Pop Culture and The Military: A Test for Accuracy in Media Representation

The Bechdel test has provided an analysis of gender roles in media for female characters for decades. This presentation proposes a new test inspired by The Bechdel Test for veterans and military personnel to be analyzed in much the same way in their media representations. These representations are sometimes the only general public ideas of military life and expectations; thus, accuracy and recognition are important and need to be analyzed. This presentation then uses various pop culture figures as the examples needed to test the functioning of the new test and show times that the culture passes or fails.