Regarding the Bechdel Test

(Don't read if you haven't seen Doctor Who at least through the episode "The Angels Take Manhattan.")

The Bechdel test has been in the news a lot recently. That's the supposed "test" for whether a movie (or, in principle, any other unit of moving-picture fiction, or any fiction I suppose) is adequately feminist/non-sexist. It has three requirements:

• That there be at least two female characters;
• That they talk, to each other; and
• That their conversation be about something other than a man.

 The test originates from this comic, by Alison Bechdel.

I like this test, basically. Certainly I agree with what I believe was the basic sentiment behind the original comic, that a world in which depictions of such conversations between two women are extremely rare or essentially nonexistent is in that regard a very bad world. And so I find very interesting this analysis from the newly relaunched FiveThirtyEight that found that movies made since 1990 which pass the test have received smaller budgets than those which fail it, and that passing movies have brought a greater return on investment than failing ones. As acknowledged by the article, the test has some problems, and can in a lot of cases break down. For instance, the movie Gravity "fails" the test, because it has precisely two real characters, one of whom, the protagonist, is female, and the other of whom is male. The female protagonist is a very strong character, but, y'know, she's up in space, all isolated and stuff. But for making broad-brush judgments against a whole bunch of movies in the aggregate, it works pretty well. We can anticipate that, on average, movies that fail the test will do a worse job of portraying good female character than ones that pass it, even if there are some exceptions on both sides.

On "Diversity and 'Doctor Who'"

So, obviously, don't read this post if you're not a Doctor Who fan, and in particular if you haven't been keeping up on the massive breaking Who news from over this summer. Otherwise, carry on.

Stardust and Stories

The episode of Doctor Who that just aired, The Rings of Akhaten, was not, I'd say, among the very greatest episodes of the show. Personally I liked it; some people seem to have rather hated it. What it did, indisputably have, however, were two really great speeches by the Doctor. Since there doesn't seem to be any way to get good transcripts of new episodes immediately following their broadcast, I've transcribed these speeches, and they can be found below the fold. Obviously, don't look if you haven't seen the episode.

Way Past Strange

This is technically a post inspired by something in a recent bit of Doctor Who material, but it can be nice and non-spoilerific if you haven't been watching the show. (Although, if that's the case, go do something about that: it's really good.) All you need to know is that, in the prequel to a recent episode (obviously, don't watch that video if you haven't been watching the show), the Doctor speaks the following line, when asked whether he is strange:

"Oh dear, I'm way past strange. I think I'm probably incredible."

On hearing it initially, I thought this was a great line, in the hilarious/awesome fashion. As I've continued to think about it over the past several days, I think it's also very interesting, on an essentially linguistic level. Most recently, I think it's actually very deep.

The first part of that needs fairly little unpacking: it's self-evidently hilarious and awesome. The second part is about the way he's using the word "incredible," which I think includes two different meanings. First is the etymological meaning: in- meaning "not," credible meaning "believable," so overall, "unbelievable." In context, that's a plausible intensified version of strangeness: so strange as to be unbelievable. The second meaning, of course, is the modern colloquial one, with "incredible" meaning "amazing" or "awesome" or "fantastic." That's a fun little double meaning; he's using a word that, viewed etymologically, is a perfectly sensible conclusion to "I'm way past strange, I think I'm probably..." but that also packs in the notion of being, you know, incredible.

The third part comes out of that second (and more common) meaning of incredible. In this sentence, the Doctor is kind of suggesting that Incredible, with the standard connotation of awesome/amazing/fantastic, is located Way Past Strange. If you want to be incredible, in other words, you should start by being strange, and then keep going. Obviously the claim isn't that everything that's way past strange is incredible; much of what you find if you go to Strange and then keep on going is Terrible and Horrifying and Demented. But some of it is Incredible, and if you want to find Incredible, that's how you get there. You go way past Strange. After all, if you don't even get to Strange, you'll probably only find Ordinary, and you definitely can't find Incredible amidst all the Ordinary.

The implicit words of wisdom in this comment, then, are that the way to become Incredible is to go way past being Strange. Trust him on this, he's the Doctor.

He did it!

The Doctor saved us!!!

(Okay, given my earlier post about time zones and all, maybe I have to wait another few hours before December 21st, 2012 has good and truly bitten the dust across all of planet earth. Whatever.)

It's Always the End of the World as We Know It

(NOTE: If you haven't seen through the end of Season 7, Part I of Doctor Who, it's possible you won't want to read this post. I think the quote I use isn't particularly spoilerish, but still.)

To Whom It May Concern, Regarding Yesterday's Episode of Doctor Who

As in, don't read this if you have not watched the episode of Doctor Who originally aired on September 29th, 2012, and preferably all or most of the episodes prior to it in the revived series.

Watch Doctor Who

I have, from time to time, noticed the various politics-y bloggers whose sites I frequent making various recommendations about popular culture. Well, I don't know if I really have any readers, or whether any of them require this advice, but since it's kind of relevant right now I'll just go ahead and say it: watch Doctor Who. Specifically, the current incarnation of the series, which began in 2005 under Russell T. Davies and is currently being broadcast on BBC1 every Saturday this month. It's really good. Preferably watch it more or less in order from the beginning, since I think it's better that way. Don't get discouraged by encountering some rather lousy episodes, especially early (hey, what show doesn't need to mature a bit?), it really does get rather extraordinarily good as it develops.

That is all.