Two weeks ago I looked at The Bechdel Test. A set of standards which aim to determine whether works of fiction are gender biased. The three requirements are as follows: the work must feature at least two named female characters, who talk to each other about something besides a male character.

Let’s apply the Bechdel test to a few of the nominees for this year’s Oscars Best Film Award.

Firstly, American Hustle. Two of the main characters are women, Sydney Prosser or Edith (Amy Adams) and Rosalyn Rosenfeld (Jennifer Lawrence). Both are strong female characters although Jennifer Lawrence’s role is mostly as Irving Rosenfeld’s wife. They do talk to each other in a scene in the second half of the film, in a conflict where they argue over Irving. They also briefly mention their favourite nail polishes, so technically this does pass the test, but not with flying colours.

12 Years a Slave is another nominee, including a nomination for Best Supporting Actress for Lupita Nyong’o who plays Patsy in the film. There are a few female characters in the film, Anne Northup (Kelsey Scott), Mistress Epps (Sarah Paulson) is Edwin Epps’ (Michael fassbender) wife, and then Patsey (Lupita Nyong’o). Patsey and Mistress Epps feature in scenes together but only speak when Mistress Epps offers every slave some biscuits save Patsey “there’ll be none for you”.

There is also a scene in the film where Patsey has afternoon tea with Phebe (Deneen Tyler) but the audience does not witness any conversation between the two until Solomon turns up and then Solomon discusses Master Edwin Epps with Phebe and his affection for Patsey. So 12 Years a Slave, this year’s Oscar Best Film winner, does not pass the Bechdel test.

Of the nine Best Film nominees, four pass the test, American Hustle, Dallas Buyers Club, Nebraska and Philomena. The Wolf of Wall Street, Her, Captain Phillips and 12 Years a Slave do not feature two female characters who talk to each other about something other than a man. Gravity is exempt as it starts only two main characters, Ryan Stone – the female lead and Matt Kowalski. It’s interesting to note that all of the five nominated best directors were also men.

This reflects film on a larger scale too, for the last ten years, films that have failed the test have earned on average a higher gross.

The Bechdel test aims determine whether works of fiction are gender biased. To pass the test, the work must feature at least two named female characters, who talk to each other about something besides a male character.

The concept is simple and you’re probably thinking, ‘that’s silly, I’m sure that most films pass that test’, which is what I thought when I was first introduced to the concept. Then I tried to think of any film I’d seen which would pass the test. I couldn’t.

The test originated from Alison Bechdel’s comic strip Dykes to Watch Out For, in a strip from 1985 called The Rule, a female character states that she will only watch a film if it can satisfy the three requirements. It is sometimes referred to as the ‘Mo Movie Test’ after the female character but that isn’t correct as the character ‘Mo’ doesn’t appear in the strips until two years after The Rule was published. Bechdel has also said that she cannot take credit for the rules as she stole the idea from Liz Wallace whose name appears in the strip.

Half of the population consists of women who surely want to be represented on the big screen. And it would be offensive to assume that men wouldn’t want to watch women in film talking to each other, as if they speak some kind of elusive language that men don’t understand. So why is it that so few films manage to pass the simple test?

It’s hard to define why, Jennifer Kesler a film student raises some interesting points in her article on females in film. The frequent argument is that people don’t want to see them. Kesler mentions an industry pro once telling her “The audience doesn’t want to listen to a bunch of women talking about whatever it is women talk about.” But can that really be accurate?

As Cate Blanchett highlighted in her Oscar acceptance speech, “female films with women at the centre are [not] niche experiences” and “Audiences want to see them and, in fact, they earn money. The world is round, people.” In fact two of 2013s highest grossing films were The Huger Games Catching Fire (5^th highest grossing film) and Frozen (2^nd highest grossing). Both of which pass the Bechdel test and more importantly, feature strong female characters. It is undeniable that people will pay, literally millions to see films where women feature prominently.

The Bechdel test simply looks at the cast of films and whether it provides valuable female characters. It is possible for a film to fail but still present a strong female character, Mako Mori in Pacific Rim is a good example. It is also possible for the test to pass and provide no strong female characters. But it is an important starting point, it helps to illuminate the lack of female characters in film, and hopefully as the film industry advances and grows, it will not be necessary.