Fails the Bechdel test

Pineapple Express

Name: Pineapple Express
Released: 2008

2008. Directed by David Gordon Green, written by Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg and Judd Apatow.

The Bechdel test

Bechdel score

2 / 3

Fails

Yes 1. At least two women
8 women characters. 5 of them speak.
Yes 2. Who talk to each other
Women do talk to each other.
No 3. About something besides a man
Every conversation between women that our parser found mentions a man.

Second opinion

Agree bechdeltest.com readers give it 2 out of 3.

The film

Lazy court-process clerk and stoner Dale Denton has only one reason to visit his equally lazy dealer Saul Silver: to purchase weed, specifically, a rare new strain called Pineapple Express. But when Dale becomes the only witness to a murder by a crooked cop and the city's most dangerous drug lord, he panics and dumps his roach of Pineapple Express at the scene. Dale now has another reason to visit Saul: to find out if the weed is so rare that it can be traced back to him--and it is. As Dale and Saul run for their lives, they quickly discover that they're not suffering from weed-fueled paranoia: incredibly, the bad guys really are hot on their trail and trying to figure out the fastest way to kill them both. All aboard the Pineapple Express.

Released: 06 Aug 2008
Genres: Action, Comedy, Crime
Rated: R
IMDb: 6.9 / 10
Metascore: 64 / 100
Awards: 2 wins & 15 nominations total
Elsewhere: View on IMDb

Starring, by lines spoken

Women
Men
Not in the cast list
Bigger name, more lines

Dale 348 lines, man
Saul 324 lines, man
Red 73 lines, man
Angie 33 lines, woman
Matheson 23 lines, man
Budlofsky 21 lines, man
Ted 21 lines, man
Carol 18 lines, woman
Police Liaison 11 lines, woman
Robert 10 lines, man

Full cast, 42 people

Seth Rogen as Dale Denton
James Franco as Saul Silver
Gary Cole as Ted
Danny McBride as Red
Rosie Perez as Carol
Kevin Corrigan as Budlofsky
Craig Robinson as Matheson
Amber Heard as Angie Anderson
Ed Begley Jr. as Robert
Nora Dunn as Shannon
Bobby Lee as Bobby
James Remar as General Bratt
Joe Lo Truglio as Mr. Edwards
Art Napiontek as Clark
Cleo King as Police Liaison Officer
Bill Hader as Private Miller
Jonathan Spencer as Scientist
Dana Lee as Cheung
Ken Jeong as Ken
David C. Cook as Chris Gebert
Howard S. Lefstein as Mark
Connie Sawyer as Faye Belogus
David McDivitt as Cop with Mole
Mae LaBorde as Mrs. Mendelson
Kendall Carly Browne as Old Woman
George Lew as Old Man
John Robert Tramutola as Walt
Adam Crosby as Ack
Andrew Heald as Blake
Jeannetta Arnette as Sandra Danby
Carlos Aleman as Guy in Car
Omar Leyva as Guy in Car #2
Sam Carson as Xerox Secretary
Jack Kehler as Walter - Accountant
Robert Longstreet as Dr. Terrence
Peter Gray Lewis as Thug #1 - Peter
Steve Bannos as Thug #2 - Jared
Eddie Rouse as Thug #5 - Lance
Mark Whigham as Thug #3
Brian Scannell as Thug
Troy Gentile as Troy (uncredited)
Jourdan Lee as Assassin (uncredited)

Who talks, scene by scene

Lines of dialogue in every 2 scenes, start to finish. Women above the line, men below. 3% of lines come from characters we couldn't match to the cast list and aren't shown.

Women

Men

Scene 1 Scene 96

Hover, tap or tab to a bar to see those scenes: where they happen and who's talking.

Show the numbers

Scenes	Women's lines	Men's lines
1 to 2	0	0
3 to 4	0	12
5 to 6	3	3
7 to 8	0	8
9 to 10	0	2
11 to 12	0	3
13 to 14	0	4
15 to 16	3	2
17 to 18	8	14
19 to 20	0	66
21 to 22	0	73
23 to 24	0	16
25 to 26	0	40
27 to 28	0	90
29 to 30	0	47
31 to 32	0	9
33 to 34	0	62
35 to 36	2	14
37 to 38	1	3
39 to 40	0	5
41 to 42	7	13
43 to 44	8	12
45 to 46	4	12
47 to 48	0	5
49 to 50	8	16
51 to 52	0	34
53 to 54	0	4
55 to 56	6	30
57 to 58	4	7
59 to 60	2	23
61 to 62	0	10
63 to 64	0	3
65 to 66	6	27
67 to 68	3	3
69 to 70	0	1
71 to 72	3	10
73 to 74	0	12
75 to 76	0	15
77 to 78	0	20
79 to 80	2	17
81 to 82	0	10
83 to 84	0	16
85 to 86	4	25
87 to 88	0	3
89 to 90	1	5
91 to 92	1	10
93 to 94	1	0
95 to 96	0	50

The evidence

Straight from the script
Counted from the script and the credits

Tap an exhibit to open it.

Exhibit A: every 100 lines

Out of every 100 lines with a known speaker, 8 are women's.

77 lines from women, 866 from men.

Women
Men

Exhibit B: who's in it

8 women and 30 men in the cast. 5 women and 23 men from it get lines.

Characters

With lines

Women
Men

Exhibit C: who gets heard

The first woman speaks at line 21 of 970. The longest stretch with no woman speaking runs 419 lines.

Every line of dialogue, first to last

First line by a woman
Longest stretch with no woman speaking

Words spoken

Women speak 7% of the words (721), men 93% (9,051). Women have 8% of the lines, so their lines run shorter than men's.

Exhibit D: the test the other way

Two named men talk to each other about something besides a woman. It passes the reverse test.

Conversations between two named characters

Two women

Two men

Exhibit E: behind the camera

2 of the 16 people in these jobs are women. Across the whole crew, 22% of the people whose gender is listed are women.

Directed by: David Gordon Green (man)
Written by: Seth Rogen (man), Evan Goldberg (man)
Story by: Judd Apatow (man), Seth Rogen (man), Evan Goldberg (man)
Produced by: Judd Apatow (man), Shauna Robertson (woman)
Shot by: Tim Orr (man)
Edited by: Craig Alpert (man)
Music by: Graeme Revell (man)
Production design by: Chris L. Spellman (man)
Costumes by: John Dunn (man)
Cast by: Kerry Barden (man), Billy Hopkins (man), Suzanne Smith Crowley (woman)