Season 1, Episode 5, Live Fast, Diane Nguyen
Bechdel Test: Pass or Fail?
- Are there at least TWO women?
- Diane
- Ma Nguyen (debatable if Ma is her real name or not)
- Princess Carolyn
- Do they talk to each other?
- Yes
- Do they talk about something other than a man?
- YES!
Why did it Pass/Fail?
- Ma and Diane Nguyen talk to each other about how Diane hasn’t been home in 5 years. She went home because her dad died, but she had a few sentences where the mother and daughter just talked to each other about Diane. Two out of five episodes have passed so far!!
Other themes noticed:
- Throughout the episode, there are many occurrences where you can find BoJack bloating about his wealth and (former) popularity to others. Just from my own knowledge and experience, I can think of a lot of famous men that do that, but not a lot of famous women (besides Lizzo who said: “I’m a rich b*tch” on her Instagram. I’m sure there are many other instances of female celebrities bragging, but I feel like a lot more of them are going to be male.
- Another thing that I noticed is that Diane seemed to box in her emotions instead of expressing them. Her father died and instead of crying and being super bummed out, she said “oh well no worries.” Granted the relationship that she had with her father wasn’t the best, I still feel like losing your father would have to hurt a little bit (unless you truly hated him, but that didn’t seem to be the case in the episode).
- There is a scene where BoJack is talking with his father, and I noticed a common theme. in a lot of movies/tv-shows I have seen, there is a father figure who is grouchy, sitting in his fancy chair, and reading the paper. That is exactly what Bojack’s father was doing!
- Also similar themes with Diane’s brothers and how they were all “sports dudes.”
Shared by: Will Kepes
Image Credit: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt3978916/