Okies, a proper reply now that I'm over my glee at seeing Merlin meta. *g* Thanks for putting these numbers together!
Firstly, that last line. Oh, Gwen. Oh, sweetie. ♥
So I knew there was some fail, demographically, but seeing it spelled out -- whew. Before seeing this I would've guesstimated that overall, the show passes the Bechdel Test, but not even half the episodes do -- The Moment Of Truth was so ensemble-driven that I was also hoping it would pass. But alas, I reckon they were talking about men or to men the whole time. *sigh* (It's funny -- at first I was 'oh! oh, but Gwen did talk to Hunith for like half a second... o wait, that was about Arthur and the food. -_-')
Interestingly, there also doesn't seem to be a strong relationship between percentage of speaking women in an episode and whether that episode passes the Bechdel test -- and indeed, the one where women were least prominently shown passes -- but of course this is because the entire weight of the Bechdel test rests on Gwen and Morgana's shoulders. *pets them* I can't think of any other women who interact with each other apart from Sophia-Morgana (and that conversation definitely didn't pass *g*). Gwen and Morgana are really the only females on the show who don't exist to further a plot (arguably). Even Nimueh doesn't qualify, which is a shame -- I would've loved for her and Morgana to meet.
Still, Gwen and Morgana's overall dynamic gets a lot of points as far as I'm concerned; they're woefully underused (especially Gwen) but what we do get to see of them is generally awesome. Most of the women have actual depth and strength as characters. (It kind of sucks to have to lower standards to be happy, but the fail isn't as epic as I've seen in many other shows. It's definitely no Supernatural. *g*)
As for the race numbers, those are probably least surprising and considering the time period I guess it's good to see some PoCs at all. Off the top of my head I think Gwen and Lancelot are the only speaking PoCs to've made it through the first series, though. :/
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Firstly, that last line. Oh, Gwen. Oh, sweetie. ♥
So I knew there was some fail, demographically, but seeing it spelled out -- whew. Before seeing this I would've guesstimated that overall, the show passes the Bechdel Test, but not even half the episodes do -- The Moment Of Truth was so ensemble-driven that I was also hoping it would pass. But alas, I reckon they were talking about men or to men the whole time. *sigh* (It's funny -- at first I was 'oh! oh, but Gwen did talk to Hunith for like half a second... o wait, that was about Arthur and the food. -_-')
Interestingly, there also doesn't seem to be a strong relationship between percentage of speaking women in an episode and whether that episode passes the Bechdel test -- and indeed, the one where women were least prominently shown passes -- but of course this is because the entire weight of the Bechdel test rests on Gwen and Morgana's shoulders. *pets them* I can't think of any other women who interact with each other apart from Sophia-Morgana (and that conversation definitely didn't pass *g*). Gwen and Morgana are really the only females on the show who don't exist to further a plot (arguably). Even Nimueh doesn't qualify, which is a shame -- I would've loved for her and Morgana to meet.
Still, Gwen and Morgana's overall dynamic gets a lot of points as far as I'm concerned; they're woefully underused (especially Gwen) but what we do get to see of them is generally awesome. Most of the women have actual depth and strength as characters. (It kind of sucks to have to lower standards to be happy, but the fail isn't as epic as I've seen in many other shows. It's definitely no Supernatural. *g*)
As for the race numbers, those are probably least surprising and considering the time period I guess it's good to see some PoCs at all. Off the top of my head I think Gwen and Lancelot are the only speaking PoCs to've made it through the first series, though. :/