The Bechdel Test Essay

The Bechdel Test, also known as the Bechdel-Wallace test, proposes a simple question: Did two women in the movie talk to each other about something other than a man? Many films, shockingly, fail to pass this test. Pixar movies are no exception to this with 10 out of 14 of their movies failing. Finding Nemo certainly has a plethora of male characters, but what it seems to lack is female characters. Dory is, for the most part, the only female character that is consistently shown throughout the course of the film and when the film does show its females interacting with someone else, it’s with a male. While it was exceptionally difficult to find scenes where two females conversed, there is a scene between Peach the starfish and Deb. Their interaction

The film does kick off with the gender stereotype that the man needs to provide for his family in a relationship. When chatting about their new home Marlin asks Coral, “Did your man deliver or did he deliver?” To which Coral responds with, “My man delivered.” Finding Nemo, however, does challenge these gender stereotypes. The media tends to portray men as tough whereas the females are usually depicted as being weak and inferior to men and the opening scene of Finding Nemo takes a different approach to this. When their home is being attacked, Coral is the one to sacrifice her life in order to protect her babies while her husband is illustrated as being skittish. This stereotype is also challenged with Bruce, Anchor, and Chum, the three sharks that Marlin and Dory meet. When they are first introduced they come off as intimidating and scary, but they turn out to be friendly and sensitive. In addition, society and the media often teach young boys to suppress their emotions because emotions are linked to femininity, but the males in this film do not contain their emotions all too well. Marlin is a perfect example of this as his emotions are always clear. He often shows signs of anxiety such as when Nemo goes into the open ocean to touch the boat. Another example of this is when Bruce, the main shark, begins to cry after finding out about Marlin’s journey to find his