NYMag podcaster notes that Fire Island fails the Bechdel test, Twitter responds

[babarsuhail]

So @hulu #FireIslandMovie gets an F- on the Bechdel test in a whole new way. Do we just ignore the drab lesbian stereotypes bc cute gay Asian boys? Is this revenge for all those years of the gay boy best friend?
- Hanna Rosin (@HannaRosin) June 6, 2022
NY Mag podcaster and author Hanna Rosin tweeted yesterday Fire Island gets an F- on the Bechdel

Comments

[melancolour]

wow these are a lot of defensive reactions

except for margaret cho who responded the best you could really

[pikapika217]

Why should they not be defensive??

[melancolour]

they should be

because it's true

and they're reacting to that truth by deflecting

[stuffedpanda]

???

[melancolour]

I'm saying they got defensive which means they also think it's a problem but aren't engaging

they could have said 'yes, that's true, AND it is also great representation for undertold stories and deserves praise in that context" but instead they deflected with memes and other ways to deny or diminish the point.

they're defensive because it's true

[stuffedpanda]

if you read all the tweets in the original comment and this is what you've taken away from it, there's no hope.

[melancolour]

I read what was posted on ontd, if that's what you mean

[looneyboy83]

ONTD doesnt read.

[pikapika217]

Ok but is that what she said or even something reflective of the spirit in which she critiqued them? No. Why do minorities have to ALWAYS be gracious to racist white people being deliberately obtuse? They're calling out her personal bias because she showed it.

[melancolour]

that can be true, and so can the criticism about the movie. Failing the bechdel test isn't some huge hit against the movie, but it's a good thing to be aware of when watching any film, and especially for content creators (of which many are on twitter).

[pikapika217]

But that just again brings into question why she singled out this movie - I didn't see any grades for Top Gun for example. This was a movie that was telling a very specific story so applying a test to it that it never set out to pass is derivative.

[melancolour]

People in this very post have talked about ways that it could have not failed the bechdel test, which is clearly about 5 minutes of brainstorming or less. if it was something they wanted to address. Twitter OP was talking about "in a whole new way", which I'm not sure that this actually even is, but it reads to me as a attempt at intersectional criticism of feminist goals and queer content. I think it's at least worth asking whether or not it wasn't deliberate choice to exclude women characters (by focussing on a small group) or if it was just a default, which is what it usually is.

[pikapika217]

ok I get that but that wasn't where she was coming from. This critique was not aimed to engage in a nuanced way and if the receipt from later in this post is true then she has a history of being extra critical of queer work in a harmful way. You have all this good faith hope for her that she wasn't operating under and I cannot understand why.

[melancolour]

I don't really care about the twitter OP I just think it's a point worth raising

[pikapika217]

But we were talking about it in the context that she raised it, not in general. No one denied that it failed the Bechdel test, just that she wasn't not applying it to a film that was meant to and instead re-centering herself in a story not about her personal experiences.

[melancolour]

I just don't care about the twitter OP enough to get into the nuance of her specifically raising it lol, idk her and idc about her. I think there was some passive denial / rejection of the idea, which was my comments around replies being defensive.