Summary
The Bechdel test asks whether two women are having a conversation which doesn't relate to a man. Many films, books and plays fall foul of the measure which first appeared in the comic strip Dykes to Watch Out For, created by Matthew Sweet's guest today Alison Bechdel. Her memoir Fun Home became a Tony Award-winning musical and she has now published The Secret to Superhuman Strength which considers her relationship with exercise so she and Matthew go on an imaginary walk discussing topics including mushrooms, drinking, the response of her mum to being depicted in fiction, the lingering impact of a Catholic childhood and going to confession, the writing of Adrienne Rich and Coleridge and Bechdel's exploration of ideas about transcendence.
Producer: Caitlin Benedict
You can find Matthew in conversation with other guests including Spike Lee, Sarah Perry, Jimmy Carter's former drugs tsar Peter Bourne and Michael Lewis in a playlist on the Free Thinking programme website https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p04ly0c8
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Welcome back to the home of the oxymoron. Evil genius. He asked the newspaper to print his obituary early so he'd enjoy it. That's like hiding at your own funeral. Yeah, a big, great gig. I'm Russell Kane. Join me to weigh in on whether the biggest players in history are more evil or genius. Becoming that rich, I'd say that is some level of genius. It also helps |
| 0:21.2 | it. It's a long time ago, right? It's like the podcast version of telling your kids the ice cream |
| 0:26.1 | van plays music when it's out of ice cream. Listen to evil genius on BBC Sounds. |
| 0:33.3 | BBC Sounds, music, radio, podcasts. Hello, in this panel, there's me sitting in a studio, and there's a speech bubble, |
| 0:41.3 | and I'm saying, hello, I'm Matthew Sweet, and this is the Arts and Ideas podcast. |
| 0:46.0 | And in a moment, you'll hear me talking to the cartoonist Alison Bechdel, |
| 0:50.0 | who created fun home and dikes to watch out for. |
| 0:53.2 | And the next panel has these messages. |
| 1:00.8 | The human voice. Isn't it amazing? |
| 1:04.3 | I'm Peter Brathwaite and I'm an opera singer. |
| 1:06.8 | But I'm not here to tell you about my voice. |
| 1:08.8 | I want to share my love for five extraordinary voices that have changed the way I sing and listen. |
| 1:14.9 | Some you might know, others you probably won't. |
| 1:17.6 | But they and their stories all need to be heard. |
| 1:20.3 | So have a listen to In Their Voices, |
| 1:22.8 | my series of essays diving deep into five voices that have hit me for six. |
| 1:29.2 | The essay. Search for this series and all other available episodes in BBC Sounds. The life of Alison Bechdel has been lived primarily by Alison Bechdel. |
| 1:50.6 | But thanks to her art, we've been permitted to live it too. |
| 1:54.9 | Bechdel writes books. They have words and they have pictures. |
| 1:58.5 | A lot of those pictures are of her as a young girl, growing up with a father |
| 2:02.7 | who is unusually a funeral director, an English teacher and a restorer of old houses. As a college |
| 2:09.5 | student, having a series of eureka moments about her sexuality, and as a wiry woman in glasses |
... |
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