In essence, Bechdel’s “test” was a way to point out the exclusion of LGBTQ+ characters from film it wasn’t meant to be applied universally and unilaterally to every movie ever made, and she’s said as much. Have you ever found yourself staring at someone of the same gender you find really cute or good-looking No. Even today, Hollywood appears to have discovered skinny blondes who Make Intense Eye Contact with skinny brunettes, but hasn’t ventured much further toward depicting the full diversity of the lesbian community. Look, if you know your history, Bechdel’s tongue-in-cheek comic (which she’s since referred to as “a little lesbian joke in an alternative feminist newspaper”) was about how lesbians, specifically, were alienated from mainstream media. During this test, subjects were made to view images ranging from innocuous to pornographic while their pupil size was recorded. Give it a go With this test, you can find out where you lie on the.
It still may not be 100 accurate, but it's better than trying to be placed into single categories. Sexuality is incredibly complicated, which is why this test focuses on placing you on a spectrum to make things easier.
Nope! All we need is a single metric: whether or not a film has two female characters who talk to each other about something other than a man. In the 1950s and 1960s, anti-gay sentiment was rampant (read: Gay Discrimination and Stigma and How to Cope) and a 'homosexuality test' was developed in Canada. Sexuality isn't as rigid as we may be taught to believe. Moreover, some people prefer to avoid labels to feel free from social constrictions. There are dozens of more specific sexual orientations you can identify as. However, the list is not limited by these five labels. Forget the decade plus of scholarship that came before! Ignore the fact that Bechdel herself credited her friend Liz Wallace for the test in the comic. These are the few sexuality types that are widely recognized in modern society.
As we all know, lesbian cartoonist Alison Bechdel invented feminist film criticism in 1985, when she wrote and illustrated the Dykes to Watch Out For comic strip that established her titular test.