I love this. Funny thing, studies have proved that women are bigger consumers of movies than males are.

Hollywood, who claims to boast left-wing values, is very sexist, racist, and homophobic. I've heard too many disgusting, horror stories from women and people of color talking about the rampant sexism and racism there.

I am not involved with Hollywood since I'm part of indie filmmaking outside southern California, so I cannot speak on that issue. But as for why Hollywood continues to churn out dumb, sexist, offensive movies about dumb womnen-- they do well at the box office. Why? BECAUSE WOMEN DON'T HAVE ANY OTHER OPTIONS TO SEE ANY OTHER NEW MOVIES STARRING FEMALE LEADS.

non-conventional films about intelligent women have done very well, Hollywood needs to take a f--king lesson and understands that everyone, women and men, love intelligent films with intelligent, smart, independent female characters that have nothing to do with romance, marriage, dating, or babies.

It's fine for people to analyze movies however they want to analyze them. As I'm writing, considerations like this occupy zero space in my head. I'm trying to write about characters that are real. There are women in my screenplays, and there are men. The women will talk to each other if there's a reason for them to do so.

I think a lot of this stems from the fact that most screenwriters are men and they are writing based on their own reflections or characters they identify with, which results in a male-dominated movie landscape. It is not the way it should be, for sure, but I think that's more or less what happens.

The video was very informative, although I think including romantic comedies like When Harry Met Sally is cheating a little bit. Sure, when two women talk to each other in that film it is only about men, but when two men talk to each other in that film it is only about women.

I should qualify my last statement by saying most WORKING screenwriters are men, and this is the main problem -- if Hollywood accepted and produced as many screenplays written by women as they did men, the Bechdel Test would be less of a noticeable problem. I was just trying to point out I think more of the blame lies with those choosing which projects to greenlight than the screenwriters themselves (although certainly screenwriters could be doing more by expanding the standard character relationships in their scripts).

The problem is buyers of screenplays.

I've literally had producers (who like my work and want to work with me) tell me I need to stop writing female action leads. They won't buy them.

They went on to say, if it were a horror film with a female lead, then fine. But no female leads for most genres.

The problem isn't whether or not female leads can or can't support a story (in fact, I agree with most of the people posting here -- that there is MORE of a market as most of movie going and TV audience are females) and there are great writers of female characters out there.

The problem is the buyers don't agree.

Until that changes, odds of a spec selling are always going to be in favor of a male protagonist.

I've learned this the hard way.

I completely agree that most Hollywood films don't do a good job of reflecting real women. Most women in big films are either obsessed with finding a man, or they're the femme fatale sort of character, while men get to have allll sorts of problems. I first encountered this while I was digging through screenplays looking for a monologue for my acting class.
Most of my screenplays are about female protagonists, and all have at least one important female character.
I don't think its any kind of ploy of Hollywood screenwriters not to include more female characters... but on the other hand the problem can be fixed: just think- what if my main character was a woman? or what if the protagonist's best friend was a woman? And what if they were not white?
(Minority representation is also ridiculous in Hollywood films- reduced to pathetic stereotypes and nothing more. )

Hollywood is a reflection of our sexist, racist, sizeist, just about every -ist society. Also, like stated above most of the hired workers are white, male, heterosexuals.

As an African-American female, I am actively trying to change that. Most if not all of my scripts feature female protagonists. I specify race most of the time because I know that if left in the hands of casting directors, the entire cast will be whitewashed.

However, I don't think that anything should be enforced upon the writers. How about they hire a more diverse set of screenwriters? There are excellent writers of every gender and race.

Maybe they want women to charge us for every little thing, every second of their time, every thing that they want.

Maybe the script purchasing decisions, and the film greenlight decisions reflect the marketplace. Maybe producers and studio execs have a pretty good idea what people will pay money to see, and maybe they're making their decisions based on that rather than on what some think is a proper depiction of women in film.

An interesting effect of this measure is that an actioner with more than one female character, not as rare as it used to be, will pass the test more often than a "chick flick" because there's subject matter for the female characters to deal with other than sex and romance.

TSW, one thing that this analysis can help you with is an expanded definition of "characters that are real". We accept too easily that women exist in stories as functions relating only to sex and romance, while men relate to much wider fields of action. You might run your stories through this measure just to see what happens. I bet there's room in your head.

Yet another instance in which Firefly/Serenity comes through with flying colors. :)

@Mike -- Joss Whedon is one of the notably better writers of female characters (in non-traditional roles an genres too!) And even he has a difficult time selling these to networks / studios.

Josh: I understand the intent, but I don't find the test very helpful. Maybe it's because I just don't need help in this area. :)

My soon-to-be-published mystery novel, for example, has a male lead, but also has several female characters who a) talk to each other; and b) aren't talking about men.

I have a thriller screenplay that would pass this "test." I have a "buddy love" story about two brothers on the road together, and even that would pass the test.

So, assuming there's any validity to this test, maybe I'm just not sexist. Which is good. One less thing. :)