Failing the Bechdel Test

In 1985 my cartoonist idol, Alison Bechdel, drew the strip above. The concept that for a feminist to watch a movie it should have at least 2 women characters that talk to each other about something other than a man has become known as the Bechdel Test. Bechdel writes about it in her blog, here.

I've known about the Bechdel Test for a while, avid follower of Dykes to Watch Out For that I am. However, I didn't realise that Bechdel was influenced by Virginia Woolf. She notes that in chapter 5 of A Room of One's Own, Woolf talks about the comment "Chloe liked Olivia" in a fictitious book. I've just discovered that of the 6 Virginia Woolf books I can find on my shelves, none of them is A Room of One's Own, so I will quote Bechdel's selection from her copy of that text:

"All these relationships between women, I thought, rapidly recalling the splendid gallery of fictitious women, are too simple. So much has been left out, unattempted. 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 …

Suppose, for instance, that men were only represented in literature as the lovers of women, and were never the friends of men, soldiers, thinkers, dreamers; how few parts in the plays of Shakespeare could be allotted to them:  how literature would suffer!"

Meanwhile, I think that "12 Years a Slave" fails the Bechdel Test magnificently.

The Nose (The Hours)

The movie "The Hours" is on tv at the moment. I am trying, again, to watch what is supposed to be a wonderful film. Nicole Kidman got an Oscar for her portrayal of Virginia Woolf in this movie. But whenever she is onscreen, all I can do is try and see if I can recognise Nicole behind the prosthetic nose and the prosthetic accent. Mostly the nose, though. And then I see Julianne Moore and how small her nose is. And then Miranda Richardson appears and her nose is even tinier. I guess it's easier to obsess about the nose rather than think about how sad they all are.

Back to the nose ...

Angelica Garnett R.I.P.

Creativity and decadence are lovely to live vicariously, but the life of Angelica Garnett sounds utterly dreadful. Her obituary in the Telegraph is introduced thus:


"Angelica Garnett, the artist and writer, who has died aged 93, was the daughter of Vanessa Bell and niece of Virginia Woolf, and within the Bloomsbury soap opera of high art and serial bed-hopping had the misfortune to be given one of the most gripping storylines."


Read it for yourself right here.