The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo - Bechdel Test

This post is a continuation in a series where I determine if a film has passed the Bechdel Test. My original post about the Bechdel Test can be found here.

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, and the Millennium Series of which it is the first novel, are very dark books. There is a great deal of violence, most of it sexual and directed at women. For these reasons, I was very interested to see how the new version of the film would hold up against the Bechdel test. 

As a reminder, the Bechdel Test determines whether a movie is worth seeing based on three rules:

1. The movie must have at least two female characters.

2. The female characters must speak to each other. 

3. The female characters must speak to each other about something other than a man,

So, how does The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo fare? There are many female faces in the film, and several named characters. The woman with the most screen time is Lisbeth Salander, so I will base the answers to the second question on her interactions. Lisbeth speaks to more than one character in the film, and rarely  talks to either of them about a man. In fact, the only time she mentions a man to another woman at all is when reminding a secretary that her boss has given Salander permission to do what she needs to do to collect evidence. 

Clearly, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo passes the Bechdel Test with flying colors, which is extremely interesting for several reasons. First and foremost, this film is, at its core, about the way women are treated as "less than" in society by men who act as though women exist solely for their sexual needs. The character of Lisbeth Salander is a reminder that women can (and do!) fight back against the men who try to reign in their strength and power. 

The next reason this is so interesting revolves around the marketing for the film. The first movie poster featured an entirely nude Lisbeth Salander with Mikael Blomkvist's arm around her protectively. The reasons why this poster is completely incongruent with the story warrant their own post, but let it suffice to say that the poster does not lead you to believe the film will pass the Bechdel Test.