Will The Bantha-Fodder Test be The Answer to the Bechdel Test

Black Widow and Masters of the Universe-Revelation Became The Straw That Broke The Male Camel’s Back

Bobbie L. Washington

Just now·12 min read

There has been a monumental shift in the way female roles are depicted in film, television, comics, and the other arts that’s become the detriment to the male roles in the last few years. Ever since Sally Fields came on the morning show circuit to talk about her film, Norma Rae, where she pontificated that it was “a strong female role, every other actress has since then has followed suit with the same line that whatever role they played, it had to be the strong female role. It was, by far, the most important aspect in depicting that character development. Norma Rae

came out in 1979. It’s been forty-two years of parading Hollywood starlets waltzing out on some late-night talk show or morning show discussing the merits and strengths of their pretend character. By contrast, their male counterparts never had the luxury or hubris to state any declaration about the strength of their character depiction. It would be sacrilegious to promote a strong male character even if it was a comedy or horror genre.

In those forty-two years, actresses have made all kinds of strides and attainments in all aspects of the film industry. There are more directors, producers, writers, etc. as some productions are all-female production houses and nobody challenges these clear job discrimination practices. This, of course, is ignored because, why? What price are we paying for this type of practice?

The rhetoric has been ratcheted up with a list of new words added to the American lexicon such as toxic masculinity, man-babies, man-splaining, man-spreading, an instaphobe, incel, POS, as just a few of the derogatory words tied to being male, especially white males. More and more, films and television have bestowed these monikers on men sometimes just to put them down and demoralize them. The TV show, FBI, on CBS, had the female lead played by Canadian actress, Missy Peregrym, berates the lead male character played by Zeeko Zavi when she yells back at him for “man-splaining” something to her. I didn’t see any of that from what was a casual dialogue between the two. His character just took it as if he was a beat-up puppy. Then there was the first year of Supergirl when it was on CBS as well. In this one episode, an episode that caused me to stop watching it, Supergirl gets her ass handed to her by some costumed villain.

Superman intervenes later and captures the villain and what does Supergirl, do, she berates Superman and blames HIM for not thinking she was capable of doing things on her own. How dare he come to her rescue after she gets her ass kicked. Supergirl shows her appreciation by dressing down Superman in no uncertain terms as she puts him in his place by being a very ungrateful Supergirl. I was done with this show as it shifted into a radical feminist woke show.

This was the bellwether of what was coming, the derision of all men no matter how sincere that man was. In these forty-two years came this so-called instrument to let mostly females, the level of female independence a character has without the involvement of men. This test was known as the Bechdel Test. It was introduced in a comic by cartoonist, Alison Bechdel back in 1985.

It wasn’t meant to be the instrument it came to be but feminists took it as the scale of how female characters are depicted in film roles especially if there is no mention of the opposite sex. The film, Black Widow, checked all of the boxes as it scored high with the Bechdel test. It had two female leads, it was directed by a woman, men weren’t the main talking points, and a woman wrote the story but a man wrote the screenplay. In Masters of The Universe-Revelations, He-Man is reduced to an afterthought, male characters meet their end, and Teela, the female protagonist, is elevated to hero status along with her girlfriend.

As the film critic Grace Randolph succinctly put it, “there are no strong lead male characters or supporting male lead characters”. But these two films have perhaps crossed that line one last time in their depiction of the male characters. Perhaps it is time for a new test defining what male characters should be judged as an answer to the Bechdel Test because it looks like none of this is going away any time soon.

In fact, if you happen to belong to the LGBTQ+ community, there is something called the Vito Russo Test. It’s similar to the Bechdel Test but geared toward the gay community. Their criteria are as follows:

- The film contains a character that is identifiably lesbian, gay, bisexual, and/or transgender.

- That character must not be solely or predominantly defined by their sexual orientation or gender identity. I.E. they are made up of the same sort of unique character traits commonly used to differentiate straight characters from one another.

- The LGBTQ character must be tied into the plot in such a way that their removal would have a significant effect. Meaning they are not there to simply provide colorful commentary, paint urban authenticity, or (perhaps most commonly) set up a punchline. The character should “matter.”

Did you know that this was even a thing? Of course, the average person wouldn’t know that this test was out there but it also shouldn’t come as a surprise either. The LGBTQ+ community is well funded, social media savvy, and politically cutthroat in pushing their agenda superseding other groups in all areas in the corporate and political world. The odd thing is though is that the Bechdel Test was originally created to explore the relationship with a lesbian couple. It got co-opted primarily by heterosexual feminist white females. So, technically the Bechdel Test is an LGBTQ+ legacy device.

As such, I will introduce to you the Bantha-Fodder Test. If you’re a Star Wars fan, you should be keenly aware of what bantha fodder is. However, this testing scenario represents the value of straight heterosexual male characters in film, television, comics, and in all fields of entertainment. You noticed that I didn’t call out white men. That is because all straight men have been on the chopping block since this labeling business occurred. Since the labeling of calling out white men as having or assuming “white male privilege, it would only be a matter of time before it would infiltrate men of color groups. There was a CW show called Black Lightning that just ended its series run this year. In the last season of this particular episode, Anissa, the oldest daughter, and superhero herself chastised her father for using his “male privilege” in fighting crime in the fashion that he’s been fighting it and some other perceived outrage that Anissa felt.

She that she was being placated by her father or whatever perceived outrage she may have had at that moment. Jefferson, the father and the Black Lightning superhero himself, was surprised and dumbfounded by the outburst. All of this was nothing more than her ”feelings” and was a nothing burger but that glove had been thrown down and he had to bend the knee to her whining. In addition to “white male privilege” the cancer of wokeness has now spread to “black male privilege” which in turn translate to “brown male privilege” and finally to ‘yellow male privilege” though I doubt you will ever hear anything about that as the gender dynamics aren’t really discussed in the Asian culture. The feminist agenda has slowly and methodically situated its canons to the men of color groups. quietly took aim, fired, and hit a new target. Nobody said a thing in the loss of casualties but now is a new day.

The scale for the Bantha-Fodder test is from 1 to 10 with one being the lowest value a male character depiction can be. Scoring the male characters will be assessed a value for any positive depiction of the male character and on the opposite side, points will be deducted against the male characters should any negative depictions are displayed. Here are the criteria:

POSITIVE

• 10. Involved Dad
• 9. Chivalrous -
• 8. Displays Intelligence
• 7. Unrequited stoic hero
• 6. Stands by his Word
• 5. Not a tokenized character
• 4. Stands up to his morals/principles
• 3. Is confident in his masculinity
• 2. Doesn’t get rolled by the females
• 1. Survives throughout the production

NEGATIVE

• -10. Deadbeat Dad
• -9. Indifference to the opposite sex
• -8. Unsolicited buffoonery/stupidity
• -7. Unabashed braggart
• -6. A con man with no redemptive architect
• -5. Is a tokenized characterization
• -4. Is constantly berated and put down
• -3. Has some effeminate characterization
• -2. Gets constantly cucked and is a simp
• -1. Is killed off or beaten up only to make a 95lb. woman look strong (deduct 3 extra points if the man is black, 2 extra points if he’s Latin, and 1 extra point if he’s Asian.)

Feminists may see this as a joke, an insult, rage bait, revenge porn, or whatever derogatory connotation that may devise. I see this more as being an equitable response to an uneven position in the entertainment business. Men in the entertainment business don’t truly reflect the common man, in terms of what or how they feel. The entertainment industry host many left-leaning men who would go along with any fad that doesn’t cost them any money or hinder their career. If some esoteric radical group gets on their soapbox and exposes some obtuse position and gets no opposition, the small maddening crowd that started off with a meow now finds it has a newfound roar spurred on by the left.

The entertainment industry has shifted tremendously in the last few years. Because of the woke culture, many IPs that were held in great favor have now become persona-non-grata.

- Ghostbusters 2016: The film where the four male leads were replaced by four women to disastrous results. Not only was the male character, Chris Hemsworth was a dumb dullard but he was also the “hot chick” The original cast members had nothing to do with ghostbusting and they killed off Bill Murray.

- Terminator: Dark Fate: They killed off John Connor. The new leader in the future is a squat of a woman who has no leadership skills. Sarah Conner is just a grumpy old lady and the Arnold Schwarzenegger character is a robot who hangs house curtains.

- X-Men: Dark Phoenix: A film where being a man is a sore point for all of the women and the acting can be found at the craft service table. Why was this ever green-lit for production?

- Black Widow: Poor Natasha Romanoff. They killed her off in Avengers: Endgame and then they bring her back for her standalone pic just for her to die a slow death, this time from the plot holes and the fact that all of the men were either a buffoon, a simp cuck, a bad guy, or a Hollywood mogul, uh, a human trafficker who mind-controlled women. Sounds like that Hollywood mogul guy.

- Masters of The Universe: Revelation: He-Man is killed off. Teela, a secondary character, shaves half of her head, listens to Indigo Girls and starts wearing cut-off plaid shirts, flexes her biceps as a mating ritual to attract her new girlfriend. By the power of Grey Skull.

These small lists of films all had one thing in common, they have a certain degree of wokeness in the soup and at the same time, diminishing the value of men. The men in the entertainment industry won’t talk about this pattern as they either won’t talk about it or are afraid of the repercussions and the canceled mob that will surely follow. What you will hear is from regular guys and girls on podcasts and YouTube channels who follow film and trends about the growing state of where the entertainment industry is in. The three new buzzwords in the entertainment industry are inclusion, diversity, and representation. Whenever you hear those words, you want to run in the opposite direction because it’s has become a dog whistle for male actors, especially white males. In this new alternative universe, roles can be gender-swapped and/or race swapped even with historical figures. Anne Boleyn, the second wife of Henry VIII, was recently race swapped in a film. English Queen Anne Boleyn a predominately white woman was portrayed in the 2021 British mini-series, Anne Boleyn, by British black actress, Jodie Turner-Smith.

What was the purpose of the race swap? I even read where some people really believed that Anne Boleyn was a black woman. Would you welcome a race swap of Malcolm-X played by Tom Hanks? I’m sure that’s a no so why do this to Anne Boleyn? In this new alternative universe, certain groups are demanding authenticity for film and TV roles.

It’s no longer okay for actors who make a living pretending to be someone else. Scarlett Johansson lost a role because she wasn’t a transsexual man. She caught hell playing a Japanese android in Ghost in The Shell. Neil Patrick Harris successfully played a straight man as an active libido-charged man who has slept with countless women during the entire run of the series, How I Met Your Mother without a word of protest.

Now if a part calls out for the person to be gay, trans, bisexual, etc. you better be one in real life. Somehow, people have forgotten the meaning of acting. Actors can no longer pretend anymore, they have to BE whatever it is in real life. It’s no longer acceptable to earn the part on your own merits, instead, we get a paper-bag actor whose range is limited, and the only reason he is there is that he’s checked off some boxes.

Now we have to come up with “tests” to see if we are meeting certain standards because it meets and promotes a narrative from some outraged group. The Bechdel Test, the Vito Russo test, and now the Bantha-Fodder test want a part of that entertainment cake. In the long run, what will it really mean? Why have we imposed these restrictions on ourselves? Films used to be fun escapism outlets. Every once in a while you’d get some heavy stuff like The Deer Hunter or Apocalypse Now but you also got the original Ghostbusters, Big, Deadpool, Thelma & Louise, Beverly Hills Cop, The Terminator, Alien, The Star Wars Trilogy where you just check your brain at the door and went in and had a good time. These films didn’t have agendas or identity politics or put down men. Women were respected.

It’s all about the money now, not the experience. Filmmakers are now being told that to be considered for Oscar contention, films need to meet strict guidelines and quotas. What if I’m doing a period piece where only one particular race is being presented but it’s a historical piece that has merit and relevance to the period in question? Is it now out of Oscar consideration? Maybe that is the problem, large corporations are worried about the dollar and not about the audience’s fun. They have taken the joy out of film-making and replaced it with research companies who have no concept of what IP they are studying. They don’t listen to the fans anymore judging by what the fans are called after a bad review hits the studio’s front door. Will you make the Bantha-Fodder test an actuality or do we just sit back and continue with this punishment? It’s up to you.

 

Film Review: Black Widow is Like Driving a Brand New Tesla

with The Two Front Tires Missing

It Will Leave You Empty

Well. It’s finally here, the much anticipated and long overdue film, by about four years, Black Widow. Was it worth the wait? Well, it all depends on who you ask, fans of the Black Widow, fans of The Avengers, or just the average consumer of comic book movies in general. For the die-hard fan, you probably will consume the film, warts and all, not question the shear flagrant plot holes, and will more than likely add it to your collection of Marvel films to complete the less than perfect set. They will see it as a perfect movie from start to finish even though it was not by a very wide margin. They will ignore or overlook certain aspects of the film because Natasha Romanoff played by Scarlett Johansson, can do no wrong. For the general consumer though, they will view it as just an okay film where there is no forward movement with the story and that it will either signals to them that The Avengers is definitely done or that this will definitely close out the chapter on the book of Marvel. But as the saying goes, Caveat emptor, let the buyer beware. This movie is like buying a brand new Tesla, you love that new car smell but something is wrong. You get out and look around and find that that new Tesla is missing the front tires. You get back in and drive it anyway and find it difficult in steering and difficult watching it.

With a running time of two hours and thirteen minutes, this film was directed by Cate Shortland, whose resume is light on filming big-budget tent pole movies. In addition to Scarlett Johansson, we are also introduced to new characters, Yalena Belova, Natasha’s fake sister, played by Florence Pugh, Alexi, Natasha’s fake father, played by David Harbour, Melina, Natasha’s fake mother, played by Rachel Weisz and Dreykov played by Ray Winstone. He’s a characterization of a pseudo-Harvey Weinstein. There are other ancillaries characters, O-T Fagbenle as Mason who plays Natasha’s cuck friend who goes beyond the call of duty to satisfy her material need while stuck in a perpetual masturbatory state of denial, Violet McGraw as the younger version of Yalena, and Ever Anderson as the younger version of Natasha. Now if Ever Anderson looks strangely familiar to you, well, that is because she is the daughter of Resident Evil icon, Milla Jovovich.

What was this film about? It was supposed to be the back story of who Natasha Romanoff is or was. Following the death of Natasha in Avengers Endgame, we finally get to explore who this person was. In earlier iterations of The Avengers, we got to see the evolution into Natasha’s past life of how she became this precision killer drone as she was trained at a young age to become this agent of death who mindlessly followed orders. However, in this telling of Natasha’s back story, we see none of that early childhood indoctrination. In this iteration, there is a scene in the car as they were fleeing from their home to escape S.H.I.E.L.D. agents, a music selection is played in the car, Don McLean’s American Pie, that I predict would come back as a plot point later in the movie. Following their escape to Cuba, Dreykov is waiting for them. Alexi and Melina follow their orders and comply with Dreykov and watch as Natasha and Yelena are tranquilized and carried off unconscious by guards to be indoctrinated into the Black Widow program. We get a 20-year time jump from there.

In this timeline, it takes place right after Captain America: Civil War. Natasha is on the run after fleeing America to avoid getting arrested for violating the Sokovian Accords. She makes her way back to some nondescript Ukraine substitute country. There are lots of expositions in this film that are rather ho-hum in the telling. Melvin, the cuck friend, and supplier of goods and wares, is the requisite friend who can’t have any benefits from Natasha. He’s the eunuch of this film and not by choice. Scarlett Johansson talked about her role in the MCU as being a sexualization. Well, the way she used her sexuality to manipulate him seems to work in her favor when it’s convenient, and isn’t that’s just how the world works anyway?

After the marginal teasing ends with Melvin, Natasha heads into town to refill a gas can to refuel her generator. This is the moment we get to see Taskmaster in action and it really wasn’t worth the wait. Prior to this, we saw the family escaping from S.H.I.E.L.D. from a private runway by airplane and in another scene, we get to see Yelena doing some street fighting with a former Widow. The fight sequence between Natasha and Taskmaster can be best described as Captain America very light. Taskmaster throws a shield like Cap, flips it off the ground like Cap, and deflects bullets like Cap. By the way, that’s a guy in the outfit, not a woman. Guys move a certain way like women move a certain way and this is a guy doing the stunts. Natasha escapes and discovers a package from Yelena that was sent to her. Natasha has not bothered to open let alone look at what was left behind from Budapest. The fight with Taskmaster was about that package.

At this point, this is shaping up to be an unremarkable film. It’s a by the numbers movie. Yelena and Natasha finally met up, they spar for a moment for some reason only known to them but the audience is left out. The other mind-controlled Black Widows, also known as Disney+ assassins, rain down on them, they get away and it’s more by the numbers stuff. One Black Widow Disney+ assassin is injured but she kills herself before Yelena can administer the antidote to reverse Dreykov’s mind control hold on them. Ugh, this is laborious.

We now do the prison scene where we find Alexi being incarcerated. They sneak in a communication device through a toy. Alexi places it in his ear and they instruct him where he needs to go to escape. Here is the thing though, Alexi is a super-soldier. He has the strength to knock down concrete walls. So why hadn’t he just break out earlier and why hadn’t the prison system do a better job of restraining him with external devices? When you start to ask questions while you’re watching a film, other questions start to rise. Why were the helicopter windows appear to be bulletproof but the fuselage was not? Judging by the size of the caliber of weapon that the prison system was using, shouldn’t there have been more damage to the helicopter window by showing the windows being shattered? Yelena or at least the writer steals a joke from Deadpool when he talks about the hackneyed derivative superhero landing as she criticizes Natasha’s superhero landing, a landing by the way that was criticized in an article leading up to the movie release as also being sexualized. How do you sexualize a superhero landing when both men and women did it?

Fast forward and Natasha and company reunite with Melina, who by the way, is the architect of the Black Widow Disney+ assassin mind control program. Nothing detrimental happens to Melina. She pays no consequences for creating a program that enslaves women. Are we going to just overlook this bit of criminality because she’s female? There is a lot more exposition in this section as well as past history is explored and it comes off like a starving man being fed empty calories. The Tesla rear wheels are starting to wobble a bit now. Feelings are hurt, Yelena runs off to a bedroom followed by Alexi leaving Natasha and Melina to continue with, alas, more talk about their feelings and the whereabouts of the Red Room and Dreykov. In the bedroom, as predicted, the American Pie song is brought back up by Alexi who sings it for sentimental reasons for fake dad to reconnect with fake daughter and for Yelena to reconnect to happier moments as a child. In a routine plot turn, a team of mind-controlled Black Widows Disney+ assassins are on their way to capture them per Melina’s notifying the Red Room of their arrival.

Fast forward a few scenes later and Natasha is face to face with Dreykov and Taskmaster. Taskmaster is revealed to be a woman even though Taskmaster in the previous scenes is a man. You can really tell the difference between to two after they do the reveal as the actress's physique doesn’t fill out the suit like the stunt actor and her walk is lacking any confidence in the strides. This Taskmaster is Dreykov’s daughter played by Olga Kurylenko who looks like an opioid user. Taskmaster is a defined character in the comics. Dreykov’s daughter, Antonio, was a missed opportunity to make her character unique as a survivor of a failed assassin bent on revenge. Do you then have to ask yourself why was she here in the first place if this was all the screen time they were going to give her? But she’s only there for the plot point for Natasha to feel guilty for maiming her after a failed attempt at killing Dreykov as she too is a Disney+ assassin. Black Widow Disney+ assassins don’t really kill as they really maim you and are forgiven for their transgressions and Machiavellian approach to world domination and mind-controlling dolls.

Every man in this production falls into one category, he’s either a cuck, stupid, or a bad guy. Alexi, for the most part, is stupid. His prison inmates are stupid. His guards are bad. The men who guard over the Black Widow Disney+ assassins are bad and why are they needed if the Black Widow Disney+ assassins are supposed to be such badasses? Ross is technically bad and used sparingly. Dreykov is the ultimate bad being in that he kidnaps little girls and places them in indentured servitude. Men with any worth about them have become fiction and an endangered species in Hollywood these days as the agenda takes over more and more.

That Tesla is about to lose that left rear tire as we get the double-double cross orchestrated by Melina. This was not a surprise. The mind-controlled Black Widows Disney+ assassins of nine women attack a solitary Natasha with difficulty until they finally get the upper hand by surrounding her and beating her up. Yelena comes to the rescue by using a small explosive charge to set off the antidote to reverse the mind control effects. Dreykov is killed off, Taskmaster gets the antidote treatment, everything is tied up in a neat bow but with questions. What happened with Ross and Natasha after everybody scattered? Fade to credits and the end credit scene where Yelena is at Natasha’s grave. Here is the problem with that. Is there a body in the grave? We never saw anyone recover Natasha’s BODY. We saw Tony Stark’s funeral but nothing with Natasha. We also see the return of Valentina played by Julia-Louis Dreyfuss, last seen in The Falcon and Winter Soldier. It was at that point that this movie felt like a TV show. This scene felt like it was added on like yesterday. It felt so out of place. It may have been a bad move to end the movie on that note.

The marketing for this film has been horrendous. There have been articles on the topic with Scarlett Johansson of sexualization, being underpaid, undervalued, and just being a victim with some of the comments coming from her. What she said came like a punch to the gut to her fans who have always supported her character. It was her fans who wanted to see her in her own standalone film long before the atrocious ill-received Captain Marvel. What they got instead was an actress whose perspective was from journalist who had agendas and woke points to fill and she politely obliged them. She talked about her role in Iron Man 2 that introduced the character. She misquoted what Tony had said about her. As she put it, she stated that Tony said “I want some”. She was in the film, how could she get it so wrong? What he said was “I want one.” Because she got it wrong, now it’s out there when a quick YouTube search would have found what was said. But that is the pattern, burn down the legacy, set all the goodwill ablaze that was established.

I’m still, trying to wrap my head around how she felt like the character was sexualized? There is footage of her walking back in forth in her outfit on the set of Iron Man 2 in front of the crew. There was nobody holding any weapon on her as she flaunted herself back and forth. Didn’t she study who the character was? Natasha Romanoff was a femme fatale. In all of the MCU films where Natasha was presented, she never showed any significant cleavage or was placed in any compromising position that would warrant any type of scrutiny. As far as being underpaid, she was paid $15 million dollars with another $6 million bonus should the film reach $900 million. Everyone is talking about white male privilege but she is an elitist with white female privilege. Her media blitz has very little to do about promoting her film but more about pushing an agenda. When asked about those divisive issues, she could have easily punted those topics down the field and only talk about the film.

These agenda-driven journalists don’t remember film history when it comes to female roles. Jennifer Garner was the first woman in the MCU with the role of Elektra. They don’t talk about Sara Conner, Ellen Ripley, Buffy Summers, or even Jessica Jones, a well-written character with plenty of flaws just like Buffy. Black Widow Disney+ assassin supposedly passed the so-called Bechdel Test, a made-up test derived from a cartoon dealing with feminism. All of these agendas is starting to ruin the quality of films and what can and cannot be represented. Maybe someone should create another test on how men are treated in films these days? Are they more stupid than the Three Stooges? Are they eviler than Charles Manson kicking puppies? How sexless is the man when he’s the lone man on an island full of Tik Thots? What about some negative points when a man gets called out for “man-splaining”, having the “male gaze”, “man-spreading”, “toxic man-baby”, “toxic masculinity”, or any other made-up tags feminists have made up to put down men? In fact, why don’t I just call it the Bantha-Fodder Test because it will mean that the film has no value in the depiction of men on a 1–10 scale. It’s time for some push-back, this has gone on for far too long.

Whoops, all the tires have fallen off the Tesla. Call the tow truck, I think this is a lemon. 2 stars out of 5