It’s interesting to compare with Tamora Drewe (which we saw the same weekend as seeing Scott Pilgrim and The Runaways). Even if it passes the Bechdel test (which I’m not 100% sure it does), I thought Tamora Drewe missed some opportunities in a similar way. Which didn’t make it bad at all (I though it was fantastic and qua film much better than Scott Pilgrim although superdifferent).

I think it’s worth celebrating “Hey, not nearly as horribly messed up as I was fearing!” but also to acknowledge that we’re settling. I read some stuff that makes it sound like the Scott Pilgrim series is a radically feminist work and it really isn’t. It has female characters that I like and wish had gotten more care from the author. But it’s also breezy fun.

Wallace was *great*. I agree the straight vs gay masculinity didn’t exist, and also that being gay meant no change whatsoever in the behaviour of those around him.

But on the flip side of that: Scott is the ~least masculine man ever to walk the face of the Earth~ (mostly because that’s what Michael Cera is, in movies). And sleeping in a gay man’s bed is part of it.

Not having his own place is also part of it, but to the general public “gay man’s bed” is even lower on the Loser scale than “Mom’s basement” and I don’t think it’s seen as a neutral statement in the comics or the movie either. The characters don’t mind it (except when they want privacy) but O’Malley must have known that readers would see it as a sign that Scott isn’t in charge of his life.

I think the stigma is sexual though. There’s the inconvenience he faces when it intrudes on his sleep – he can’t afford his own place, so isn’t in control. But it would be seen differently if it was 3 straight guys with no money sharing a tiny apartment while they try to find jobs in the big city, and hey it’s only temporary. This is a gay man’s *bed*.

So I think there’s a bit of both. To see all the characters be utterly relaxed about most of the gay issues is fantastic, but that doesn’t mean Scott’s masculinity wasn’t judged (by the average audience, if not the creators).

I agree with you on the “it’s all about Scott learning not to be a dick” not being a catch-all excuse, and to be crude for a moment, I reckon Hollywood could do with learning to be *about* less dicks, at least in an obvious heteronormative sense, more generally!

The issue for me is that in a world, and a Hollywood, where Bechdel passes and female characters that are motivated like male ones tend to be in shorter supply (ie. not exclusively in existence as love interests, for example!), a movie like Scott Pilgrim failing to give more inner life to its women seems to matter more. Somehow it feels like it’s not the movie in and of itself that’s the problem so much as the feeling of “is this all we get?” if that makes sense. I think the movie has some good things going for it genderwise, bar some of the hairier moments outlined earlier about orgasms (it’s either on this thread or on our other SP post thread!). But I think it matters more to us that it be better, perhaps, because of the goals it actually does score for things like gay visibility and so on – the good stuff makes us go “ah, jeez, why couldn’t you go all the way with this?” I, for one, spent hours before the film arguing with the rest of the BadRep team about the fact that this sort of film – Scott-centric, geek-male-centric, is the one that will get a Hollywood green light where Ramona Flowers Vs. The World might not.

Reading this thread, and without having read the books, I think that had they serialised these films into a set, we’d have got a better deal on the female characters, actually.

I think that giving the ladies more room to breathe and develop would balance out the “win the girl, like a really patriarchal legend of old!” framing device, and actually bear out the irony. The irony of this stuff happening in the modern world only really becomes ironic at all, and is borne out much more, if the characters can actually transcend the save-the-girl stuff. And from what I’m reading, that happens far more successfully in the books.

Sadly – and I do think it’s a shame nonetheless – the film hasn’t done too well at the US box office even in the form it *was* released in.

I still don’t see any of the passes which are more than highly technical passes. And even most of those, IIRC, have one character *trying* to talk about something else and being blown off.

Again, failing the Bechdel test doesn’t invalidate the film or make it unenjoyable. It doesn’t even entail that there were no strong, interesting female characters. However, I think failing it is one indicator. The fact that it was all about Scott all the time is another.

(And it *could* have easily passed, as all the technical passes indicate.)

(Note that I’m pretty sure it passes the reverse Bechdel test. So being about Scott all the time isn’t quite sufficient.)

I like what I can project on to the female characters, but I don’t find them particularly well characterized (or at least particularly feministically characterized). YYMV.

It’s definitely debatable how well it passes, but I think it’s also the case that romantic comedy films about relationship obsessed gangs of young people, all of whom have a gossipy obsession with the relationship between two of their number…. are going to have trouble with Bechdel whether, as films, they have interesting, well represented female characters or not…

I think it’s actually an example of the limitations of Bechdel as a rubric for judging all films. The film fails in several places, and is good in others, I think.

I would have liked to see Ramona and Kim’s friendship on-screen, yes. I think the women are all a little island-like. Mind you, we barely see the non-Scott men have much inner life either!

Actually it passes in loads of places. http://bechdeltest.com/view/1468/scott_pilgrim_vs._the_world/

Not that passing means ‘yes – it is feminist’ or ‘no – it is not feminist.’ Or even that it’s a good or bad movie.

However, all the things you pointed out as feminist-relevent hadn’t actually jumped out at me. Maybe it’s cos they’re so standard in my life… no-one I know would mind sharing a bed with someone of a different orientation to them (that I know) of and I grew up in a school where feminist was kind of the default setting of all teachers and students and most people I spent time with were ‘at least a little bi-curious’ – I suppose it’s weird to be reminded that some people would see this as not standard…

I enjoyed it (and the books), but I don’t really feel the idea that the woman characters are well handled. They could have been much *worse* handled, but consider your own reflection: “But see, he’s not fighting for Ramona (The Girl) at all – he’s fighting for himself.” Yes. Exactly. There’s a basic erasure going on here embedded right in the title.

Again, not the most egregious or repellent version of this, but the women are still props. I think Ramona could be really interesting, but she doesn’t end up being so except (primarily) as potential.