1. Grindhouse (Death Proof)Groups of women friends talk and talk (and talk) throughout Death Proof, about their sex lives and their boyfriends and the music they like and other trademark Quentin Tarantino topics. However, there's that one conversation with Zoe Bell, Rosario Dawson, Mary Elizabeth Winstead and Tracy Thorn that centers around cars, and cars in movies, and one car they are itching to drive. How often do you get to hear four women talk about muscle cars? The subsequent stunts by Zoe Bell are just icing on the cake. Tarantino previously offered us another movie that followed The Bechdel Rule, Kill Bill, in which The Bride trades barbs with several women she's about to do battle with ... not to mention that scene in the hotel room.
2. JunoI find the dialogue in this movie to be really annoying at times, but at least it covers a range of pop culture topics. You can't get away from the subject of sex or relationships in this movie -- the main character is pregnant -- but that doesn't mean that the women focus solely on the opposite sex. Admittedly, most of Juno MacGuff's conversations with other women do tend to be related to her pregnancy, but that's technically allowed under the Bechdel Rule.
3. HairsprayBoth the 2007 version and the 1989 (my favorite) meet the Bechdel Rule standards. Tracy Turnblad does have a big crush on Link Larkin, but that doesn't seem quite as important to her as dancing, keeping her hair bouffant, and fighting social injustices (sometimes all at once). Hairspray may be a fluffy musical, but it has plenty of teenage girls and their moms, as well as deejay Motormouth Maybelle, and they're far more than foils for the menfolk. (I wanted to include Mamma Mia!, and realized that although it's full of female characters, they really do only talk about the male characters.)
4. PersepolisI know I said I wanted to focus on Hollywood films, but I couldn't resist mentioning this French film from 2007. The film is animated, but it's hardly for children. Marjane is an Iranian girl who grows up during the Islamic Revolution during the 1980s. She has some romantic encounters, but I love watching the child who wants to be like Bruce Lee as she gets in trouble in her teen years for listening to rock music, and eventually has to come to terms with how she feels about her homeland. I'm especially fond of her conversations with her grandmother, who is voiced by Catherine Deneuve.
5. Bring It OnIt's another teenage-girl movie, and it's about cheerleading, which is not exactly Higher Thought. Still, most movies about girls who participate in athletics or dance tend to focus on just one girl who lives for her sport or practices with the guys, and doesn't seem to have a lot of female friends. In Bring It On, we get a whole team, headed by Kirsten Dunst, with Eliza Dushku as the reluctant new cheerleader. One girl might be interested in the other girl's brother, but mostly these girls are interested in becoming cheerleading champions. Speaking of cheerleaders, I very nearly included But I'm a Cheerleader on this list, but then realized that three of the seven movies would include women in cheerleader outfits and that just seemed too damn weird.
6. Set It OffI had to go back to 1996 for this one, but I've only seen it myself in the last year and I think it could use some attention. Queen Latifah, Jada Pinkett Smith, Viveca A. Fox and Kimberly Elise star in this F. Gary Gray film about a group of women with big-time money problems who see a possible solution in robbing banks. It takes longer to get underway than I'd like, and the ending didn't quite satisfy me, but I loved the female characters in this film, particularly Smith's and Queen Latifah's. They tend to have much bigger and more interesting problems than romance. (And I'm starting to wonder if Queen Latifah uses the Bechdel Rule to pick roles, because it's amazing how many of the films she's in that fit the criteria.)
7. Cold Comfort FarmAs long as we're going back to the 1990s, I might as well include Cold Comfort Farm, a film I love to bits. John Schlesinger directed this adaptation of Stella Gibbons' novel (which I also love) about a young woman in 1930s England who decides to move in with, and reform, her country cousins. Flora Poste (Kate Beckinsale) has to mull over her future with her friend Mrs. Smiling (Joanne Lumley), and then once she arrives at Cold Comfort Farm, dispenses advice to both male and female relatives whose lives just aren't tidy enough to suit her. I especially like the fate of Aunt Ada Doom".
Source: www.cinematical.com
