Women in media

 Throughout the class there have been a few times when we talked about women in media. Representation of women in media has come a long way but there are still a few basic areas that the media is still failing in. Last semester in my anthropology class we discussed women in media also, one of the things I remember from that is something called the Bechtel Test. The Bechtel Test a way to gauge the role of female characters in movies and television and how well rounded and complete those roles are. The Bechtel Test consists of three parts, 1. there must be at least two women, 2. who regularly talk to each other, 3. about something other than men. Seems simple right? So lets look at one of my favorite tv shows, Castle. This show is about a murder mystery writer, Rick Castle, who gets to follow around and work with a NYPD homicide detective, Kate Beckette. Now Kate is the main women in this series and at first glance she seems to break a lot of the stereotypical portrayals of women and seems to be a well rounded character. She is the youngest women in the NYPD to make Detective, she is one of the best at her job, she is seen sparring with men and is able to take them down. As a homicide detective she is often in the front lines and the first to charge into a dangerous situation. So you would think a show like this would pass the Bechtel Test right? Well let's take a look at that. For the first part of the test there is at least two women in the show, there are actually four main women in this series, Kate, Rick's mother and daughter, and Laney who is Kate's best friend. It also passes the second part of the test; Kate and Laney talk to each other a lot as well as Ricks mother, Martha, and his daughter, Alexis, of talk to each other a lot. Now the third part of the test is where this show falls short. Whenever Kate and Laney are talking to each other they are always talking about Rick and Kate's relationship, and whenever Martha and Alexis are talking its almost always about boy troubles. Even a show like this that seems to challenge societies expectations of women with a strong women as the main character still fail on a basic level. Think about some of your favorite shows and apply the Bechtel Test to them, you'll be surprise at how many fail.