Do We Pass The Test?

Alison Bechdel has done what no feminist film theorist ever managed to do – radically impact pop culture. The American inspired the Bechdel Test for gender bias that is now routinely applied to all movies, actually spawning its own online database. The irony is that Bechdel, a countercultural cartoonist and graphic artist, had little to do with it. The Bechdel Test originated as an acerbic joke made by a character in her cult comic strip Dykes To Watch Out For – back in 1985. However, “The Rule”, which Bechdel based on a friend's observation, has gained cultural currency in later years. “I meet a lot of young people – [and] that's the only way they know me, from the Bechdel Test,” Bechdel admits. “They don't know that I was even a cartoonist.”

Bechdel continues to be astounded at how the Bechdel Test has been appropriated. “It's very odd, especially recently when a series of movie houses in Sweden adopted it as an official measure – like, they're using it to judge the movies that they'll show and they'll tell you whether a film passes the Bechdel Test or not. That generated a lot of flap in the media.” Bechdel appreciates that the indicator has its limitations. A film can meet the criteria but still be sexist. “If all you watched were movies that passed the test, you would miss a huge floss of the culture,” she laughs. “It was like a joke; it was never meant to be a serious metric, but I do like the simplicity of it. It's a very easy gauge to tell whether a movie really takes this woman character seriously or not.”

Bechdel is heading to the Antipodes for the first time, primarily to guest at the Adelaide Festival 2014 during Writers' Week. She confesses to having minimal knowledge of current debates in Australia about women or even gay marriage – “Although,” Bechdel quips, “I do follow Julia Gillard on Twitter!”

In the bio on her website (dykestowatchoutfor.com), Bechdel is described as one who has “skulked on the cultural margins”. These days that same skulker is widely recognised in the mainstream – and not just because of the Bechdel Test. Bechdel has attracted serious literary – and academic – attention to graphic art, while deploying the medium to explore themes of sexual and gender identity. Bechdel, 53, grew up in rural Pennsylvania, her parents Catholic. Her teacher father eventually took over the family business – a funeral home. Bechdel came out at 19 – and moved to New York. Though she was knocked back by art schools, Bechdel drew while holding down office jobs, Dykes To Watch Out For virtually starting as an doodle in a letter to a pal. Someone recommended she submit her drawings to a feminist newspaper – and Bechdel published her first work in 1983. She'd develop her long-running, and heavily syndicated, DTWOF. The strips have since been reproduced in book form. Bechdel was able to illustrate full-time from 1990.

Over several years Bechdel plotted her debut graphic memoir, Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic, about her closeted gay dad and her own lesbianism. It was not only critically-acclaimed but also made The New York Times Best Seller lists. Time named it 2006's 'Best Book'. In 2012 Bechdel followed with (the more overtly feminist) Are You My Mother?: A Comic Drama, examining the ways in which marriage and parenthood curtailed her mother's career aspirations. Inevitably in the conservative US, there have been bids to ban particularly Fun Home in libraries. Yet Bechdel is taken aback by how her creations have caught on – and resonated. “I am very surprised – I still haven't quite adjusted to all of this.” Lately, Fun Home was adapted into a successful musical, performed Off-Broadway. “It was an amazing production. I am just in awe of what happened with that play. I wasn't officially involved, I didn't have any official input, but the writer [Lisa Kron] and the composer [Jeanine Tesori, whose credits include, awesomely, Shrek The Musical] both talked to me as they worked on it.” A film version remains a possibility. “There have been a couple of filmmakers interested, but no one with the money to do it.”

Nowadays Bechdel lives in tiny Bolton, Vermont – far from the madding crowd. It's an ideal place to create. “It is so lovely here today – it's the dead of winter, of course, and I was just out skiing. I can put skis on right outside of my basement door and go off skiing in the woods. So that's part of why I live here. I like being in nature – I like that solitude and it helps me to concentrate. I don't know how people live in cities and get any work done at all.” Bechdel divulges that, residing in off-beat New England, she doesn't see many films.

Unwittingly, because of the Bechdel Test, Bechdel now finds herself a mouthpiece for feminism, which is experiencing a resurgence in the US, UK and here. In 2014 Beyoncé, who at one point expressed ambivalence towards the word 'feminist' (she suggested it can be “extreme”), bows down to it. Meanwhile, teen newcomer Lorde has openly declared herself one such pure heroine. Bechdel is philosophical about feminist cycles. “It seems always to be sort of ebbing and flowing as different generations, or half generations, have to resist and push off against one another. If one generation is feminist, the other one has to renounce it somehow – even though I really believe it's just a semantic thing. All of these young women believe in equality for women. I don't know why there's a problem with the word, but it's just a way that generations have to interact with a kind of friction.” This generational discord was especially apparent last year as Miley Cyrus' twerking became, bizarrely, a feminist issue. Cyrus maintains that her provocative sexual manoeuvres are empowering, not demeaning, to the ire of seasoned pop stars like Sinead O'Connor – some blurred lines. Bechdel reckons that an O'Connor might be warier of patronising a younger woman by telling her what she's doing. “I think we should trust the people who are speaking,” she says. “Let's accept what Miley Cyrus says on face value… I think we should give [young women] the benefit of the doubt.”

Bechdel was the recipient of a 2012 Guggenheim Fellowship, which she believes “legitimised” her work. “I don't know how I really feel about that; it's in a way a kind of elitist institution – but it's been really great.” It's an important acknowledgement, too, of graphic art. Nonetheless, she hasn't released a major project since Are You My Mother?. One is in the pipeline. “I'm working on a book about exercise and fitness,” Bechdel reveals. “I guess I wanted to do something fun and light after these sort of difficult, painful family stories. So I'm writing a book – it's a memoir, an autobiographical book – about my own relationship to exercise and different physical activities, but also a history of fitness culture and how we are always following all these latest trends.” Has she been watching old Jane Fonda videos, then? “I've watched some, yes!”

Adelaide: Dykes To Watch Out For (2 Mar, Adelaide Festival Centre) and Who Am I ? (3 Mar, East Stage) part of Adelaide Festival, Adelaide Writers Week.
Melbourne: Alison Bechdel (5 Mar, The Athenaeum)
Sydney: All About Women - Drawn From Life; In The Time Of Comics (30 Mar, Sydney Opera House)