Star Trek Social Club

I mean, it was another time. Their first pilot had number one, and that didn't fly. But that's the point, it was another time, and staying stuck in that time will always have drawbacks. As the article points out, the TOS Kelvin timeline reboots don't do well on the bechdel at all, and it's not a coincidence. If SNW heads toward more TOS prequel/reboot territory, you'll probably see it in bechdel data like this.

TOS is peak "product of its time"

It's a super low bar. The story just has to have two women talk about something other than a man. Troi telling Beverly how hot Yar was would technically pass the test, yes.

Correct conclusion though, more diverse groups of writers is definitely the way to go.

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.

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.

From the article:

Another question I considered was whether to pass women talking about a man in a work-related (as opposed to romantic) context. There were times when it seemed like it would make sense with the spirit of the test—like passing Dr. Crusher and Nurse Ogawa talking about a collapsed male patient’s medical condition—but it seemed to open the door too much. Ideally, an episode would have more than one scene of women talking, so it wouldn’t be the determining factor.

Part of why the Bechdel Test is so useful is that it’s such a low standard that it’s surprising that so many things fail, and it’s hard to argue there’s not room for improvement.

The test is that two women (with names) have to talk about something other than a man. A male patient is probably an edge case where its effect would depend on who is running the test (where these things prop up all the time). Though, again, with the bechdel test, the point is that's a very low bar. That an episode may pass the test based entirely on whether a male patient is a man or a patient, itself, is part of the point of the test, and, whether the episode passes or not, it certainly and deservedly will attract critique from any bechdel test assessment.

I don't have clear memories of VOY S3 distinct from the other seasons, but I'm guessing it's about then that the writers don't know what to do with Kes any more and that's a big part of it. Of course, once Seven is so prevalent in seasons 4 and 5, it basically goes to 100%, with Janeway and Seven having a personal relationship and neither being sidelined by any romantic plot lines (kinda a big deal, especially for 90s, IMO). The author makes a good point that failing the bechdel test in Voyager's case wasn't always a bad thing from a feminism point of view because they were often Janeway centric episodes that just had talking to lots of men.

The relationship between Janeway and Seven was heavily emphasised and not distracted at all by either character having any romances. Moreover, Seven, at least in seasons 4 and 5, is basically as major a character in the show as Janeway, which means it had two female leads, who's whole relationship basically passes the bechdel test, not just a one off line every episode.

Guinan only appears in 29/176 episodes. Yar was in 28/17 6 episodes. So for the majority of the run there's essentially only two main cast.

Did a search and found this: https://trekkiefeminist.com/category/bechdel-wallace-test/

Maybe a separate post should be made to share ... seems like a good resource on this.

Well as the article points out, guest or secondary (like Guinan) characters helped out in TNG's case (which, from memory, makes sense ... one thing I remember noticing about TNG was how often a guest character in a position of power would be a woman, and sometimes a non-anglo one).

I was not surprised by Enterprise. I hate watched the the whole series. It was a thinly veiled male power fantasy trying to recapture the bravado of Kirk.

Oh yea ... I thought about lower decks, and once again, I'm guessing it shines brightly as a good Trek show. Mariner and her Mum, +Tendi and Mariner probably pass the test every episode.

I wasn't shocked. I dropped Enterprise in my late teens because even though I wasn't yet running into the discourse that'd pop up later re gender roles, the show was just creepy with T'Pol, and the male cast was not nearly as interesting or charming as the male cast of any of the other Treks.

I basically noped out before it was done airing due to the sexism. It was that obvious to me even before I had any education on the subject.