The Bechdel Test

(Maybe) Fun Fact: I chose this data set from FiveThirtyEight because I majored in Media and Film Studies as an undergraduate before becoming a software engineer. This sort of information is really valuable in the study of culture and communications.

Overview

The Dollar-And-Cents Case Against Hollywood’s Exclusion of Women

Original Data and Code on Github

The article dives into the origins and limitations of the (very imperfect) Bechdel Test. Though it endures in pop culture as a generic measure of whether a movie can be considered “feminist” at a most basic level, it is much more useful in viewing overall trends and profitability in media content.

Loading the Data
all_movies <- read.csv("https://raw.githubusercontent.com/fivethirtyeight/data/master/bechdel/movies.csv")
Subsetting

To limit the number of rows, I selected only movies for the last 5 years of the data.

The following columns were selected:

  1. year
  2. title
  3. binary: the determination of whether the film passed the test; based on test and clean_test, which allowed for nuances but also indicated which of the 3 reasons the test may have failed
  4. budget_2013.: the cost to make the film, adjusted for inflation to 2013 USD
  5. domgross_2013.: the domestic box-office gross, adjusted for inflation to 2013 USD
  6. intgross_2013.: the international box-office gross, adjusted for inflation to 2013 USD
sub_movies <- all_movies[all_movies$year > 2008, c(1, 3, 6, 11:13)]
colnames(sub_movies)[3] <- 'Bechdel'
colnames(sub_movies)[4] <- 'budget'
colnames(sub_movies)[5] <- 'domestic'
colnames(sub_movies)[6] <- 'international'

A preview of the new table:

library(knitr)
kable(sub_movies[1:10,],)
year title Bechdel budget domestic international
2013 21 & Over FAIL 13000000 25682380 42195766
2012 Dredd 3D PASS 45658735 13611086 41467257
2013 12 Years a Slave FAIL 20000000 53107035 158607035
2013 2 Guns FAIL 61000000 75612460 132493015
2013 42 FAIL 40000000 95020213 95020213
2013 47 Ronin FAIL 225000000 38362475 145803842
2013 A Good Day to Die Hard FAIL 92000000 67349198 304249198
2013 About Time PASS 12000000 15323921 87324746
2013 Admission PASS 13000000 18007317 18007317
2013 After Earth FAIL 130000000 60522097 244373198

In Conclusion

Going forward, it would be valuable and interesting to have data from after 2013. Over 10 years after the Bechdel Test first entered our cultural lexicon, there have been seismic culture changes in Hollywood and the US media at large. Also, the international film scene has grown to be extremely influential and profitable; it might be interesting to include international releases. (With acknowledgment that it can be very difficult to attribute a film to specific country - would it be based on language? Filmmaker nationality? Source of funds? Etc.)