The Bechdel Test and
the Films of Jim Kropa

Picking up from this point in the Origin Story…

To be fair, most popular films in the 21^st century still fail the test, which is of course the whole point of it.

Funnily enough, the marginalization of the main female character in the first of my films was a problem I had sought to address in the second, though rather badly, without really thinking about it much.

I wrote these characters, so I alone am to blame for their faults. My critical remarks should not be construed as maligning the young actresses or their performances. I was just thrilled they said they would be in my movie!

Strictly adhering to the Bechdel formulation, La Suerte de los Dioses technically passes the first point. However, the second of its two female characters, Jane, appears in just a few shots, does not speak at all, and is dispatched as a kind of punch line, accompanied by a comedy sound effect.

The film’s leading lady, Mercedes, is a stock character, your basic “damsel in distress.” She has no real agency, and serves only as an object of the hero’s desire or as a pawn used by the villain. On first meeting with the male protagonist, she scolds him for his “heroic” behavior, but by the end, willingly comports herself to his choices and personality, promising to never question them again.

Bechdel doesn’t specifically mention conformity to the “damsel in distress” type among its criteria, but it feels like this movie should lose a point for it. Is it possible to score less than zero?

When inventing the scenario for Nochebuena, the only female character in Las Victimas de Malentendido, my thought was, “In this one, the girl won’t be a damsel in distress. Instead, she’ll be like a male action hero, but more competent, sent to do a job a man failed to do, and her husband will be the annoying complainer.”

So how does that notion hold up to 21^st century scrutiny?

For one thing, it is misguided to equate “empowerment” of a female lead with simply rendering her into the “male” role. It’s the same “badass chick” trope as the characters of Ellen Ripley in the Alien franchise or Sarah Connor in Terminator 2, and safe to say that none of those movies pass the Bechdel Test either.

But even judging Nochebuena as the action star, her film fails her by not fully committing to the type. Though she successfully completes her mission to return with knowledge of the bad guy’s secret location, she is later persuaded by her husband to doubt her success. She holds her own in her first fight against villain Pepe Leupe, but is able only to flee, and in their next encounter Pepe overpowers and murders her.

The action star would need to be the star of the movie, whereas Nochebuena gets killed off with around a third of the film’s running time left to go, as though her presence was all that was hindering a stock “revenge” plot from ensuing. Admittedly, an obvious flaw of the film is its murkiness about who is its main character. Ostensibly it’s Pepe, but even as an “antihero” it feels creepy to call him a protagonist.

Then there is Nochebuena’s gruesome murder itself, an act of grisly torture undertaken with gusto by… our purported protagonist? Maybe it is clever that Nochebuena’s husband Cisco is made into a literal “ball and chain” by the way Pepe goes about it, but still, from my “grownup” perspective it is disturbing to watch.

You could say that the horrific tone of this scene is effective to convey a serious impact. After all, by this point in the film, we have gotten to know Nochebuena a bit, and about her relationship with Cisco. So when she dies, it is devastating.

Devastating from Cisco’s perspective, that is. The film hardly entices us to empathize with Nochebuena. Wait, is Cisco the protagonist?

Unfortunately, even if the horror is legitimately impactful, its effect is immediately undercut by the outrageously gratuitous escalation of violence that follows, into realms of slapsick comedy and gore, showing the director’s juvenile poor taste.

A quick survey of Andy’s films includes both advancements and regressions. In Bosque we spend a (brief) scene with the remarkable Sra. Verde, a woman of status and wealth, standing against great power and giving aid to the ineffectual male. But we also meet a woman with no name, called only “novia” (girlfriend) who never says a word.

Azucena, the female lead of Sangre y Flores, is much like Mercedes, a damsel in distress, explicit object of the male protagonist’s desire, and pawn of the villain.

Of all the actresses in the Kropa Spanish Videos, it is Erin File who gets the plum roles, always stealing the scene, and speaking only francés, no español.