When I was thinking about this, I was mostly focused on rule 3 which involves dialogue other than men, so I hadn't considered 1 and 2 in particular depth of thought and so I think I can now see where your dragon age example's line of thought might come from.
I wonder if it's a requirement for there to have a male character to be more than mentioned in the story for the Bechdel test to work, or if any at all. It would be conceivable to have an all-female villain gang in Kirkwall running amok in the darkness of Lowtown with all kinds of reasons to have formed, the most easiest being enthralled under a demon, as well as having Aveline leading an all female guard because they just happened to be on hand. However, when one thinks of a petty criminal, the shorthand version is usually male because that's what we usually see in any media that has a crime to report. Do we see a male criminal being more realistic because it's more acceptable to our views of what we think of criminals, even when in the universe of Dragon Age a female criminal can be just as realistic and possible as a male one? Is it even more unrealistic to have an all female guard unit assembled even under possible circumstances leading to it? Would this make an almost too easy a pass for the Bechdel test?
I also wonder if it's an automatic fail of the test if the conversation started about a man, but would lead to a different tangent that wouldn't even be about the man at all. Like, if two ladies talked about how cute a guy is, it might lead to dating preferences and then somehow they're talking about food and movies and then cats. And then deep voices. And then when they're swooning over how sexy that guy's accent is, they might then talk about how awesome France is and then Louvre.
And that's my conversation line for the day. So how about that Louvre? 8) Can people BE any more fooled by Dan Brown?
no subject
I wonder if it's a requirement for there to have a male character to be more than mentioned in the story for the Bechdel test to work, or if any at all. It would be conceivable to have an all-female villain gang in Kirkwall running amok in the darkness of Lowtown with all kinds of reasons to have formed, the most easiest being enthralled under a demon, as well as having Aveline leading an all female guard because they just happened to be on hand. However, when one thinks of a petty criminal, the shorthand version is usually male because that's what we usually see in any media that has a crime to report. Do we see a male criminal being more realistic because it's more acceptable to our views of what we think of criminals, even when in the universe of Dragon Age a female criminal can be just as realistic and possible as a male one? Is it even more unrealistic to have an all female guard unit assembled even under possible circumstances leading to it? Would this make an almost too easy a pass for the Bechdel test?
I also wonder if it's an automatic fail of the test if the conversation started about a man, but would lead to a different tangent that wouldn't even be about the man at all. Like, if two ladies talked about how cute a guy is, it might lead to dating preferences and then somehow they're talking about food and movies and then cats. And then deep voices. And then when they're swooning over how sexy that guy's accent is, they might then talk about how awesome France is and then Louvre.
And that's my conversation line for the day. So how about that Louvre? 8) Can people BE any more fooled by Dan Brown?