We interrupt this series of stories about Dr. Robert Smith, dear reader, to faithfully report to you what Lola had to say after reading the last installment of said series. (This is perhaps the only “faithful” quality about this writing endeavor.)
After reading “A Gentleman’s Agreement,” Lo turned to me and said, “You know, I’ve never noticed it before, but your stories seem to invert or at least pervert ‘The Bechdel Test.’”
“What is that again?” I knew I had heard that term before, but couldn’t quite remember exactly what it meant.
“The Bechdel Test is applied to movies to see if the female characters are actually portrayed as humans, which females are.”
“Really? That is news. So, Star Trek fails because there are many non-humanoid females in those films? And Avatar fails as well?”
“No no no,” she said. “That’s not what it’s getting at. In most films women are merely props for the men and the women are depicted as vapid, man-obsessed, pretty young things with no inner life or outer concerns.”
“OK. So what’s the test?”
“The test is pretty simple. The film has to have at least two women in it who talk to each other about something other than men.”
“And how do I pervert that with my writing?” I asked.
“Well, just look at your last story, or just about any story of yours. You often have two men but they rarely talk about anything other then women, and almost always that woman is me!”
She looked very satisfied and flattered by her self-referential observation. Nothing pleases Lo so much as the thought of Lo pleases Lo, except other people thinking about Lo pleasing them.
“Maybe I should start applying a Lola Down test to my stories: Each story must contain at least two men talking to each other about you.”
“No need to try to do that. It already happens quite naturally.”
“Now you’ve got me wondering if any of my stories feature two women talking to each other about something other than men.”
“You’ll just have to go through each and every one of them to find out.”
“Darling, you realize, don’t you, that as of the last published story, ‘NILF,’ there were approximately 327 chapters to your little saga.”
“And?”
“That’s approximately 1000 pages of single-spaced writing.”
“And?”
“Good grief!” I exclaimed, “You are an absolute egomaniac!”
“And?”
“And I love you.”
“That’s better.”