CT: The "Big Little Lies" Test

There's this test that gets talked about in Hollywood a lot. I'll bet you've heard of it. The Bechdel test. It works like this: In order for a film (or TV show) to pass, it has to have three things:

1) Two female characters with names...
2) Who talk to each other...
3) About something other than any of the male characters.

Photo from IMDb

Now it's by no means a thorough test of where a film stands in regards to its female characters. It's not a measure of how good a film is. Lots of terrible and sexist films pass. But a shocking number of films each year don't even come close to passing. Lots of film that I love. Some of the films I really love each year don't even get as far as having more than one female character with a name. It's just a way to see where we stand, in a general way.

I thought about the Bechdel test a lot while I was watching Big Little Lies. It passed, obviously, early on and multiple times an episode. But I found myself wanting more than the Bechdel Test to qualify the things I liked about Big Little Lies.

Photo from IMDb

I want a way to measure how Big Little Lies showed women in their faults, as messy and interesting and often wrong. This is a show about a community of women, and the characters here are full in a way that not even TV gets right all the time. They're 3D and complicated and you feel like each of them have parts of their day when the cameras aren't on them. That in itself is captivating. I wanted to see more of these women, more of their lives and their kids and their faults.

Photo from IMDb

I want a way to show how Big Little Lies depicts the complexity of female friendships. The way we as women relate to each other. The fierceness of the women in this show's loyalty to one another was often breathtaking. As much as I was caught up in the murder-mystery element of the show, I probably would have watched 13 episodes of the characters just interacting. Even the way they fought felt fuller than most other women we see on TV.

If you haven't seen Big Little Lies yet, I can wholeheartedly recommend it. It's not easy to watch. Not at all. It handles some really difficult content, but it does it with grace and style in spades.

Happy Watching!
CT