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More on Epic Fantasy and the Bechdel Test
Jul. 29th, 2010 09:10 pmMy recent post--more of a question than a post, really--on Epic Fantasy and the Bechdel Test has by now reached over 200 comments.
I would ask myself "Why? Why should such a question--does epic fantasy pass the Bechdel Test?--attract so much comment?" Except I am not surprised.
For me, the Bechdel Test is not a way to declare that specific works Pass or Fail. It's not a way to draw down opprobrium onto specific individuals or certain works as opposed to others. A book or film can fail the Bechdel Test and still be good. As a number of the commentators pointed out in the (lengthy and really quite fascinating) threaded conversation, it is not a measure so much of individual works as a way to look at how our society--or at least how certain popular creative elements within our society--elide, vanish, disappear, ignore, and devalue the existence of women. Not just women, of course. This is a huge inter-sectional issue.
Set a story in that all male monastic community on the tip of that peninsula in Greece, and I would believe in the absence of women in the localized geographical sense.
Is there something intrinsic to the definition of epic fantasy that means women don't belong or are not "within the purview" of such a story? Because epic fantasy is generally defined as a vast canvas dealing with the struggles of empires or polities, or as a story focusing on war or a quest across country or a tale of thrilling adventure.
Empires and polities are made up of all kinds of people, of whom, in general, about half are female. They are not absent, whatever theoretical "roles" they may (or may not) be relegated to. Recent history books like Servants of the Dynasty: Palace Women in World History edited by Anne Walthall open up all kinds of interesting possibilities all too often ignored or rationalized into non existence. Women usually did more than is often recognized in what I call the generic understanding of history.
And of course women of the laboring and impoverished classes, like men of the same, all too often have little or no historical record available to illuminate their lives (although even so, you can find things if you look). Yet no empire would function without them.
As for war being a man's business in ancient days, war has never kindly sidestepped women, children, the elderly, the helpless, the vulnerable, the farmer, the person just trying to live his or her life in peace.
These are just two examples of why I am bothered when epic fantasy--the sub-genre I perhaps love most of all--does not pass the Bechdel Test.
I would ask myself "Why? Why should such a question--does epic fantasy pass the Bechdel Test?--attract so much comment?" Except I am not surprised.
For me, the Bechdel Test is not a way to declare that specific works Pass or Fail. It's not a way to draw down opprobrium onto specific individuals or certain works as opposed to others. A book or film can fail the Bechdel Test and still be good. As a number of the commentators pointed out in the (lengthy and really quite fascinating) threaded conversation, it is not a measure so much of individual works as a way to look at how our society--or at least how certain popular creative elements within our society--elide, vanish, disappear, ignore, and devalue the existence of women. Not just women, of course. This is a huge inter-sectional issue.
Set a story in that all male monastic community on the tip of that peninsula in Greece, and I would believe in the absence of women in the localized geographical sense.
Is there something intrinsic to the definition of epic fantasy that means women don't belong or are not "within the purview" of such a story? Because epic fantasy is generally defined as a vast canvas dealing with the struggles of empires or polities, or as a story focusing on war or a quest across country or a tale of thrilling adventure.
Empires and polities are made up of all kinds of people, of whom, in general, about half are female. They are not absent, whatever theoretical "roles" they may (or may not) be relegated to. Recent history books like Servants of the Dynasty: Palace Women in World History edited by Anne Walthall open up all kinds of interesting possibilities all too often ignored or rationalized into non existence. Women usually did more than is often recognized in what I call the generic understanding of history.
And of course women of the laboring and impoverished classes, like men of the same, all too often have little or no historical record available to illuminate their lives (although even so, you can find things if you look). Yet no empire would function without them.
As for war being a man's business in ancient days, war has never kindly sidestepped women, children, the elderly, the helpless, the vulnerable, the farmer, the person just trying to live his or her life in peace.
These are just two examples of why I am bothered when epic fantasy--the sub-genre I perhaps love most of all--does not pass the Bechdel Test.
