The Bechdel Test, AKA, The Mo Movie Measure
What’s the Mo Movie Measure, you ask? It’s an idea from Alison Bechdel’s brilliant comic strip, Dykes to Watch Out For. The character “Mo” (actually, not Mo - see below) explains that she only watches movies in which
1) there are at least two named female characters, who
2) talk to each other about
3) something other than a man.
It’s appalling how few movies can pass the Mo Movie Measure.
By the way, when I coined the phrase “Mo Movie Measure,” I screwed up — the character in “Dykes To Watch Out For” who says it, isn’t Mo! From Dykes To Watch Out For: The Blog:
We were excited to hear that someone still remembers this 20-year-old chestnut. But alas, the principle is misnamed. It appears in “The Rule,” a strip found on page 22 of the original DTWOF collection. Mo actually doesn’t appear in DTWOF until two years later. […] Alison would also like to add that she can’t claim credit for the actual “rule.” She stole it from a friend, Liz Wallace, whose name is on the marquee in the comic strip…
Ooops!
Also, the bit about the two female characters having to have names - which I thought had been in the original comic strip - was apparently added by me. Oops again.
That’s how these cultural ideas develop - it’s just a giant game of “telephone.”
