Ever heard of the "Bechdel Test?" If you haven't, you've definitely seen its effects in modern cinema. You can see the entertainment industry's adherence to it whenever you see a film where the women seem a little too hollow while being a little too perfect or powerful, which sadly has become almost all of cinema lately. 

The "Bechdel Test" was created by Alison Bechdel, an American cartoonist known for the creation of comic strips you've likely never read and the inspiration for a musical you've never heard of. In 1985, in her comic strip "Dykes to Watch Out For," she drew a strip featuring a conversation between two butch women discussing the criteria a movie must meet in order for it to be worth seeing. 

The criteria that must be met is that two women in the film must be seen conversing with each other about something other than a man, often these two female characters must be named. 

Original Bechdel Test comic, via @bleedingcool, who is talking abt @RickandMorty. Great stuff. https://t.co/NVFWh9Eokj pic.twitter.com/Jx8FGBmtZp

— Nick Gillespie (@nickgillespie) May 8, 2020

Hollywood takes this test very seriously. Hilariously, Bechdel doesn't. 

"It was a joke," she said in an interview with The Guardian. "I didn’t ever intend for it to be the real gauge it has become and it’s hard to keep talking about it over and over, but it’s kind of cool."

Despite the fact that she thinks her little joke has become so huge, she doesn't like what Hollywood has done with it. 

"What’s really dismaying now is the way so many movies cynically try to take shortcuts and feature strong female characters – but they just have a veneer of strength and they’re still not fully developed characters," Bechdel said. 

She's not wrong. 

The "strong female" trope in Hollywood has gotten incredibly tired to the point where it's made movies too predictable. It often starts with a female character who is perfect, goes through no character growth throughout the film, and ends with being more perfect than when she began in the movie. Her only flaw, if you could call it that, is that she didn't realize how perfect she was from the start. Solid examples of this are Captain Marvel, Rey from the Star Wars sequels, and the live-action Mulan, all Disney creations. 

Bechdel mentioned "shortcuts" that make a female character seem more powerful than she is, and I can safely assume she means the degradation and weakening of male characters in order to make the female character look stronger by comparison. 

As I wrote previously about this very subject, this creates some of the most hollow characters that, as Bechdel said, "just have a veneer of strength" while not actually being developed: 

From start to finish they are finished characters that lack believability. These women don’t act like women, they act like robots with very little allowance for actual human emotions with the exception of righteous anger. They practically aren’t allowed tenderness or warmth, especially toward the opposite sex, and rest assured, if there is a relationship you can bet that she’s better than him at everything and he is highly deferential to her. And you can forget maternal values as there is no greater sin than a child distracting the woman from her ultimate potential.

(READ: I'm So Over the 'Powerful Female' Trope in Media)

As Bounding Into Comics noted on this subject, various actresses in Hollywood have also become annoyed with this shallow approach to women, including Emma Thompson and Emily Blunt, the latter of which put it well: 

Bechdel’s criticism echoes what a number of top female actors have said in recent years. Back in November 2022, Emily Blunt shared with The Telegraph, “It’s the worst thing ever when you open a script and read the words ‘strong female lead.’ That makes me roll my eyes. I’m already out. I’m bored.”

She added, “Those roles are written as incredibly stoic, you spend the whole time acting tough and saying tough things.”

If even the creator of the most vaunted test in Hollywood didn't mean for her own test to be taken this seriously, then perhaps Hollywood should walk their own enthusiasm for it back a bit. 

But that would require leaving their ideological bubble, and that's a tall order.