As a part of her coverage of the Sundance Film Festival New York Times film critic Manohla Dargis introduced the “DuVernay test”, so named after Selma helmer Ava DuVernay.
It”s purpose is to function as a racial equivalent of the Bechdel test, which is used to measure the function the female character”s play in films.
Here is what Dargis has to say about the Festival as an arbiter of change in the industry, and the proposed test.
Movies like The Birth of a Nation are helping to write the next chapter of American cinema. And, to an extent, that”s true of Sundance at its best…It”s also where numerous selections pass the Bechdel test (movies like the very fine Christine and Sand Storm, in which two women talk to each other about something besides a man) and, in honor of the director and Sundance alumna Ava DuVernay, what might be called the DuVernay test, in which African-Americans and other minorities have fully realized lives rather than serve as scenery in white stories.
In the video above The Girls on Film, Alicia Malone, Roth Cornet, and Miri Jedeikin discuss the new DuVernay test in comparison to the divisive Bechdel test.
You can also take a look at the full show below where we tackle a new celebrity interview controversy and whether or not noting women's sexual appeal on social media is appropriate or not.
Take a look and let us know what you think here or on Twitter.
Roth: @RothCornet
Miri: @MiritheJedi
Alicia: @AliciaMalone