I found this after reading and responding to this post here about early Trek fans’ prejudicial negative reaction to TNG. One of my responses (see here) was to point out that any fans of the progressiveness of Trek ought to have been mindful of the room for improvement over TOS, with female representation being an obvious issue. I posed the question “when did Trek start consistently passing the Bechdel test”, thinking that it didn’t start happening until Voyager, which those hard-line TOS fans would never have allowed to be made (along with TNG and DS9).
And of course, someone’s done the analysis with graphs and everything! Awesome! (though note the links to tumblr posts at the bottom that are now behind a sign-in wall … fun).
The results aren’t surprising to me, generally. I expected TNG to do worse, but also thought it did a pretty good job with female guest characters so it might score higher than I thought. DS9, I expected to do better than TNG, which, to my surprise is only marginally true. But I didn’t expect, from memory, how much of that is attributable to so many characters breaking off into (hetero, yes even Odo) couples. Voyager obviously does very well. And Enterprise … well we shouldn’t expect much of that … honestly, for me, this cements the show’s status as a blight on this era to lean so masculine straight after voyager.
And of course TOS shows its age, which, surely by 1987, good Trek fans should have been aware of?
Beyond that, I can’t help but think of SNW here, which, IMO has a wonderful cast/crew that’s well balanced and which I’d expect to be doing well on the Bechdel (as low and superficial bar as it is). But, as it starts to transition into a TOS prequel/reboot (as it is trending from S2 and as the show runners are indicating), all of those TOS characters are going to carry that 60s baggage with them. They’ll all be men (Uhura is already there!) and all be special miracle workers. La’an’s story has already been sidelined into a Kirk romance. Pelia the engineer was already somewhat substituted by Scotty the engineer. As it goes on (presuming it does), I think it could begin to look awkward once you squint.
EDIT: For those asking about new seasons/series … I found this page/blog by the author of the parent blog post … which provides data for some new Trek (Disco and Picard S3 and SNW S1 it seems).
Somewhat notably to me (though only one data point) … the one episode of SNW S1 that (clearly) fails the test is the one with Kirk in it.
In a similar vein though, while Disco generally does well (best of all Trek so far it seems), the author notes that Season two had the most episodes that were close to the line, because Michael’s arc was so intertwined with her search for her brother, Spock. That is, the more new Trek leans into TOS nostalgia, the worse this gets.
I thought it was widely agreed that the bechedel test isn’t a very good metric? Like lesbian porn passes, but a lot of very good ST episodes don’t.
The test was never meant to be a metric for whether something is good or not. It’s meant to be a metric for representation of women in media.
The test is based on this 1985 comic from Alison Bechdel’s “Dykes to Watch Out For”:
With that history in mind, I don’t think the fact that lesbian porn passes is a shortfall of the test. The test was created by lesbians, after all.
I think it’s more accurate to say that it’s such a low bar that it shouldn’t ever be failed, unless the reverse bechdel test is also being failed in more or less equal measure. Passing it need not mean much. Failing it, regularly, means plenty.
Also, porn basically has no relevance to the assessment of gender diversity in drama.
IIRC Measure of a man doesn’t pass, and thats the best episode imo. And imo, the test is mainly good for rage bait and not much more than that.
Sorry my friend … that’s a downvote from me.
This isn’t about single episodes or even whether an episode that fails can be good by other standards. Flipping this, would the episode have been worse if two women had a conversation about something other than a man? I’d imagine not at all, so why didn’t it happen?
I haven’t seen any rage here … unfortunately, your post is the most angsty I’ve seen, which, I have to say, implies that you’re uncomfortable with something like Trek or TOS being critiqued or diversity issues in general.
Beyond that, it’s a simple “test” that anyone who actually uses or talks about will acknowledge is simple and flawed, but is also relevant in talking and thinking about gender diversity in how much it if failed. Just look at the graph of pass rates for Trek over time … basically a steady increase (until ENT). That more or less shows that it’s not a meaningless hollow test but actually measures something real.
If you don’t care about gender diversity or don’t think it’s that important, would you care to explain why?
I think the story comes first. A diversity first approach just leads to a terrible story. Something like the Shawshank Redemption, thats a good story but it has no women. And when you have diversity first, you (generally speaking) don’t get good stories. Its not impossible, to be sure, but it usually turns into gimmicks and token characters.
You’re commenting this on a Star Trek discussion forum. A show that was founded on the idea that diversity is a strength. Gene Roddenberry specifically cast women in positions of authority, and non-white actors to be the crew of the Enterprise because he wanted to portray a future where humanity had moved beyond such petty bigotries.
A franchise which has persisted for 57 years, and is recognized the world over, founded on the “diversity first” approach you’re lamenting.
Infinite Diversity in Infinite Combinations
In the original Stephen King novella, Morgan Freeman’s character is a white Irish guy. I look forward to hearing all about your newfound hatred of this forced diversity.
But it wasn’t a gimmick. No one pointed to him and said “Look at our token! Hes black! Isn’t that impressive?”
Could you please point me in the direction of the goalposts? I swear you had them right here a moment ago…
A diversity approach makes characters into gimmicks. A story first approach doesn’t. How is that moving goalposts?