Case study: the 2015 Oscar films
5 of the 13 films we could test pass. Only 2 of the 7 Best Picture nominees do.
The scores
- A rule the film meets
- A rule it misses
| Film | Score | Verdict |
|---|---|---|
| Boyhood | 3 of 3 | Passes |
| Gone Girl | 3 of 3 | Passes |
| The Imitation Game | 3 of 3 | Passes |
| Into the Woods | 3 of 3 | Passes |
| Wild | 3 of 3 | Passes |
| American Sniper | 2 of 3 | Fails |
| Birdman | 1 of 3 | Fails |
| Foxcatcher | 1 of 3 | Fails |
| The Grand Budapest Hotel | 1 of 3 | Fails |
| Still Alice | 1 of 3 | Fails |
| The Theory of Everything | 1 of 3 | Fails |
| The Judge | 1 of 3 | Fails |
| Whiplash | 1 of 3 | Fails |
What we found
The Bechdel test, popularized by cartoonist Alison Bechdel, asks whether a film has a scene with two women talking to each other about something other than a man. It's often used to show the sexism in the film industry, because so many films fail such a low bar. Feminism is far more accepted than it used to be, but men still hold most speaking roles on screen, and most of the directing and writing jobs behind it.
To see where the industry stands, we tested 13 films nominated at the 87th Academy Awards (February 22, 2015) for Best Picture, Best Actor, Best Actress, Best Supporting Actor and Best Supporting Actress.
- 5 of the 13 films pass, about 38%.
- Only 2 of the 7 Best Picture nominees we tested pass, about 29%.
- Every Best Picture nominee has a man in the lead.
- Half the films with a Best Actress nominee pass, against 1 in 5 films with a Best Actor nominee.
Best Picture is the best overview of the year's acclaimed films, because it isn't tied to the gender of the lead the way Best Actor and Best Actress are. When the Academy is free to pick the best films of the year, its picks are about men.
Only one film with a Best Actress nominee was also up for Best Picture: The Theory of Everything. Four films with a Best Actor nominee were: The Theory of Everything, American Sniper, The Imitation Game and Birdman. When every Best Picture nominee is led by a man, the Academy has to look outside that list to find lead actresses.
The same imbalance holds for the supporting roles. 1 in 5 films with a Best Supporting Actor nominee pass, against 3 in 5 with a Best Supporting Actress nominee. When a story is about men, women rarely share a scene.
When most of a year's most acclaimed films fail the test, the problem runs through the whole industry. Lead roles go to men far more often, and few women write or direct Oscar-nominated films. To get better roles for women, women need to be making the films.
How we tested
Two nominees are missing. The script for Selma, a Best Picture nominee, wasn't publicly available. Two Days, One Night, with Best Actress nominee Marion Cotillard, is in French, and its script was only available in French, which our parser can't read.