Oppenheimer Bechdel Test

Does Oppenheimer Pass the Bechdel Test? A Deep Dive into Representation in a Historical Drama

Introduction:

Christopher Nolan's Oppenheimer dominated the summer box office, sparking fervent discussions about its historical accuracy, stunning visuals, and compelling performances. But beyond the praise and controversy surrounding its portrayal of J. Robert Oppenheimer and the Manhattan Project, a crucial question emerges: does Oppenheimer pass the Bechdel Test? This article delves into the complexities of the Bechdel Test, its application to Oppenheimer, and the broader implications for female representation in historical dramas and blockbuster films. We'll examine the film's female characters, their interactions, and analyze whether the film fulfills the criteria of the test, while considering the historical context and the limitations of applying a modern metric to a past era. Prepare for a nuanced discussion that goes beyond a simple "pass" or "fail" and explores the intricacies of gender representation in cinema.

What is the Bechdel Test?

The Bechdel Test, a simple yet powerful metric for evaluating gender representation in film, asks three questions:

1. Does the film feature at least two women?
2. Do these women talk to each other?
3. Do they talk to each other about something other than a man?

While seemingly straightforward, the test highlights a significant issue: the frequent underrepresentation and marginalization of women in film, often relegated to supporting roles or defined solely by their relationship to male characters. Failing the Bechdel Test doesn't automatically condemn a film as misogynistic, but it often signals a lack of focus on female perspectives and relationships, suggesting a potentially limited and skewed portrayal of reality.

Applying the Bechdel Test to Oppenheimer:

Applying the Bechdel Test to Oppenheimer is more complicated than for many films. While the film features several women, their screen time and interactions are limited, and their roles are heavily contextualized within the male-dominated world of the Manhattan Project. Let's analyze the key female characters:

Kitty Oppenheimer (Emily Blunt): Kitty is arguably the most prominent female character, portraying Oppenheimer's wife. While she has significant screen time, much of her dialogue centers on Oppenheimer himself, his work, or their troubled relationship. There are moments where she interacts with other women, but these conversations often indirectly or directly involve Oppenheimer.

Jean Tatlock (Florence Pugh): Tatlock's character, a communist psychiatrist, has a complex relationship with Oppenheimer. While she certainly contributes to the narrative, her interactions with other women are minimal and rarely devoid of Oppenheimer's presence or influence in the conversation.

Other Female Characters: The film features other female characters, primarily in supporting roles, like secretaries or those within the scientific community. However, they rarely have extended conversations with each other, and when they do, the conversations often revolve around the men in their lives or the work at Los Alamos.

Oppenheimer and the Limitations of the Bechdel Test:

Applying the Bechdel Test to a historical drama like Oppenheimer presents inherent challenges. The film strives to depict a specific historical period and social context, where women held significantly less power and visibility than men. Arguing that the film "fails" because it accurately reflects this historical imbalance overlooks the importance of acknowledging historical realities. The Bechdel Test, while valuable, shouldn't be applied as a rigid, uncontextualized judgment.


Beyond the Bechdel Test: A Deeper Look at Female Representation:

Even acknowledging the historical context, Oppenheimer’s female characters are largely defined by their relationship to Oppenheimer or other male figures. Their agency and independent narratives feel somewhat constrained. While their struggles and perspectives are glimpsed, they aren't explored with the same depth or complexity as the male characters’ journeys. This isn't simply about passing or failing a test; it's about exploring the potential for richer, more nuanced portrayals of women in historical narratives.


The Significance of Representation in Film:

The Bechdel Test and similar metrics are critical because they highlight a broader issue: the systemic underrepresentation of women and diverse perspectives in film. Films influence our perceptions of the world, shaping our understanding of gender roles, social dynamics, and historical events. When women are consistently marginalized or relegated to supporting roles, it reinforces harmful stereotypes and limits the range of narratives we see on screen.

Conclusion:

Whether Oppenheimer passes the Bechdel Test depends on the interpretation and the level of leniency applied, considering its historical setting. However, the film's limited portrayal of female characters and their interactions raises significant questions about the representation of women in historical dramas. The film’s merit shouldn't solely rest on its adherence to a specific metric, but a critical evaluation of how it portrays women within its historical context and the potential for more equitable and nuanced representation in future films. The discussion generated by applying the Bechdel Test, regardless of the outcome, serves as a vital step in fostering a more inclusive and representative cinematic landscape.


Article Outline:

I. Introduction: Hooking the reader and providing an overview of the article.
II. What is the Bechdel Test?: Defining the test and its significance.
III. Applying the Bechdel Test to Oppenheimer: Analyzing the film's female characters and their interactions.
IV. Oppenheimer and the Limitations of the Bechdel Test: Discussing the challenges of applying the test to historical dramas.
V. Beyond the Bechdel Test: A Deeper Look at Female Representation: Examining the depth and complexity of female characters in the film.
VI. The Significance of Representation in Film: Highlighting the impact of representation on societal perceptions.
VII. Conclusion: Summarizing the arguments and emphasizing the importance of inclusive representation.


Nine Unique FAQs:

1. Does Oppenheimer pass the Bechdel Test according to a strict interpretation? No, under a strict interpretation, it fails. The interactions between women are limited and usually involve men.

2. What are the limitations of applying the Bechdel Test to historical films? Historical context matters. The test might not reflect the social realities of the past.

3. What are the key female characters in Oppenheimer? Kitty Oppenheimer, Jean Tatlock, and several minor female characters.

4. How does the film portray the roles of women during the Manhattan Project? The film reflects the limited roles women held at the time but doesn't explore the full range of their experiences.

5. What is the significance of the Bechdel Test in assessing films? It highlights the underrepresentation of women and their perspectives in cinema.

6. Does failing the Bechdel Test automatically make a film bad? No, it indicates an area for improvement in representation, but not an automatic condemnation.

7. How does Oppenheimer's representation of women compare to other historical dramas? A comparative study would be needed, but it's fair to say many historical dramas struggle with balanced representation.

8. What are some alternatives to the Bechdel Test for assessing gender representation? There are more nuanced metrics, like the Mako Mori test or the Vito Russo test.

9. What could have been done differently in Oppenheimer to improve female representation? More screen time, more substantial storylines for female characters, and exploring their relationships independently of men.


Nine Related Articles:

1. The Mako Mori Test: A More Inclusive Metric for Evaluating Female Representation: This article explains the Mako Mori test and compares it to the Bechdel Test.

2. Female Representation in World War II Films: This article analyzes the portrayal of women in films set during World War II.

3. The Bechdel Test and its Critics: A Balanced Perspective: This article presents various arguments for and against the Bechdel Test.

4. Beyond the Bechdel Test: Exploring Intersectionality in Film Representation: This article discusses the limitations of the Bechdel test and suggests more inclusive ways of evaluating representation.

5. Analyzing the Portrayal of Scientists in Film: This article discusses the accuracy and balance of scientists' portrayals across different films.

6. The Impact of Historical Accuracy on Film Storytelling: This article examines the challenges and responsibilities of balancing historical accuracy and creative license in films.

7. Emily Blunt's Career and Her Role in Oppenheimer: This article focuses on Emily Blunt's career and her performance in Oppenheimer.

8. Christopher Nolan's Filmography: A Study of Themes and Narrative Techniques: This article explores Nolan's directorial style and the recurrent themes in his films.

9. The Historical Accuracy of Oppenheimer: Fact vs. Fiction: This article delves into the historical accuracy of Oppenheimer and compares it to historical records.


  oppenheimer bechdel test: Fallout Jim Ottaviani, 2001 Written by Jim Ottaviani, with art by various artists.
  oppenheimer bechdel test: Albert Einstein Marwan Kahil, 2019 When he's five years old, Albert Einstein's father offers him a compass that triggers in him an irrepressible need to understand the laws of the universe. At first a simple employee of the Swiss Patent Office in Bern, the young Einstein published in 1905 a series of scientific articles that question everything that was thought to be known in the world of physics. His theory, summed up by the formula E = mc2, opens to humanity the doors of the power of the atom ... Legendary Genius, but also a great humanist, he lives through the first half of the 20th century, with all its horrors and contradictions, in the service of science, but distraught by what man's madness is capable of doing with it.--Publisher's website
  oppenheimer bechdel test: Organisational Behaviour Jack Maxwell Wood, Retha Wiesner, Rachel R. Morrison, Aharon Factor, Tui McKeown, 2024-10-28 The sixth Australasian edition of Organisational Behaviour: Core Concepts and Applications stands as an exemplary resource tailored for one-semester courses in Organisational Behaviour. With a deliberate focus on succinctness, relevance, and visual presentation, its fourteen chapters are meticulously crafted to captivate rather than inundate students. Throughout the text, a plethora of case studies and real-world instances delve into how organisations across the Australian, New Zealand, and Asian regions navigate pressing contemporary business concerns. These include the imperative of sustainable business practices, grappling with environmental impact and climate change, mitigating the gender pay gap, addressing employee stress, fostering resilience and work-life balance, adapting to the dynamics of millennials and an ageing workforce, enhancing employee retention strategies, and navigating the complexities of globalisation and outsourcing. Additionally, topics such as fostering diversity in the workplace, responding to the workforce transformations precipitated by the COVID-19 pandemic, managing remote teams effectively, honing crisis management skills, and harnessing the potential of emerging technologies—particularly the ascendancy of generative artificial intelligence (AI) tools—are comprehensively explored. This latest edition amplifies its focus on sustainability, entrepreneurial and adaptive leadership, and the pivotal role of technology in catalysing digital transformation within organisational contexts. Complemented by the latest research in the field, this text provides a thorough analysis of contemporary organisational behaviour.
  oppenheimer bechdel test: Women in Physics Isobel Romero-Shaw, Debatri Chattopadhyay, 2021-11-20 Embark on a journey through time with some amazing women who changed the course of history with their physics research! Meet the women who wrote the first computer program? discovered how atoms spontaneously combust? worked out what the Sun is made of? discovered a giant black hole at the centre of our galaxy? and many more!Learn about their colourful lives and their brilliant minds, all while colouring your way through this book.
  oppenheimer bechdel test: Narrative Medicine in Veterinary Practice Karen R. Fine, 2021-10-25 This is the first guide to Veterinary Narrative Medicine, a cutting-edge approach in human medicine with multiple applications in veterinary medicine. The text combines the latest research with numerous real-world examples and practical techniques to improve client communication, patient care, and veterinary well-being. Narrative Medicine maintains that a patient should be viewed as an individual rather than an example of a disease process, and that this can be accomplished by using narrative. This book explores methods and theories from leaders in the human Narrative Medicine field while addressing topics unique to veterinary medicine. Readers will gain tools to help navigate difficult conversations and situations in clinical practice, including those involving the end of life. Narrative Medicine in Veterinary Practice also addresses the important issue of veterinary wellness. The ability to view the veterinarian's own stories and those of clients and patients as narratives may help practitioners maintain both emotional and work-place boundaries as well as decrease burnout and compassion fatigue. The book describes basic techniques to promote self-reflection and mindfulness, skills often overlooked in the veterinary profession which can improve resilience and increase the enjoyment of veterinary practice. This is important reading for veterinary practitioners, students, veterinary nurses, technicians, social workers, and all veterinary clinic staff.
  oppenheimer bechdel test: The Manhattan Projects Vol.3 Jonathan Hickman, 2013-11-06 BUILDINGWhat if the research and development department created to produce the first atomic bomb was a front for a series of other, more unusual, programs? The acclaimed FEEL GOOD, BAD SCIENCE epic series now in one super educational package. It's THE MANHATTAN PROJECTS,ÊVOLUME 3: BUILDING! Collecting issues 11-15 of the world's most irreverent alt history book.
  oppenheimer bechdel test: "Our Kind of Movie" Douglas Crimp, Andy Warhol, 2012 Examines Warhol films, including Blow Job, Screen Test, No. 2, and The Chelsea Girls, arguing that new forms of sociality are made visible and exemplify the filmmaker's inventive techniques.
  oppenheimer bechdel test: The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford Ron Hansen, 2013-05-28 A powerful novel of the infamous Western outlaw and his killer: “The best blend of fiction and history I’ve read in a long while” (John Irving). By age thirty-four, Jesse James was already one of the most notorious and admired men in America. Bank robber, train bandit, gang leader, killer, and beloved son of Missouri— James’s many epithets live on in newspapers and novels alike. As his celebrity was reaching its apex, James met Robert Ford, the brother of a James gang member—an awkward, antihero-worshipping twenty-year-old with stars in his eyes. The young man’s fascination with the legend borders on jealous obsession: While Ford wants to ride alongside James as his most-trusted confidant, sharing his spotlight is not enough. As a bond forms between the two men, Ford realizes that the only way he’ll ever be as powerful as his idol is to become him; he must kill James and take his mantle. In the striking novel that inspired the film of the same name starring Brad Pitt and Casey Affleck, bestselling author Ron Hansen retells a classic Wild West story that has long captured the nation’s imagination, and breathes new life into the final days and ignoble death of an iconic American man.
  oppenheimer bechdel test: The House at Otowi Bridge Peggy Pond Church, 1960 A tribute to Edith Warner who befriended both the Indians of San Ildefonso and the atomic scientists at Los Alamos.
  oppenheimer bechdel test: A Safe Girl to Love Casey Plett, 2023-04-04 A new edition of the acclaimed debut story collection by two-time Lambda Literary Award winner Casey Plett. By the author of Little Fish and A Dream of a Woman: eleven unique short stories featuring young trans women stumbling through loss, sex, harassment, and love in settings ranging from a rural Mennonite town to a hipster gay bar in Brooklyn. These stories, shiny with whiskey and prairie sunsets, rattling subways and neglected cats, show that growing up as a trans girl can be charming, funny, frustrating, or sad, but will never be predictable. A Safe Girl to Love, winner of the Lambda Literary Award for transgender fiction, was first published in 2014. Now back in print after a long absence, this new edition includes an afterword by the author. This publication meets the EPUB Accessibility requirements and it also meets the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG-AA). It is screen-reader friendly and is accessible to persons with disabilities. A Simple book with few images, which is defined with accessible structural markup. This book contains various accessibility features such as alternative text for images, table of contents, page-list, landmark, reading order and semantic structure.
  oppenheimer bechdel test: Innovating Women Vivek Wadhwa, Farai Chideya, 2014-09-11 From one of Time Magazine's 40 Most Influential Minds in Technology: women across the globe share stories of closing the tech industry’s gender gap. Women in technology are on the rise in both power and numbers, but we need to accelerate that momentum if we want to lean in and close the gender gap. The future of technology depends on women and men working together at their full potential. For that to happen, it is vital that women feel welcomed, rewarded, and respected in tech sectors. Hailed by Foreign Policy Magazine as a “Top 100 Global Thinker,” professor, researcher, and entrepreneur Vivek Wadhwa, alongside award-winning journalist Farai Chideya, collect anecdotes and essays from female tech leaders around the world, sharing how their experiences in innovative industries frame the future of entrepreneurship. With interviews and essays from hundreds of women in STEM fields, including Anousheh Ansari, the first female private sector space explorer; former Google[X] VP and current CTO of the USA, Megan Smith; Ory Okolloh of the Omidyar Network; CEO of Nanobiosym Dr. Anita Goel, MD, PhD,; and venture capitalist Heidi Roizen, Innovating Women offers perspectives on the challenges that women face, the strategies that they employ in the workplace, and how organizations can support the career advancement of women.
  oppenheimer bechdel test: American Madness Richard Noll, 2011-10-24 In 1895 there was not a single case of dementia praecox reported in the United States. By 1912 there were tens of thousands of people with this diagnosis locked up in asylums, hospitals, and jails. By 1927 it was fading away . How could such a terrible disease be discovered, affect so many lives, and then turn out to be something else? In vivid detail, Richard Noll describes how the discovery of this mysterious disorder gave hope to the overworked asylum doctors that they could at last explain—though they could not cure—the miserable patients surrounding them. The story of dementia praecox, and its eventual replacement by the new concept of schizophrenia, also reveals how asylum physicians fought for their own respectability. If what they were observing was a disease, then this biological reality was amenable to scientific research. In the early twentieth century, dementia praecox was psychiatry’s key into an increasingly science-focused medical profession. But for the moment, nothing could be done to help the sufferers. When the concept of schizophrenia offered a fresh understanding of this disorder, and hope for a cure, psychiatry abandoned the old disease for the new. In this dramatic story of a vanished diagnosis, Noll shows the co-dependency between a disease and the scientific status of the profession that treats it. The ghost of dementia praecox haunts today’s debates about the latest generation of psychiatric disorders.
  oppenheimer bechdel test: Salmon P. Chase Walter Stahr, 2022-02-22 From an acclaimed, New York Times bestselling biographer, a timely reassessment of Abraham Lincoln's indispensable Secretary of the Treasury: a leading proponent for black rights both before and during his years in cabinet and later as Chief Justice of the United States. Salmon P. Chase is best remembered as a rival of Lincoln's for the Republican nomination in 1860--but there would not have been a national Republican Party, and Lincoln could not have won the presidency, were it not for the vital groundwork Chase laid over the previous two decades. Starting in the early 1840s, long before Lincoln was speaking out against slavery, Chase was forming and leading antislavery parties. He represented fugitive slaves so often in his law practice that he was known as the attorney general for runaway negroes, and he furthered his reputation as an outspoken federal senator and progressive governor of Ohio. Tapped by Lincoln to become Secretary of the Treasury, Chase would soon prove vital to the Civil War effort, raising the billions of dollars that allowed the Union to win the war, while also pressing the president to emancipate the country's slaves and recognize black rights. When Lincoln had the chance to appoint a chief justice in 1864, he chose his faithful rival, because he was sure Chase would make the right decisions on the difficult racial, political, and economic issues the Supreme Court would confront during Reconstruction. Drawing on previously overlooked sources, Walter Stahr sheds new light on a complex and fascinating political figure, as well as on the pivotal events of the Civil War and its aftermath. Salmon P. Chase tells the forgotten story of a man at the center of the fight for racial justice in 19th century America.
  oppenheimer bechdel test: Visual Methodologies Gillian Rose, 2007 Comprehensively revised and updated the Second Edition of the bestselling Visual Methodologies provides a critical introduction to the study and interpretation of visual culture. The Second Edition contains: - a completely new chapter on how to use the book - each chapter follows the same structure, making comparisons between methods easier - three extra chapters, each discussing a method not covered in the First Edition
  oppenheimer bechdel test: The Art of War Visualized Jessica Hagy, 2015-03-10 It’s the perfect meeting of minds. One, a general whose epigrammatic lessons on strategy offer timeless insight and wisdom. And the other, a visual thinker whose succinct diagrams and charts give readers a fresh way of looking at life’s challenges and opportunities. A Bronze Age/Information Age marriage of Sun Tzu and Jessica Hagy, The Art of War Visualized is an inspired mash-up, a work that completely reenergizes the perennial bestseller and makes it accessible to a new generation of students, entrepreneurs, business leaders, artists, seekers, lovers of games and game theory, and anyone else who knows the value of seeking guidance for the future in the teachings of the past. It’s as if Sun Tzu got a 21st-century do-over. Author and illustrator of How to Be Interesting, Jessica Hagy is a cutting-edge thinker whose language—comprising circles, arrows, and lines and the well-chosen word or two—makes her an ideal philosopher for our ever-more-visual culture. Her charts and diagrams are deceptively simple, often funny, and always thought-provoking. She knows how to communicate not only ideas but the complex process of thinking itself, complete with its twists and surprises. For The Art of War Visualized, she presents her vision in evocative ink-brush art and bold typography. The result is page after page in which each passage of the complete canonical text (in its best-known Lionel Giles translation) is visually interpreted in a singular diagram, chart, or other illustration—transforming, reenergizing, and making the classic dazzlingly accessible for a new generation of readers.
  oppenheimer bechdel test: Gender-UseIT Hochschule Heilbronn, Kompetenzzentrum Technik-Diversity-Chancengleichheit, Nicola Marsden, Ute Kempf, 2014-11-10 Wie kann und soll Geschlecht bei der Gestaltung von Bedienoberflächen berücksichtigt werden? Dieses Buch beschäftigt sich mit Human-Computer Interaction (HCI), Usability und User Experience (UX) unter Gendergesichtspunkten, berücksichtigt dabei neben der Perspektive der Gender Studies, der Psychologie, der Wissenschafts- und Technikstudien auch das Zusammenwirken von Theorie und Praxis, von forscherischen und wirtschaftlichen Fragestellungen. Die verschiedenen Blickwinkel und Herangehensweisen, wissenschaftlichen Ansätze und Theorien, die in diesem Buch vereint sind, spiegeln wider, wie facettenreich und fruchtbar die Diskussion zum Thema Gender und User Experience ist. Zielgruppe dieses Buches sind alle diejenigen, die daran arbeiten, Software gut bedienbar, ansprechend und vielleicht sogar begeisternd zu gestalten. Und dabei sicherstellen möchten, dass dies möglichst für jede und für jeden der Fall ist. Angesprochen werden sollen dabei nicht nur Personen, die sich an Forschungseinrichtungen und Hochschulen mit dieser Thematik beschäftigen, sondern auch jene, die sich in kleinen und großen Unternehmen der Gestaltung von Mensch-Computer-Interaktion widmen. Der interdisziplinäre Ansatz, den dieses Buch mit seinen Beiträgen aus verschiedensten Fachrichtungen ermöglicht, verdeutlicht die Dimensionen, in denen sich die Auseinandersetzung mit dem Thema Gender im Zusammenspiel mit Human-Computer Interaction, Usability und User Experience bewegt, und zeigt Wege und Möglichkeiten auf, Genderaspekte hier angemessen zu berücksichtigen.
  oppenheimer bechdel test: Encyclopedia of Politics of the American West Steven L. Danver, 2013-04-25 The Encyclopedia of Politics in the American West is an A to Z reference work on the political development of one of America’s most politically distinct, not to mention its fastest growing, region. This work will cover not only the significant events and actors of Western politics, but also deal with key institutional, historical, environmental, and sociopolitical themes and concepts that are important to more fully understanding the politics of the West over the last century.
  oppenheimer bechdel test: Things Are Against Us Lucy Ellmann, 2021-06-30 'There are three kinds of strike I'd recommend: a housework strike, a labour strike, and a sex strike. I can't wait for the first two.' Things Are Against Us is the first collection of essays from Booker Prize-shortlisted Lucy Ellmann. Bold, angry, despairing and very, very funny, these essays cover everything – from matriarchy to environmental catastrophe to Little House on the Prairie. Ellmann calls for a moratorium on air travel, rages against bras, gives Doris Day and Agatha Christie a drubbing, and pleads for sanity in a world that – well, a world that spent four years in the company of Donald Trump, that 'tremendously sick, terrible, nasty, lowly, truly pathetic, reckless, sad, weak, lazy, incompetent, third-rate, clueless, not smart, dumb as a rock, all talk, wacko, zero-chance lying liar'. Things Are Against Us is electric. It's vital. These are essays bursting with energy, and reading them feels like sticking your hand in the mains socket. Lucy Ellmann is the writer we need to guide us through these crazy times.
  oppenheimer bechdel test: Robert Bresson Tony Pipolo, 2010-01-19 Perhaps the most highly regarded French filmmaker after Jean Renoir, Robert Bresson created a new kind of cinema through meticulous refinement of the form's grammatical and expressive possibilities. In thirteen features over a forty-year career, he held to an uncompromising moral vision and aesthetic rigor that remain unmatched. Robert Bresson: A Passion for Film is the first comprehensive study to give equal attention to the films, their literary sources, and psycho-biographical aspects of the work. Concentrating on the films' cinematographic, imagistic, narrative, and thematic structures, Pipolo provides a nuanced analysis of each film-including nearly 100 illustrations-elucidating Bresson's unique style as it evolved from the impassioned Les Anges du péche to such disconsolate meditations on the world as The Devil Probably and L'Argent. Special attention is also given to psychosexual aspects of the films that are usually neglected. Bresson has long needed a thoroughgoing treatment by a critic worthy to the task: he gets it here. From it emerges a provocative portrait of an extraordinary artist whose moral engagement and devotion to the craft of filmmaking are without equal.
  oppenheimer bechdel test: The Psychology of Superheroes Robin S. Rosenberg, Jennifer Canzoneri, 2008-02-09 This latest installment in the Psychology of Popular Culture series turns its focus to superheroes. Superheroes have survived and fascinated for more than 70 years in no small part due to their psychological depth. In The Psychology of Superheroes, almost two dozen psychologists get into the heads of today's most popular and intriguing superheroes. Why do superheroes choose to be superheroes? Where does Spider-Man's altruism come from, and what does it mean? Why is there so much prejudice against the X-Men, and how could they have responded to it, other than the way they did? Why are super-villains so aggressive? The Psychology of Superheroes answers these questions, exploring the inner workings our heroes usually only share with their therapists.
  oppenheimer bechdel test: The Killing Hills Chris Offutt, 2021-06-15 A veteran on leave investigates a murder in his Kentucky backwoods hometown in this Appalachian noir by the acclaimed author of Country Dark. Mick Hardin, a combat veteran and Army CID agent, is home on a leave to be with his pregnant wife—but they aren’t getting along. His sister, newly risen to sheriff, has just landed her first murder investigation—but local politicians are pushing for someone else to take the case. Maybe they think she can’t handle it. Or maybe their concerns run deeper. With his experience and knowledge of the area, Mick is well-suited to help his sister investigate while staying under the radar. Now he’s dodging calls from his commanding officer as he delves into the dangerous rivalries lurking beneath the surface of his fiercely private hometown. And he needs to talk to his wife. The Killing Hills is a novel of betrayal within and between the clans that populate the hollers—and the way it so often shades into violence. Chris Offutt has delivered a dark, witty, and absolutely compelling novel of murder and honor, with an investigator-hero unlike any in fiction.
  oppenheimer bechdel test: Short Cuts Raymond Carver, 2015-05-25 From “one of the great short story writers of our time” (The Philadelphia Inquirer)—nine stories and a poem that offer a searing portrait of American innocence and loss—and formed the basis for the film “Short Cuts” directed by Robert Altman. With deadpan humor and enormous tenderness, this is the work of “one of the true contemporary masters” (The New York Review of Books). Features stories from the collections Will You Please Be Quiet, Please?, Where I’m Calling From, What We Talk About When We Talk About Love, and A New Path to the Waterfall; including an introduction by Robert Altman.
  oppenheimer bechdel test: Dangerous Girls Abigail Haas, 2014-05-06 While on spring break in Aruba, Anna is accused of her best friend's death and must stand trial for murder in a foreign country.
  oppenheimer bechdel test: Japan Elizabeth Ingrams, 2009 From the present-day street life of Ginza, to the heights of Mount Fuji in the company of 16th-century traveller and poet Basho: the most recent addition of Eland's through writers' eyes series brings together a chorus of voices from Japan and across the globe. Detailed introductions stemming from Elizabeth Ingram's own experiences as a traveller, (later a resident) and journalist in Japan, develop a lively and intimate portrait of towns and provinces, making it an ideal companion. A library in the palm of your hand: extracts of prose, poetry and novels from a rich variety of writers, including Jan Morris, Nicolas Bouvier, Oswald Wynd, Peter Popham, Basho, Yasunari Kawabata, Alan Booth, Futabei Shimei, Angela Carter, Joao Rodrigues and Mary Crawford Fraser.
  oppenheimer bechdel test: The Law and Harry Potter Jeffrey E. Thomas, Franklin G. Snyder, 2020 This volume considers the depiction of law and legal institutions in J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter novels. It contains twenty-two chapters by legal academics from the U.S. and abroad. It is suitable for undergraduate or law school courses and will be of interest to those Harry Potter fans who also have an interest in law and the legal profession.
  oppenheimer bechdel test: Pandas in Action Boris Paskhaver, 2021-10-12 Take the next steps in your data science career! This friendly and hands-on guide shows you how to start mastering Pandas with skills you already know from spreadsheet software. In Pandas in Action you will learn how to: Import datasets, identify issues with their data structures, and optimize them for efficiency Sort, filter, pivot, and draw conclusions from a dataset and its subsets Identify trends from text-based and time-based data Organize, group, merge, and join separate datasets Use a GroupBy object to store multiple DataFrames Pandas has rapidly become one of Python's most popular data analysis libraries. In Pandas in Action, a friendly and example-rich introduction, author Boris Paskhaver shows you how to master this versatile tool and take the next steps in your data science career. You’ll learn how easy Pandas makes it to efficiently sort, analyze, filter and munge almost any type of data. Purchase of the print book includes a free eBook in PDF, Kindle, and ePub formats from Manning Publications. About the technology Data analysis with Python doesn’t have to be hard. If you can use a spreadsheet, you can learn pandas! While its grid-style layouts may remind you of Excel, pandas is far more flexible and powerful. This Python library quickly performs operations on millions of rows, and it interfaces easily with other tools in the Python data ecosystem. It’s a perfect way to up your data game. About the book Pandas in Action introduces Python-based data analysis using the amazing pandas library. You’ll learn to automate repetitive operations and gain deeper insights into your data that would be impractical—or impossible—in Excel. Each chapter is a self-contained tutorial. Realistic downloadable datasets help you learn from the kind of messy data you’ll find in the real world. What's inside Organize, group, merge, split, and join datasets Find trends in text-based and time-based data Sort, filter, pivot, optimize, and draw conclusions Apply aggregate operations About the reader For readers experienced with spreadsheets and basic Python programming. About the author Boris Paskhaver is a software engineer, Agile consultant, and online educator. His programming courses have been taken by 300,000 students across 190 countries. Table of Contents PART 1 CORE PANDAS 1 Introducing pandas 2 The Series object 3 Series methods 4 The DataFrame object 5 Filtering a DataFrame PART 2 APPLIED PANDAS 6 Working with text data 7 MultiIndex DataFrames 8 Reshaping and pivoting 9 The GroupBy object 10 Merging, joining, and concatenating 11 Working with dates and times 12 Imports and exports 13 Configuring pandas 14 Visualization
  oppenheimer bechdel test: Hammer and Hoe Robin D. G. Kelley, 2015-08-03 A groundbreaking contribution to the history of the long Civil Rights movement, Hammer and Hoe tells the story of how, during the 1930s and 40s, Communists took on Alabama's repressive, racist police state to fight for economic justice, civil and political rights, and racial equality. The Alabama Communist Party was made up of working people without a Euro-American radical political tradition: devoutly religious and semiliterate black laborers and sharecroppers, and a handful of whites, including unemployed industrial workers, housewives, youth, and renegade liberals. In this book, Robin D. G. Kelley reveals how the experiences and identities of these people from Alabama's farms, factories, mines, kitchens, and city streets shaped the Party's tactics and unique political culture. The result was a remarkably resilient movement forged in a racist world that had little tolerance for radicals. After discussing the book's origins and impact in a new preface written for this twenty-fifth-anniversary edition, Kelley reflects on what a militantly antiracist, radical movement in the heart of Dixie might teach contemporary social movements confronting rampant inequality, police violence, mass incarceration, and neoliberalism.
  oppenheimer bechdel test: Red Liesl Shurtliff, 2016 Followed by a wolf, a huntsman, and a porridge-sampling nuisance called Goldie, Red embarks on a quest to find a magical cure for her aili ailing grandmother.--
  oppenheimer bechdel test: Best. Movie. Year. Ever. Brian Raftery, 2020-03-31 From a veteran culture writer and modern movie expert, a celebration and analysis of the movies of 1999—“a terrifically fun snapshot of American film culture on the brink of the Millennium….An absolute must for any movie-lover or pop-culture nut” (Gillian Flynn). In 1999, Hollywood as we know it exploded: Fight Club. The Matrix. Office Space. Election. The Blair Witch Project. The Sixth Sense. Being John Malkovich. Star Wars: The Phantom Menace. American Beauty. The Virgin Suicides. Boys Don’t Cry. The Best Man. Three Kings. Magnolia. Those are just some of the landmark titles released in a dizzying movie year, one in which a group of daring filmmakers and performers pushed cinema to new limits—and took audiences along for the ride. Freed from the restraints of budget, technology, or even taste, they produced a slew of classics that took on every topic imaginable, from sex to violence to the end of the world. The result was a highly unruly, deeply influential set of films that would not only change filmmaking, but also give us our first glimpse of the coming twenty-first century. It was a watershed moment that also produced The Sopranos; Apple’s AirPort; Wi-Fi; and Netflix’s unlimited DVD rentals. “A spirited celebration of the year’s movies” (Kirkus Reviews), Best. Movie. Year. Ever. is the story of not just how these movies were made, but how they re-made our own vision of the world. It features more than 130 new and exclusive interviews with such directors and actors as Reese Witherspoon, Edward Norton, Steven Soderbergh, Sofia Coppola, David Fincher, Nia Long, Matthew Broderick, Taye Diggs, M. Night Shyamalan, David O. Russell, James Van Der Beek, Kirsten Dunst, the Blair Witch kids, the Office Space dudes, the guy who played Jar-Jar Binks, and dozens more. It’s “the complete portrait of what it was like to spend a year inside a movie theater at the best possible moment in time” (Chuck Klosterman).
  oppenheimer bechdel test: Planetymology Isobel M Romero-Shaw, 2020-12 Planetymology is an illustrated introduction to the etymology - the evolution and origins of words - in the context of astronomy. It focuses on European observations of the planets; from Mercury (known to the Ancient Greeks and Romans) all the way to Pluto (discovered as a planet in 1930 and reclassified as a dwarf planet in 2006). This book takes the reader on a tour of the Solar System, introducing the cosmic entities encountered on the way both as characters from Roman and Greek mythology, and as exotic worlds with alien characteristics. It traces the planets' names all the way back to words used by the first humans in Europe, and shows how they often have surprising links to familiar modern-day words. Planetymology is ideal for kids aged 8 - 15, and will be enjoyed by anyone with an interest in language, ancient history and/or astronomy. Blurb: The planets' names carry secrets... How is Neptune linked to hippopotamuses? Which planet's name means Sky-Father? Why did Pluto fail the planet test? Why is Uranus not called George? Read about the Gods and Goddesses that the planets are named after, discover how their names evolved from the language of ancient humans, and uncover hidden links from their names to familiar, commonly-used words. At the same time, learn about the weird and whacky weather on other planets, compare their crazy day-and-night cycles to ours on Earth, and meet Pluto's new dwarf planet friends...
  oppenheimer bechdel test: Shirley Jackson, Influences and Confluences Melanie R. Anderson, Lisa Kröger, 2016-05-20 The popularity of such widely known works as The Lottery and The Haunting of Hill House has tended to obscure the extent of Shirley Jackson's literary output, which includes six novels, a prodigious number of short stories, and two volumes of domestic sketches. Organized around the themes of influence and intertextuality, this collection places Jackson firmly within the literary cohort of the 1950s. The contributors investigate the work that informed her own fiction and discuss how Jackson inspired writers of literature and film. The collection begins with essays that tease out what Jackson's writing owes to the weird tale, detective fiction, the supernatural tradition, and folklore, among other influences. The focus then shifts to Jackson's place in American literature and the impact of her work on women's writing, campus literature, and the graphic novelist Alison Bechdel. The final two essays examine adaptations of The Haunting of Hill House and Jackson's influence on contemporary American horror cinema. Taken together, the essays offer convincing evidence that half a century following her death, readers and writers alike are still finding value in Jackson’s words.
  oppenheimer bechdel test: My Happiness Bears No Relation to Happiness Adina Hoffman, 2009-04-01 This first biography of a Palestinian writer also provides a moving account of the ways “ordinary” individuals are swept up by the floodtides of both war and peace Beautifully written, and composed with a novelist’s eye for detail, this book tells the story of an exceptional man and the culture from which he emerged.Taha Muhammad Ali was born in 1931 in the Galilee village of Saffuriyya and was forced to flee during the war in 1948. He traveled on foot to Lebanon and returned a year later to find his village destroyed. An autodidact, he has since run a souvenir shop in Nazareth, at the same time evolving into what National Book Critics Circle Award–winner Eliot Weinberger has dubbed “perhaps the most accessible and delightful poet alive today.”As it places Muhammad Ali’s life in the context of the lives of his predecessors and peers, My Happiness offers a sweeping depiction of a charged and fateful epoch. It is a work that Arabic scholar Michael Sells describes as “among the five ‘must read’ books on the Israel-Palestine tragedy.” In an era when talk of the “Clash of Civilizations” dominates, this biography offers something else entirely: a view of the people and culture of the Middle East that is rich, nuanced, and, above all else, deeply human.
  oppenheimer bechdel test: Confessions of a Puppetmaster Charles Band, Adam Felber, 2021-11-16 “Confessions of a Puppetmaster is a fast, funny, wild ride through some wild times. Plus, Charlie compares me to Harrison Ford, so I’m all in!” —Bill Maher Renowned producer, director, and “B movie” showman Charles Band takes readers on a wild romp through Hollywood’s decidedly un-Oscar-worthy underbelly, where mayhem and zombies reign supreme, and cheap thrills and entertainment are king This book is a blast. It made me want to stay up all night and watch terrible movies. —Peter Sagal One of the most entertaining film bios ever. —Larry Karaszewski Reads like a Tarantino film written by Hunter S. Thompson. —Booklist Zombies, aliens, a little skin, lots of gore—and even more laughs—the cinematic universe of Charles Band is legendary. From the toilet-invading creatures of Ghoulies to the time-travelling bounty hunter in Trancers to the pandemic-crashed Corona Zombies, Band has spent four decades giving B-movie lovers exactly what they love. In Confessions of a Puppetmaster, this congenial master of Grindhouse cinema tells his own story, uncut. Born into a family of artists, Band spent much of his childhood in Rome where his father worked in the film industry. Early visits to movie sets sealed young Charlie’s fate. By his twenties he had plunged into moviemaking himself and found his calling in exploitation movies—quick, low-budget efforts that exploit the zeitgeist and feed people’s desire for clever, low-brow entertainment. His films crossed genres, from vampire flicks to sci fi to erotic musical adaptations of fairy tales. As he came into his own as a director, he was the first to give starring roles to household names like Demi Moore, Helen Hunt, and Bill Maher. Off set, Band’s life has been equally epic. Returning to his beloved Italy, he bought both Dino De Laurentiis’s movie studio and a medieval castle. After Romania’s oppressive communist regime fell, he circumvented the U.S. State Department to shoot films in Dracula’s homeland. He made—and then lost—a moviemaking fortune. A visionary, Band was also at the vanguard of the transition to home video and streaming, making and distributing direct-to-video movies long before the major studios caught on. In this revealing tell-all, Band details the dizzying heights and catastrophic depths of his four decades in showbiz. A candid and engaging glimpse at Hollywood’s wild side, Confessions of a Puppetmaster is as entertaining as the movies that made this consummate schlockmeister famous.
  oppenheimer bechdel test: Looking at Movies Richard Meran Barsam, Dave Monahan, 2009-09-23 Disc 1 offers 25 short 'tutorials,' helping students see what the text describes. Disc 2 includes an anthology of 12 short films, from 5 to 30 minutes in length. Together, the DVDs offer nearly five hours of pedagogically useful moving-image content.
  oppenheimer bechdel test: Napoleon, CEO Alan Axelrod, 2011-07-05 A look at the leadership style of the brilliant military strategist who also laid the administrative and judicial foundations for much of Western Europe. In this fascinating book, historian and bestselling business author Alan Axelrod takes an in-depth look at this much-studied historical figure in a new way, exploring six areas that constitute the core of what made Napoleon Bonaparte a legendary military and political leader: Audacity, Vision, Empathy, Strategy, Logistics, and Tactics. Within these areas, Axelrod formulates approximately sixty lessons framed in military analogies, valuable for anyone who aspires to leadership—whether in the boardroom or the Oval Office.
  oppenheimer bechdel test: Fact and Fiction Albrecht Koschorke, 2018-04-23 How can we develop a cultural theory starting with the basic insight that human beings are storytelling animals? Within literary studies, narratology is a highly developed field. However, literary historians have not paid much attention to the large and small stories abounding in everyday discourse, guiding all kinds of social activity, and providing common ground for whole societies—but also fueling controversies and hostilities. Moreover, narrative is not only a scholarly category but has come into use in many fields of social activity as a tool for cultural self-fashioning. This book is based on the assumption that to a large extent, social dynamics is modeled in an aesthetic manner via narratives. It explores the narrative organization of cultural spaces and time-frames, the mythological shaping of communities and adversaries, and the co-production of narratives and institutions aimed at stabilizing social life. In this framework, the epistemological problem looms large of how an instrument as unreliable as narrative can participate in the creation of a social consensus regarding truth. This problem endows the general topics explored in this book with a particularly contemporary dimension.
  oppenheimer bechdel test: Waiting to Exhale Terry McMillan, 2006-01-03 The critically acclaimed novel about four women who learn how to carry on while leaning on each other from the #1 New York Times bestselling author of How Stella Got Her Groove Back and It's Not All Downhill From Here. When the men in their lives prove less than reliable, Savannah, Bernadine, Gloria, and Robin find new strength through a rare and enlightening friendship as they struggle to regain stability and an identity they don’t have to share with anyone. Because for the first time in a long time, their dreams are finally OFF hold.... “Hilarious, irreverent...Reading Waiting to Exhale is like being in the company of a great friend...thought-provoking, thoroughly entertaining, and very, very comforting.”—The New York Times Book Review
  oppenheimer bechdel test: Showdown! Robert Kristofferson, 2016-09
  oppenheimer bechdel test: Creaturely Poetics Anat Pick, 2011-04-26 Simone Weil once wrote that the vulnerability of precious things is beautiful because vulnerability is a mark of existence. With these words, she established a relationship among vulnerability, beauty, and existence that transcends the boundaries separating the species. Her conception of a radical ethics and aesthetics could be characterized as a new poetics of species, that forces us to rethink the significance of the body, both human and animal. Exploring the logic of flesh, or how art and culture use the body to mark species identity, Anat Pick reimagines a poetics that begins with the vulnerability of bodies, not the omnipotence of thought. Offering a powerful alternative to more personalist visions of morality, Pick proposes a creaturely approach based on the shared embodiedness of humans and animals and a postsecular perspective on human-animal relations. She turns to literature, film, and other cultural texts that prioritize the inhuman and challenge the familiar inventory of the human (consciousness, language, morality, and dignity). She reintroduces Weil's crucially important work and its elaboration of themes such as witnessing, commemoration, and collective memory, and she moves away from assumptions about animal otherness and nonhuman subjectivities. Pick identifies the animal within all humans, emphasizing the corporeal and its issues of power and freedom. In her creaturely view, powerlessness is the point at which both aesthetic and ethical thinking must begin.
  oppenheimer bechdel test: Screwball Television David Scott Diffrient, David Lavery, 2010-04-13 Bringing together seventeen original essays by scholars from around the world, Screwball Television offers a variety of international perspectives on Gilmore Girls. Adored by fans and celebrated by critics for its sophisticated wordplay and compelling portrayal of a mother-daughter relationship, this contemporary American TV program finally gets its due as a cultural production unlike any other, one that is beholden to Hollywood’s screwball comedies of the 1930s, steeped in intertextual references, and framed as a kinder, gentler kind of cult television series in this tightly focused yet wide-ranging collection. This volume makes a significant contribution to television studies, genre studies, and women’s studies. Screwball Television seeks to bring Gilmore Girls more fully into academic discourse not only as a topic worthy of critical scrutiny but also as an infinitely rewarding text capable of stimulating the imagination of students beyond the classroom.