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The Bechdel Test
The Bechdel test is a measure of the representation of women in fictional works, especially film. For a work to pass the Bechdel test it must:
- feature at least two female characters;
- who talk to each other;
- about something other than a man.
See more on Wikipedia.
Data
The script data is scraped from shakespeare.mit.edu/romeo_juliet/full.html, and processed into CSV format. The processing code can be found in the R/scrape_data.R file.
Implementation
Definition of female characters
The female characters in Romeo and Juliet are Lady Capulet, Lady Montague, Juliet, Nurse, and Rosaline. Note that Rosaline is a non-speaking character.
Some versions of the Bechdel test require that female characters be named female characters. This implementation does not make that requirement and so Nurse is included as a female character.
Definition of a conversation
Two female characters are considered to be having a conversation if they have consecutive lines. There are limitations of this approach as two female characters may both be responding to a man and not each other.
Definitions of talking about something other than a man
The conversation between two female characters is considered to not be about a man if it does not contain any of the male names, or the words he, him, his, or he's.
[!WARNING] The implementation of the third test is currently a work-in-progress. Currently if any individual line doesn't contain a mention of a man, it is considered a pass. This means the current pass rate is inflated.