MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:
After this year's Oscars, some are still celebrating historic victories for inclusion, as well as critiquing what and who are still missing from the silver screen. One test has become a convenient shorthand for measuring representation in movies - the Bechdel Test. The hosts of NPR's history podcast Throughline talked to the Bechdel creator about its value and its limits. Here are Rund Abdelfatah and Ramtin Arablouei.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
RUND ABDELFATAH, BYLINE: It's 1985. Cartoonist Alison Bechdel is living in New York in a shoebox-size apartment, working on her comic strip Dykes To Watch Out For.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)
ABDELFATAH: One day, she sits down and starts to draw.
ALISON BECHDEL: Two dykey-looking (ph) women, a Black woman and a white woman walking down the street together. .......
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That's our tax dollars at work.
Link: https://www.npr.org/2023/04/05/1168116147/what-is-the-bechdel-test-a-shorthand-for-measuring-representation-in-movies