The depiction of women in film and TV was examined by feminist movements in the 1960's. How are women depicted in contemporary films? Which forms of identification do film and TV offer for gender roles? How can we deal with misogynous tendencies? [1]

The Bechdel test investigates among other things whether women are depicted as complex individuals or living clichés. This non-scientific test was developed by cartoonist Alison Bechdel in 1985 and consists of three questions, which don't assess filmic quality but the status of female roles in motion pictures of different genres. [2] [3]

1. Is there more than one woman in the film and do they have a name?
2. Do the women talk to each other?
3. Do the women talk about something else than men?

Too many big Blockbuster films of the last decades fail the Bechdel test. The "Lord of the Rings" trilogy by Peter Jackson received several Oscars and offers over ten hours of film material but there is not one single conversation among women. The highly praised 3D film "Avatar" by James Cameron impresses with differing female and male characters but the only conversation between two women is about a man. The heroic epic "Star Wars" (episodes 4 to 6) by George Lucas shows three women who never talk to each other. Even the last part of the "Harry Potter" movies fails the test because there is no place for a conversation between women during the two-hour battle between good and evil. [2] [4]

However, there are also alternatives in film and TV where women play well-conceived characters and take an active part in the events. Blockbusters like "Hunger Games", "Black Swan", "The Fabulous Destiny of Amélie Poulain" and "Divergent" pass the Bechdel test without difficulties and show that women can also represent impressive heroines on the screen. The mothers, nuns and girls in the films of the Spanish director, producer and screenwriter Pedro Almodóvar are powerful and humorous women who are both open-minded in order to survive in a big city and care for themselves. Quentin Tarantino is another director and screenwriter who consciously uses various clichés and stereotypes which are destroyed and/or satirized in later sequences of his films. In the end, constructed expectations remain unfulfilled. [5] [6] [7]

The German director, producer, actor and author Rainer Werner Fassbinder also created great female parts who played the main roles as heroines or other meaningful roles. They faced their destinies and became symbols for the early German Federal Republic. [8]

An analysis of 6184 films showed that around half of them (57%) passed the Bechdel test and counting. 10% of all films pass the second and third question, another 21% one out of three. Only 10% don't pass any of the three questions even if films with positive test results achieve good box office hits. However, the directors are still mainly male. In 2012, the share of female directors of the 100 most successful films was 4.1%. [5] [9]

Another way to deal with sexism in film and TV is to present a playful counter statement like in the shocking but amusing short film "Majorité Opprimée" by the French director Éléonore Pourriat. In her film the ruling role models are converted from men to women. The main character Pierre cycles through town while listening to offensive comments, is exposed to sexual violence by women and is not taken seriously by a police woman. His wife comments the testimony with the following sentence: "You and your masculine nonsense". Pourriat demonstrates daily sexism and enables people who normally don't suffer from it to experience sexism. A fun fact is that the short film with English subtitles is labelled as "possibly inappropriate for some users" by youtube. [10]