The Posey Test

''All these relationships between women, I thought, rapidly recalling the splendid gallery of fictitious women, are too simple. [...] And I tried to remember any case in the course of my reading where two women are represented as friends. [...] They are now and then mothers and daughters. But almost without exception they are shown in their relation to men. It was strange to think that all the great women of fiction were, until Jane Austen's day, not only seen by the other sex, but seen only in relation to the other sex. And how small a part of a woman’s life is that [...]" -Virginia Woolfe 


The Bechdel Test first appeared in a comic strip by Allison Bechdel, entitled "Dykes to Watch Out For", as a sort of look at underrepresentation of well rounded female characters in movies. One of the characters in the strip, an unnamed woman, states that she won't watch films unless they fit the following criteria:

1. The movie has to have at least two women in it
2. These women talk to each other
3. The women talk to each other about something besides a man

Now, while this in no way guarantees that said movie will be well recieved, or even free of sexist content, it serves as a broad guideline for writers to keep in mind. Another such test was proposed by my friend Jess Posey and is respectively named, The Posey Test. It functions in a similar fashion to the Bechdel Test in that it broadly applies a few rules in order to better diversify the portrayals of women in media, in this case with comedy. 

The rules are:

1. There is at least one female character
2. That character is cast among a strong presence of male characters
3. The character's comedic moments aren't dependent on a male character for setup
4. The character serves as the sole or primary source of comedy

The idea isn't to strictly adhere to these rules, but to keep them in mind as you write. It should be noted that there are ways to not use the Bechdel Test and Posey Test and still see the kind of characters and comedy that resonate with people. For example, "Orange is the New Black" connected with many people, passes the Bechdel Test, but fails one of the conditions of the Posey Test. Does this then mean that the Posey Test is invalid? Of course not, because the rule was to be broadly applied in the first place. 

Aside from the two tests mentioned, there are a few others, like the Russo Test, the Mako Mori test, and the oh-so-hilarious Sexy Lamp test. All of these tests serve as broad guidelines for creating more rounded characters, and while they may not all guarantee that your work will connect with audiences, they will at least lead you to more emotionally realistic characters.