Alison Bechdel—celebrated cartoonist of “Dykes to Watch Out For” and author of graphic novel “Fun Home,” whose Broadway musical adaptation garnered multiple Tony Awards—is back in the news.
This time, its Merriam-Webster’s Dictionary honoring Bechdel, with “Bechdel Test” as one of 530 new words or phrases entered into its storied list of definitions this fall.
Reads the new definition in Webster’s:
“a set of criteria used as a test to evaluate a work of fiction (such as a film) on the basis of its inclusion and representation of female characters
NOTE: The usual criteria of the Bechdel Test are (1) that at least two women are featured, (2) that these women talk to each other, and (3) that they discuss something other than a man.
“I’m very, very excited to have anything to do with a dictionary,” Bechdel told Vermont’s Seven Days, which reports:
Bechdel introduced the world to the test in a 1985 “Dykes to Watch Out For” comic strip, in which two women try in vain to find a movie that passes a test with three criteria: “One, it has to have at least two women in it,” the strip reads, “who, two, talk to each other about, three, something besides a man.” …
The cartoonist said the honor follows Stigler’s law of eponymy, which states that no scientific discovery is named after its actual discoverer. Friend Liz Wallace thought up the Bechdel Test, according to Bechdel, who also credited Wallace with creating “The Rule” in the nearly 35-year-old comic strip.
Merriam-Webster lists 2007 as the year of the first known use of Bechdel Test in pop culture.
While “Dykes” ran as a syndicated strip for many years, including in Seven Days, Bechdel gained international fame when she published her graphic memoir Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic. It was later adapted into a hit Broadway musical, winning several Tony Awards, including Best Musical, in 2015.
So, where does the dictionary entry land on her list of high honors?
“This is the thing I’m most known for!” Bechdel said with a laugh. “If I go speak at a college or something, kids don’t know my comic strip — they weren’t even born yet. But they’ve heard of this thing, and they’re sort of surprised that it’s some actual person connected to it.”
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