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The Bechdel test is over 30 years old: time for an update?

caption: Bill Radke, Katie Anthony, and Ronit Feinglass Plank.
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Bill Radke, Katie Anthony, and Ronit Feinglass Plank.
KUOW Photo/Adwoa Gyimah-Brempong

Imagine, if you will, a stadium. (It's built by the patriarchy.) There are people who play the game within its walls. There are people trying to burn it down. And then there are others who have excused themselves from the arena in order to build their own.

Katie Anthony and Ronit Feinglass Plank are two of those refuseniks, who are instead making their own media game. They cohost the podcast Mouthy Messy Mandatory, as well as the new show Smart Mouth with The Young Turks.

The Bechdel test, they say, assumes that every movie is going to be about and for men - "so at the very least, we can have two women who talk about their cats for thirty seconds and that's enough." What would the Mouthy Messy Test entail? At least as many women as men on screen, for a start...

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