2015 so far, has been a year of strong women centric Bollywood films with NH10, Piku and Tanu Weds Manu Returns taking the box office by storm. Ironically, all three films fail the Bechdel Test.
What’s the Bechdel Test?
Simply put, the test is a comment on the under representation of women in popular culture. So a film would pass the test if it was to feature a scene where two women are talking to each other and their conversation doesn’t revolve around a man. That’s a pretty low standard, isn’t it?! So while the test might be a way to gauge gender inequality in films, it in no way serves as a yardstick to gauge a film’s quality. Neither does it determine that a film is ‘feminist’ or woman centric.
It started out as a bit of a joke in cartoonist-writer-activist Alison Bechdel’s comic strip called Dykes to Watch Out For in 1985. The idea behind it was to comment on the lack of significant women characters in films of the era.
The Bechdel test came back in a big way in 2013 when a few Swedish cinemas decided to launch a rating system based on the test. While some have upheld this litmus test, many others have scorned at the idea of judging a film on these parameters.
Bechdel in Bollywood
Bollywood boasts of three powerful women centric films this year- NH10, Piku and Tanu Weds Manu Returns. These were also some of the highest grossing films of the year so far. Let’s see how they fare on Bechdel’s parameters.
NH10
Anushka’s character Meera takes centre stage in the film. Besides her there are 3 female characters: Pinky, the girl who along with her boyfriend gets killed, her sister-in-law Manju and Deepti Naval’s character, who plays the Sarpanch.
These women interact minimally with each other. But their interactions don’t qualify as conversations. Hence, NH10 fails the Bechdel test.
Piku
This Deepika Padukone starrer looks at a sensitive father-daughter relationship. Besides Piku, Chobi Maashi, played compellingly by Moushmi Chatterjee and even the unnamed Kaki make for interesting characters. Sadly, the film doesn’t feature a single scene where the topic of conversation between two of these three women, is not a man. Fail!
Tanu Weds Manu Returns
The film’s two lead characters Tanu and Kusum talk to each other twice on screen. But both times, the context is a man. Their first meeting is full of mutual insults. One of the barbs Kusum uses against Tanu is that she’s failed to manage her household and can’t even produce a child. Though they don’t discuss a man implicitly, the context does imply that they’re referring to Manu, the prized catch!
Another scene is where Tanu’s friend Payal mistakes Kusum for Tanu and tells her about having become pregnant artificially. Here too, the context is the man, who must never know this reality. So, this one fails too.
They’re All Good Films. Why Should We Care About the Bechdel Test?
Well, the Bechdel test might not be such a great deal. But it does make you wonder. Why should strong, well defined women be surrounded by men, and not other women?
NH10 for instance has very little conversation, for it to be gauged by Bechdel’s parameters. Piku and Tanu Weds Manu Returns though, had a fair bit of scope to display more nuanced relationships between its female characters, but chose not to.
While you might have loved all three films, it is worth questioning whether films that are perceived to be women centric, are truly so.
(At The Quint, we are answerable only to our audience. Play an active role in shaping our journalism by becoming a member. Because the truth is worth it.)