Passing The 2024 "Bechdel Test"
Let's please let candidates have conversations about things besides a (specific) man.
In a little over a week’s time, Nikki Haley will very likely jump into the race for President.
Haley has signaled that she will be running on themes such as strength in foreign policy, fighting socialism, and being tough on crime. She will be running on her record from her time as Ambassador to the U.N., where she notably withdrew the United States from the Human Rights Council. She will be running on her record as Governor of South Carolina, where she led the removal of the Confederate flag from the statehouse grounds with grace and dignity.
And she will be running directly into the wood-chipper of nicknames and insults awaiting her at the hands of former President Donald Trump.
I was chatting this week with another woman who works in politics, one who does not share many of my political leanings, who was nevertheless glad to see Haley signal that she would enter the race. She compared Haley favorably against other Republican women who have sought the highest office in the land, for having deeper electoral experience or broader appeal than some others who have come before. I agreed that I was looking forward to hearing what Haley has to say on the trail, even though Trump is clearly formidable and will be hard to beat.
It occurred to me, however, that those conversations about Haley’s standing up to Iran or her approach to governance in South Carolina, the things that are relevant to how she might govern as Commander-in-Chief and leader of the free world, are extremely likely to be subsumed by the never-ending tornado of drama surrounding the former President.
Would you endorse Trump if he wins the primary instead? Do you think he is fit to be President again? Would you be his Vice President? He said [insert horrible thing] about you on Truth Social last week, do you care to respond?
I kept thinking about the experience of Carly Fiorina when she ran for President. I understand why, when Donald Trump made insulting comments about Fiorina’s face, that she was subsequently asked about such comments. It was crazy! And I suppose I understand why, in 2015, since the whole thing was considered so abnormal, that it formed the basis of a question posed to Fiorina in a Presidential debate, “do you care to respond to Donald Trump insulting your face?” The whole thing was so awful and so bizarre, and how could you not mention it and not give Fiorina a chance to punch back, right, even if it meant replacing a question about policy?
But it is not 2015 anymore. It is 2023. We’ve now had nearly eight years to learn that it’s definitely going to happen again. This time, it won’t be abnormal, it will just be sad.
The Bechdel Test, for those who have never heard of it, is a simple way that some use to decide if a movie is doing an OK job presenting female characters. The rules are relatively straightforward: for a film to pass the Bechdel Test, it must 1) feature at least two women, 2) those women must talk to one another, and 3) their conversation must not primarily be about a man.
I’m not here to shame you if your favorite movies don’t. There are a lot of movies I completely adore that don’t even come close. In the 1990s remake of The Thomas Crown Affair, I’m not sure Rene Russo’s iconic character Catherine Banning even speaks a single word to another woman in the film, much less has a conversation about something besides Thomas Crown. Ocean’s Eleven only really lets Julia Roberts talk to George Clooney and Andy Garcia. And speaking of Matt Damon movies, I’ll watch The Martian any time, any place. It is a film where the female characters are strong and interesting, but if you want to nit pick, I’m also pretty sure that at no point do Kristen Wiig or Mackenzie Davis or Jessica Chastain or Kate Mara talk with each other about anything besides getting Matt Damon off Mars.
You’d be surprised how many movies do not pass The Bechdel Test. It isn’t that women discussing a man is a bad thing, in and of itself. However, if that’s all they discuss, it may be hard to portray them as characters who have depth, who have multiple dimensions and exist for a purpose beyond simply furthering the storyline of a man.
Similarly, in the case of our 2024 presidential campaign, it is not the case that asking a candidate about something Donald Trump has said or done is in and of itself a bad thing. Donald Trump is the frontrunner in the race at the moment, he commands a loyal following of Republican voters, and is the former President of the United States. Many of these other prospective candidates served during his Administration.
But surely, it is possible to do an interview or candidate forum with a former U.N. Ambassador, or former Governor, or current Governor, and not spend most of the time asking about Donald Trump, no?
By February of 2016, just months into the Republican primary, researchers estimated that Donald Trump had received $2 billion in free media. There continues to be hand-wringing about if and how to cover him, about when it is or is not appropriate to pay his latest comments or rallies, whether or not to replicate the nonstop attention he received when he first ran for President.
In my focus groups of Republican voters for The New York Times last month, some of the voters who were favorable toward Donald Trump nevertheless worried he was running a more subdued or underwhelming campaign this go round so far.
“He seemed more quiet. Because when he said he’s going to run for president, I thought he’d be having more rallies and go, go, go, but nothing. He’s doing nothing.”
“He was a bit weird, saying he’s got this big announcement, but it just ends up being some NFTs.”
I doubt he will be subdued for long. As soon as there are opponents, there is opportunity for conflict, and you don’t need to be an expert on Art of The Deal to know that his communications strategy inevitably thrives on conflict.
And once there is conflict, there will be an incredible temptation to look at every other 2024 candidate on the Republican side through the lens of Donald Trump. Do you agree with him? Do you condemn him? Will you endorse him? Disavow him? What do you think about him putting ketchup on his steak?
There will of course be some questions about Donald Trump that are very relevant and of course worth asking, particularly of those who served in Trump’s administration. But there are a lot of extremely important things that can be discussed that do not center around the former president. And there will be a lot of questions that do not do one single thing to genuinely illuminate for a voter how a candidate might govern, that do nothing but feed the never-ending noise machine our politics have become.
I propose a sort of “Bechdel Test” for the 2024 campaign: is this conversation with a candidate for the Presidency primarily about something other than Donald Trump?
This doesn’t just apply to women, though it will likely be a female candidate on whom the test will first be applied. In two weeks, people may have an opportunity to ask Nikki Haley questions about her bid for the White House. Those people will have an important choice to make about how much they want their questions to be about Donald Trump.