IMDb Adds 'F-Rating', Inspired by Bechdel Test
The Internet Movie Database (IMDb) has just started adding the new "F-rating" to movies in its immense collection, to signal movies that pass the Bechdel test and are written and directed by women.
"The F-Rating is a great way to highlight women on screen and behind the camera," IMDb founder and chief executive officer (CEO) Col Needham said of the new system, in an interview with BBC. About 21,800 films have been tagged with the F-rating so far by the online entertainment database.
The criteria for the F-rating has been formulated in 2014 by the Bath Film Festival executive director, Holly Tarquini. The Guardian has the details on Tarquini's motivations behind this rating system, which are to "support women in film and change the stories we see on screen."
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The F-rating as conceptualized by Tarquini is to be awarded to a film that fulfills one or more of the F-rating criteria, according to the official F-rated site. These criteria are: the film has a female director, the film is written by a woman, or the presence of "complex female on-screen characters who exist in their own rights and aren't simply there to support the male lead."
The F in F-rating stands for feminist, and Tarquini explains that the rating system came about to support women in film. An earlier version that may have inspired the F-rating is the Bechdel Test, an assessment that simply checks if at least two women have a shared dialog about something other than a male.
With the online database having an increasing 250 million visitors per month, Tarquini is happy that IMDb is adopting the F-rating. "It's great that you can now use IMDb to browse films directed and written by women," Tarquini told the Guardian. For now, films with the new rating can be found by searching for "f-rated" and looking for the entries "f-rated" and "triple-f-rated" under the Keywords category.
