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Passes the Bechdel test

Sugar & Spice

2001. Directed by Francine McDougall, written by Mandy Nelson.

The Bechdel test

Bechdel score

3 / 3

Passes

  1. Yes 1. At least two women
    13 women characters. 13 of them speak.
  2. Yes 2. Who talk to each other
    In 19 scenes out of 144.
  3. Yes 3. About something besides a man
    In those scenes, our script parser found no man named. See the scene.

Second opinion

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

Poster for Sugar & Spice

The film

Jack and Diane were lovers, two crazy kids living in the heartlands. Airheaded Diane captains the cheerleading squad, who follow her through whatever she does. Jack is, of course, the football team's star quarterback. When Diane becomes pregnant, the two are thrown out of their homes and move into an apartment where they try to live on Jack's part-time salary from clerking at a video store. Meanwhile both continue in school - cheerleading and quarterbacking. When Diane realizes that they're not making it financially, she recruits the other cheerleaders to help her rob a bank. Their cheerleader oath of all for one commits them to helping her. A local hood gives them guns in exchange for their promise to put his homely daughter on the cheerleading squad.

Released
26 Jan 2001
Genres
Comedy, Crime
Rated
PG-13
IMDb
5.8 / 10
Metascore
48 / 100
Elsewhere
View on IMDb

Starring, by lines spoken

  • Women
  • Men
  • Not in the cast list
  • Bigger name, more lines
  1. Diane 124 lines, woman
  2. Kansas 82 lines, woman
  3. Lisa 78 lines, woman
  4. Jack 55 lines, man
  5. Lucy 35 lines, woman
  6. Cleo 34 lines, woman
  7. Hannah 28 lines, woman
  8. Hank 14 lines, man
  9. Mrs. Hill 13 lines, woman
  10. Photo 9 lines, woman
Full cast, 45 people
  • Marley Shelton as Diane Weston
  • Marla Sokoloff as Lisa Janusch
  • Melissa George as Cleo Miller
  • Mena Suvari as Kansas Hill
  • Rachel Blanchard as Hannah Wald
  • Alexandra Holden as Fern Rogers
  • Sara Marsh as Lucy Whitman
  • James Marsden as Jack Bartlett
  • Sean Young as Mrs. Hill
  • W. Earl Brown as Hank 'Terminator' Rogers
  • Adam Busch as Geeky Guy
  • Jake Hoffman as Ted
  • Nate Maher as Chris
  • David Belenky as Bruce
  • Kevin Kling as Factory Worker
  • Dave Quimby as Apartment Manager
  • Jacy King as Food Valley Cashier
  • Wiley Harker as Principal Smith
  • Stevie Ray Rentfrow as Mr. Dennis Weston
  • Kirsten Frantzich as Mrs. DeeDee Weston
  • Christopher Denton as Mr. Ed Bartlett
  • Jan Puffer as Mrs. Edna Bartlett
  • Claudia Wilkens as Kansas' Grandmother
  • Jeff Hopkins as Police Officer
  • Kevin Joseph Klein as FBI Agent
  • Jeremy Kent Jackson as Football Player #1
  • Jamison Haase as Football Player #2
  • Jessie Schoen as Butch Girl
  • Susan Fuller as Bank Loan Officer
  • Andy Hubbell as Husband
  • Katie Kelly as Nurse
  • Ann Kellog as Mink
  • Isabell O'Connor as Inmate #1
  • Miriam Must as Itchy, Inmate #2
  • Jennifer Snell as Inmate #3
  • Andrea Guilford as Lamaze Instructor
  • Bonnie Benjamin-Olson as Lunch Lady
  • Matt Guidry as Male Reporter
  • Laura Fries as Average Girl
  • Cassie Fox as Another Average Girl
  • Kurt Loder as Self
  • Jerry Springer as Self
  • Eric Karros as Eric Karros (uncredited)
  • Joel Thingvall as Video Update Manager (uncredited)
  • Larissa Lowthorp as Belinda

Who talks, scene by scene

Lines of dialogue in every 3 scenes, start to finish. Women above the line, men below. 11% of lines come from characters we couldn't match to the cast list and aren't shown.

Women

Men

Scene 1 Scene 144

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

Show the numbers
ScenesWomen's linesMen's lines
1 to 321
4 to 670
7 to 9161
10 to 1280
13 to 15302
16 to 18111
19 to 2157
22 to 2420
25 to 2710
28 to 3094
31 to 33185
34 to 3695
37 to 3912
40 to 4203
43 to 4508
46 to 48712
49 to 5101
52 to 5411
55 to 5702
58 to 6050
61 to 6314
64 to 6670
67 to 69242
70 to 72330
73 to 7574
76 to 78471
79 to 81152
82 to 8400
85 to 872514
88 to 90142
91 to 9350
94 to 96310
97 to 9900
100 to 10201
103 to 105174
106 to 108275
109 to 11131
112 to 11451
115 to 11700
118 to 12000
121 to 12390
124 to 12650
127 to 12960
130 to 13240
133 to 13590
136 to 13870
139 to 14180
142 to 14430

The evidence

  • Straight from the script
  • Counted from the script and the credits

Tap an exhibit to open it.

Exhibit A: the passing scenes

The scene our parser counted as passing, word for word.
LISA: She's like a goddamn poster child for high school. DIANE: Morning, sunshine. Remember, these are the best days of your life. DIANE: -- so far! LISA: If I wasn't such a lady, I'd tell you what a bitch she really is.
LISA: Outta my way, fag. I'm up. LISA: This really should have been my year. I had a lotta work done - I-I mean, y'know, I'd done a lotta work over the summer. DIANE: Lisa?... Is-is that you? LISA: I lost a little weight.
LISA: She got life without parole, so Kansas lives with her grandparents. LISA: Then there's Lucy... LISA: Geek extraordinaire - a walking left brain. She's supposed to have this genius I.Q.? LISA: Truth is, she's an obsessive-compulsive little freak.
HANNAH: I-I didn't mean to say "whore," Diane. I just hear it so much at church - it kinda came flying out of my head. DIANE: I know, Hannah. Look, I'm not going to get an abortion. I mean, I always planned to get married and have kids - I'm just going a little out … DIANE: Madonna. KANSAS: We're here for you, Diane.
LUCY: Oh my G-d, you've been robbed! DIANE: No...I've been pregnant. CLEO: Di, are you okay? We can skip the girl party this week. DIANE: Everything's fine. I'm just having a little trouble keeping my frown upside down.

Exhibit B: every 100 lines

Out of every 100 lines with a known speaker, 80 are women's.

434 lines from women, 106 from men.

  • Women
  • Men

Exhibit C: who's in it

13 women and 11 men in the cast. 13 women and 10 men from it get lines.

Characters

With lines

  • Women
  • Men

Exhibit D: who gets heard

The first woman speaks at line 4 of 605. The longest stretch with no woman speaking runs 16 lines.

Every line of dialogue, first to last

  • First line by a woman
  • Longest stretch with no woman speaking

Words spoken

Women speak 79% of the words (5,285), men 21% (1,410). Women have 80% of the lines, so their lines run shorter than men's.

Exhibit E: the test the other way

Run the other way, for men, the film scores 1 out of 3.

Conversations between two named characters

Exhibit F: behind the camera

7 of the 10 people in these jobs are women. Across the whole crew, 39% of the people whose gender is listed are women.

Directed by
Francine McDougall (woman)
Written by
Lona Williams (woman)
Produced by
Wendy Finerman (woman)
Shot by
Robert Brinkmann (man)
Edited by
Sloane Klevin (woman)
Music by
Mark Mothersbaugh (man)
Production design by
Jeff Knipp (man)
Costumes by
Wendy Chuck (woman)
Cast by
Jeanne McCarthy (woman), Juel Bestrop (woman)

The crew, department by department

  • Sound

    1 women, 18 men, 8 not listed

  • Production

    7 women, 5 men, 7 not listed

  • Other crew

    3 women, 4 men, 6 not listed

  • Costume & Make-Up

    5 women, 0 men, 7 not listed

  • Art

    3 women, 3 men, 3 not listed

  • Camera

    0 women, 5 men, 1 not listed

  • Directing

    3 women, 1 men

  • Editing

    1 women, 1 men, 1 not listed

  • Women
  • Men
  • Gender not listed on TMDB

Exhibit G: how old the stars were

Women: 26 on average. Men: 32 on average. The top-billed cast, at the film's release.

Women

Marla Sokoloff 20, Mena Suvari 21, Alexandra Holden 23, Melissa George 24, Rachel Blanchard 24, Marley Shelton 26, Sean Young 41

Men

James Marsden 27, W. Earl Brown 37

Exhibit H: the money

It made 1.2 times what it cost.

Budget
$11 million
Box office
$13.3 million

From TMDB, not adjusted for inflation.

About this analysis

Our parser read the script: 144 scenes and 605 lines of dialogue. The bechdeltest.com rating comes from that site’s readers. How the test works

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