{"id":1778,"date":"2005-08-13T13:03:54","date_gmt":"2005-08-13T20:03:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.amptoons.com\/blog\/the-mo-movie-measure\/"},"modified":"2005-08-13T13:03:54","modified_gmt":"2005-08-13T20:03:54","slug":"the-mo-movie-measure","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/?page_id=1778","title":{"rendered":"The Bechdel Test, AKA, The Mo Movie Measure"},"content":{"rendered":"

What’s the Mo Movie Measure<\/strong>, you ask? It’s an idea from Alison Bechdel’s brilliant comic strip, Dykes to Watch Out For<\/em><\/a>. The character “Mo” (actually, not Mo – see below) explains that she only watches movies in which<\/p>\n

1) there are at least two named female characters, who<\/p>\n

2) talk to each other about<\/p>\n

3) something other than a man.<\/p>\n

It’s appalling how few movies can pass the Mo Movie Measure.<\/p>\n

* * *<\/strong><\/center><\/p>\n

By the way, when I coined the phrase “Mo Movie Measure,” I screwed up — the character in “Dykes To Watch Out For” who says it, isn’t Mo<\/a>! From Dykes To Watch Out For: The Blog:<\/p>\n

We were excited to hear that someone still remembers this 20-year-old chestnut. But alas, the principle is misnamed. It appears in “The Rule,” a strip found on page 22 of the original DTWOF collection. Mo actually doesn’t appear in DTWOF until two years later. […] Alison would also like to add that she can’t claim credit for the actual “rule.” She stole it from a friend, Liz Wallace, whose name is on the marquee in the comic strip…<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Ooops!<\/p>\n

Also, the bit about the two female characters having to have names – which I thought had been in the original comic strip – was apparently added by me. Oops again.<\/p>\n

That’s how these cultural ideas develop – it’s just a giant game of “telephone.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

What’s the Mo Movie Measure, you ask? It’s an idea from Alison Bechdel’s brilliant comic strip, Dykes to Watch Out For. The character “Mo” (actually, not Mo – see below) explains that she only watches movies in which 1) there … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-1778","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1778","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1778"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1778\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1778"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}