test [?]

      Originally posted by madworld View Post
      'm wondering, does it pass the Bechdel Test?
      As I posted in a prior Bechdel Test thread, I think it does (or should), at least technically, because: There's a scene in which Mann and Diaz talk about Upton's boobs.

      Comment


      • #4
        Pauline Kael noted many years ago that male moviegoers have always been able to appreciate strong, independent women characters in film. The reason that women were traditionally portrayed in movies as weepy, fragile, and overly dependent on male approval was because female audiences preferred it that way.

        You see this even today. Guys love these these amped-up action movies where Angelina Jolie is somehow capable of pulverizing six men at the same time.

        In practice, women seem to have little interest in Bechdel Tests and the like. Not everything is a patriarchal conspiracy.

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        • #5
          The Other Woman fails Bechdel Test, most critics dislike like it yet BO looks good

          As I've opined before, the Bechdel test is a joke. And since it started as a joke in a cartoon strip it's even more ironic to me that anyone gives it credence. Setting that aside, the review I linked irks me for two reasons:

          The disconnect between the critic's low opinion (and she's not the only critic who panned it) and the BO. A $40-mil budget movie making a gross more than triple that amount in three weeks is not too bad at all. And foreign audiences went to see it, too, in near equal measure as US audiences.

          That's important considering the reason given for few female-lead films is usually that foreign audiences don't like them.

          The second, the complaint that movies need "strong women." And every example given of "strong women" is a female lead physically fighting someone or something, and doing a lot of running. No high heels (as the critic went on about -- she hated the high heel jokes).

          Not only are these critics saying there too few movies with female leads, but, like the critic linked above, they end up panning those few female-lead movies released because they don't comply with some standard for "strong women." This is not helpful.

          What is the standard? What is a strong woman? What are her traits?

          I have a lot of concepts for female characters I consider strong. Based on people I know and things I've read. But I don't see the value in developing them as scripts because none of them wield a gun or drop-kick a bad guy in the process of achieving their goal. And when I see female critics bashing films like the one above it confirms my decision.
          Advice from writer, Kelly Sue DeConnick. "Try this: if you can replace your female character with a sexy lamp and the story still basically works, maybe you need another draft.-

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          • #6
            Re: The Other Woman fails Bechdel Test,

            Divergent isn't a particularly stellar example either - it's just as derivative and predictable as the rom-coms panned in the article. A set of cliches from a different genre is still a set of cliches.

            And positing that Jennifer Lawrence and Shailene Woodley will never take roles this reporter considers beneath them - well, she'll be eating those words one day, I expect.

            I saw the Other Woman. I didn't love it - the humor was pretty juvenile, that scene with the dog pooping was just bizarre, but I appreciated that it was a film in which the women didn't compete with each other for a man but supported each other.

            Comment


            • #7
              Re: The Other Woman fails Bechdel Test,

              Originally posted by bmcthomas View Post
              Divergent isn't a particularly stellar example either - it's just as derivative and predictable as the rom-coms panned in the article. A set of cliches from a different genre is still a set of cliches.

              And positing that Jennifer Lawrence and Shailene Woodley will never take roles this reporter considers beneath them - well, she'll be eating those words one day, I expect.

              I saw the Other Woman. I didn't love it - the humor was pretty juvenile, that scene with the dog pooping was just bizarre, but I appreciated that it was a film in which the women didn't compete with each other for a man but supported each other.

              Good points. With all of these types of buddy comedies (male or female lead) I sort of expect some juvenile jokes and physical slapstick -- it's the genre.

              I'll see it just for what you said above -- they're not competing for a man.

              I like female buddy comedies. I wrote one years ago that limped into a consider at one studio but limped out with an ultimate pass with the excuse two women without a male co-lead can't carry a film. Although I've given up on writing comedies, maybe the time is right to give that one a polish a float it out there.

              I've had another idea floating in my head for years. It was actually triggered by something sad. I was in an elevator and eavesdropped on two women discussing how their friend's daughter -- a med student who dropped out of school to support her husband while he finished med school -- who killed herself when he left her for another woman.

              So the thought came to mind -- what if someone had told the woman the old saying: Men are like buses -- you miss one, another will come along shortly. And I had the idea of a female buddy movie where one friend set out to prove this to another friend by taking her on an adventure.
              Advice from writer, Kelly Sue DeConnick. "Try this: if you can replace your female character with a sexy lamp and the story still basically works, maybe you need another draft.-

              Comment


              • #8
                Re: The Other Woman fails Bechdel Test

                What are the characteristics of male characters in films?

                I don't know any men with superpowers, etc. I know strong men who have dealt with major tragedies and faced huge life set backs and kept going. Most men have bland jobs and fairly bland lives... but movies are not about people like that. Movies are about action folks who battle GODZILLA and genetically engineered supersoldiers and people bitten by radioactive spiders and warrior dudes and dudettes. Movies are not about normal people... and when they seem to be about normal people, there is farting and practical jokes and crazy comedy stuff that doesn't happen in real life (I hope).

                THE OTHER WOMAN was written by a woman, so if it fails the Bechdel Test should we stop hiring female screenwriters because they often write about relationships (which is what fails Bechdel) instead of battling monsters? Or does none of this actually mean anything in the long run?

                Bill
                Free Script Tips:
                http://www.scriptsecrets.net

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                • #9
                  Re: The Other Woman fails Bechdel Test, critics dislike like it yet BO looks good

                  I agree with you, Bill. I think the mantra, "we need Strong Women characters," is counter-productive to getting more roles for women, more stories about women, on the screen.

                  Why not -- "We need Genuine Women characters." They can be flawed. They can fall off their high heels (something that irked the woman reviewer I linked). They can make bad or selfish decisions. They can arc.

                  This whole "Strong Women" thing is just more of the Madonna (not the singer, the saint) effect. It reminds me of "The Noble Savage" trope.

                  BTW, my use of Bechdel Test in the header was sarcasm. But the more I think about the original source of this "test" the more it irritates me that it's now considered a legitimate diagnostic tool for women characters.
                  Advice from writer, Kelly Sue DeConnick. "Try this: if you can replace your female character with a sexy lamp and the story still basically works, maybe you need another draft.-

                  Comment


                  • #10
                    Re: The Other Woman fails Bechdel Test, critics dislike like it yet BO looks good

                    Originally posted by sc111 View Post
                    But the more I think about the original source of this "test" the more it irritates me that it's now considered a legitimate diagnostic tool for women characters.
                    Who considers it a legitimate diagnostic tool for women characters?

                    It's kinda like the 'sneaking through airvents' test of action movies. It doesn't mean that if an action film passes it that the film is any good. But it's just so depressing how many films do it. It's depressing.

                    But you can't fix your action film by taking out the air-vent scene .. or by adding a single conversation...

                    Mac
                    New blogposts:
                    *Followup - Seeking Investors in all the wrong places
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                    • #11
                      The Other Woman fails Bechdel Test, most critics dislike like it yet BO looks good

                      The Bechdel Test has gained far more legitimacy than the ""Air Vent" test.

                      It has its own website. http://bechdeltest.com/

                      Sweden is now using it to rate films (link).

                      Ironically, Alison Bechdel, the cartoonist who used the "test" in a brief few panels of her cartoon, "Dykes To Watch Out For," credits a friend for the quote and says that friend was inspired by the Virginia Woolf quote below. But when you read the quote, it's making a different, deeper, finer point, than "Two women talk to each about something besides a man.'

                      All these relationships between women, I thought, rapidly recalling the splendid gallery of fictitious women, are too simple. [...] And I tried to remember any case in the course of my reading where two women are represented as friends. [...] They are now and then mothers and daughters. But almost without exception they are shown in their relation to men. It was strange to think that all the great women of fiction were, until Jane Austen's day, not only seen by the other sex, but seen only in relation to the other sex. And how small a part of a woman’s life is that [...][6]
                      Woolf says "...Where two women are friends" as opposed to mothers and daughters. And she says they're rarely depicted other than "in their relation to men." This doesn't mean they don't talk about men. It means they are lead characters, with their own back story, goals and arc, whose lives are not completely defined by their relationship to the men in their lives.

                      This is a whole other "test." It's actually one I would stand behind. I'd call it The Virginia Woolf Test. And when you apply it, far more films pass.
                      Advice from writer, Kelly Sue DeConnick. "Try this: if you can replace your female character with a sexy lamp and the story still basically works, maybe you need another draft.-

                      Comment


                      • #12
                        Re: The Other Woman fails Bechdel Test, most critics dislike like it

                        Originally posted by sc111 View Post
                        Sweden is now using it to rate films (link).
                        This pisses me off.

                        It gets to something I mentioned earlier:

                        The Bechtel test does actually tell us something about the state of film in general, about the ecosystem of Hollywood. As a 30K foot view of how Hollywood makes movies, it is absolutely, positively eye-opening.

                        But it's a really lousy tool to talk about any one specific film. According to the Swedish Film Board's standards, "Gravity" is not a movie that's good for gender equity, and that's just absurd. We could find other, equally-absurd examples pretty easily, on both sides of the equation.

                        The mistake people are making is taking a tool that is useful in one context and using it in a different context, which is misleading. Any time somebody says, "This film passes the Bechtel test, therefore ..." they're reading too much into it. However, numbers like, I dunno, the percentage of the top 100 grossing films that pass the test, by year, could help illuminate trends.

                        Ultimately, whether "The Other Woman" passes or fails the test doesn't really tell us anything about the quality of the film, or even its box office (at least in the first couple of weeks). Nobody goes to see a film on opening weekend because it passes or fails the test.

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                        • #13
                          Re: The Other Woman fails Bechdel Test, most critics dislike like it

                          Originally posted by Ronaldinho View Post
                          This pisses me off.

                          It gets to something I mentioned earlier:

                          The Bechtel test does actually tell us something about the state of film in general, about the ecosystem of Hollywood. As a 30K foot view of how Hollywood makes movies, it is absolutely, positively eye-opening.

                          But it's a really lousy tool to talk about any one specific film. According to the Swedish Film Board's standards, "Gravity" is not a movie that's good for gender equity, and that's just absurd. We could find other, equally-absurd examples pretty easily, on both sides of the equation.

                          The mistake people are making is taking a tool that is useful in one context and using it in a different context, which is misleading. Any time somebody says, "This film passes the Bechtel test, therefore ..." they're reading too much into it. However, numbers like, I dunno, the percentage of the top 100 grossing films that pass the test, by year, could help illuminate trends.

                          Ultimately, whether "The Other Woman" passes or fails the test doesn't really tell us anything about the quality of the film, or even its box office (at least in the first couple of weeks). Nobody goes to see a film on opening weekend because it passes or fails the test.
                          I agree. The irony of stating Gravity as a Bechdel fail, is that I'd bet the story would make Virginia Woolf proud. A woman confronting the core of her being. Struggling with a life or death situation. Yet when you read the hair-splitting on the Bechdel website discussing this film, it's laughable.

                          Personally, I think women writers should reject this test as any measure of their writing female characters or men who write women characters.

                          Maybe I should start a blog "The Virginia Woolf Test" for films and fiction. Hmmm. I'll ponder the idea this weekend.

                          ETA: I found a free copy of "A Room Of One's Own" by Woolf if anyone wants to read the essay PM me. I'm reading it again, today. It's brilliant. And so many of her observations are still relevant.
                          Last edited by sc111; 05-21-2014, 09:46 AM.
                          Advice from writer, Kelly Sue DeConnick. "Try this: if you can replace your female character with a sexy lamp and the story still basically works, maybe you need another draft.-

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                          • #14
                            Re: The Other Woman fails Bechdel Test, most critics dislike like it

                            Originally posted by sc111 View Post
                            Personally, I think women writers should reject this test as any measure of their writing female characters or men who write women characters.
                            Well, I think any sort of simple test isn't going to be terribly useful for writers, often because the interesting writing happens in the exceptions.

                            And I don't think it's female writers who really need it. It's mostly the men. eg, there's a script I read yesterday, for a friend, where there was a gang who had pulled a robbery. There's a secondary hook, which I'm not going to get in to, but the gang, was, well, a movie gang:

                            There was the leader. The kid. The short-tempered one. One or two others. And the Girl.

                            And it was one of those things, reading it, where it was hard not to be overwhelmed by the cliches. Making another one of the gang female might have nudged the writer into thinking more creatively about his cast.

                            Because, good lord, I'd just seen it all before. But I suspect if the writer had made a second member of the gang female, it would have helped, because then "being female" wouldn't have been able to pass as a personality trait.

                            And women all get this, I think. Men, unfortunately, not so much.

                            Comment


                            • #15
                              Re: The Other Woman fails Bechdel Test

                              I really have mixed feelings about this. Maybe because the word "test" is being taken so literally by well-meaning people who really want to see more central roles for women in the movies.

                              It was a CARTOON (and a funny one I think), thus a sarcastic commentary on cliches of women in the movies. I'm not sure it translates perfectly to apply to the more complex problems of how (and how much) women are being represented in film recently.

                              The idea of women characters who talk about something other than men really just refers to them as being main characters and more dimensional, rather than appearing just as passive accessories to male protagonists.

                              I love the Virginia Woolf essay (3 Guineas is even better). But it's fun to read Jane Austen's women characters talking about men, they're witty and ironic. And in sly ways Austen's dialogue about men and the marriage market is also subtextually a critique of the slave trade. Would it have been better if they had sat around reading pamphlets of the day and discussing world events, or talking about their career aspirations? Maybe the latter, those girls did need to get a job, but options were very limited then.

                              I just think the "talking about men" part of it is problematic. Great way to think about overriding story cliches and characters that foreground men and their problems, and thus how to present women in more complex and creative ways. But limited when it comes to whether a film passes or fails based on this vaguely defined aspect.

                              And I just think in general it's a bad idea to tell creators what to do. Critique, yes, bring things out in the open and open up to new kinds of stories and characters. The "test" is a great starting point for showing how too many films marginalize women. But to start approving or banning films based on this germ of an idea is weird and even worrisome; prescribing quotas for film could really backfire.

                              I think the Russo test for LGBT characters makes more sense, because it focuses more on the problem of gay characters often being relegated to colorful types, comedy relief, or just there for hostile/unfunny "jokes" about being gay.
                              Last edited by castilleja32; 05-21-2014, 12:27 PM.

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