It's A Man's World...

***Updated to appease Drax****

...at least at the movies. A while back I ran across this post about The Rule from an Alison Bechdel comic strip. The Rule is a guideline for what movies the main character will go to see. The requirements are:

1. There has to be at least two women in it who
2. talk to each other about
3. something besides a man.

Seems pretty simple, eh? Well as it turns out we are hard pressed to find movies that actually fulfill these requirements.

I found this blog where readers can nominate movies and rate them on how many of the requirements they fulfill. It is pretty sad and quite frankly I disagree with many of the ratings. Personally I feel if the conversation the two women have involves having a baby that should also count as a rule violation, but hey, maybe I'm being too picky.

I found these posts around the end of the year so I couldn't resist making a list of the movies I I watched in 2009 (I only included movies released in 2009) and wanted to see how they fared. I'm sorry to say, not to well. Here they are:

1. Star Trek
2. 2012
3. The Hangover
4. Paul Blart: Mall Cop (It was on Netflix. We were bored and desperate.)
5. Funny People
6. The Taking of Pelham 123
7. The Soloist
8. Julie & Julia
9. The Men Who Stare At Goats
10. Sunshine Cleaning
11. Good Hair
12. Tyson
13. Up In The Air
14. Sherlock Holmes

By my best estimate, only 2 of the 14 (14%) possibly meet all three requirements (Julie & Julia & Sunshine Cleaning). Even sadder, very few even have 2 women in them, no less talking to each other about anything.

What movies have you seen that meet the requirements?

Velvet Smooth

Thanks to Master Steven L. Malanoski, I was able to see my sensei in action again. This clip comes from a 70's "chop socky" movie, Velvet Smooth. About a minute into the clip a small-framed man fights a woman with a pool cue. This is Sensei (Master Thomas Agero) way younger than I ever knew him but already a master of weapons. He really did move that quickly but was far more graceful in real life.