With the release of the new “Ghostbusters” movie, you may have heard a few guys moan and groan about an all-female cast and heard comments like “Why do they have to be girls?” and “I wish they would have just done like... two guys and two girls...” and my old favorite “ugh, stupid feminists trying to ruin everything!”

If you’re like me, a girl who really loves typically “geeky” things like “Ghostbusters” then you’ll understand how disheartening and hurtful those comments can be. If not, then allow me to take you on a journey through “geek culture” where I will be pulling examples of famous “geeky” movies to give you an idea of the representation we, as female fans, get to deal with (I’ll get into video games after this segment.)

First, I’ll give you the name of what movie I’m talking about. Then, I’ll give you a list of major female characters (characters that have important roles and are important to the overall plot) and then I will tell you whether or not the movie passes the Bechdel test. For those of you who are unaware as to what that test is, it asks three simple questions: Is there more than one named female character? Do the characters talk? (About anything besides men/boys?) This test is in no way indicative of a film or other piece of media’s merit or worth, it is simply designed to take a look at how female characters are written/treated in media which is what we’re interested in.

Ready? Let’s get started!

1.“Star Wars” (1977)

The release of “Star Wars” definitely saw an epic uprising in the sci-fi community, only rivaled by the premier of Star Trek in 1966. When “Star Wars” was release in 1977, millions of people flocked to the theaters to go see it. Men, women, children of all ages where enthralled by the stunning visual effects, the compelling storyline, and the dreamy heartthrob that was Harrison Ford. This movie introduced us to characters like Han, Luke, Chewy, Darth Vader, and last but not least Leia Organa.

Leia, appeared on screen as the first female character of the series and the first to have a name, the second being Aunt Beru. The only other female character given any significant dialogue and importance is Mon Mothma, the woman that goes over the battle plans just before seeing the X-Wing pilots, and whose name you would only be aware of if you watched the Clone Wars cartoon series. And if you paid close attention to the political drabble forced in the prequel series.

Needless to say, Star Wars does not pass the Bechdel test and had no hope of passing it until the release of "Force Awakens"—which offers a lengthy conversation between Maz and Rey about Rey’s dreams and what she needs to do with the Force itself. It also gives us Leia looking motherly at Rey proclaiming the famous line “May the Force be with you.”

Does it pass? The 1977 release does not, and neither do any subsequent films until "Force Awakens" (2015)

2.“Indiana Jones Raiders of the Lost Ark” (1981)

Harrison Ford took from space back to Earth starring as the famous archaeological, bad-ass explorer Indiana Jones. The release of this film sparked an interest in the archaeological field for many young men and women.

The only prominent female character in the film is Marion Ravenwood, Indiana Jones’ ex-lover and eventual wife. The only other named female character in the movie is Fayah, Sallah’s wife, and her only interaction with Marion concerns the future of a pet monkey and does not last long whatsoever. She is meant to help Indy find the Ark of the Covenant before Nazi forces do, and she ends up rekindling her relationship with Indy. She is the first prominent female character introduced in the series, and while she makes a return in “Kingdom of the Crystal Skull”, she still has virtually no interactions with any other named female characters.

Does it pass? On a technicality, it just barely passes.

3.“Back to the Future” (1985)

“Back to the Future” made its debut in 1985 portraying an average teenager named Marty McFly traveling back to the 50’s after a time traveling experiment, lead by his friend and mentor Doc Brown, runs a wry. During his time in the ‘80s, we’re introduced to three important women in his life: his mother Lorraine, his sister Linda, and his girlfriend Jennifer. In the ‘50s, we are again introduced to Lorraine and her mother, Stella. While we do see Lorraine talking to Linda, and talking to her mother, the conversational topic is always about a man, be it Marty, Uncle Joey, or Uncle George.

Does it pass? No, not at all.

4.“Ghostbusters” (1987)

The original “Ghostbusters” remains, to this day, a classic film and has remained heavily ingrained in our culture since its initial release in 1987. The film tells the story of four acquaintances buying an old fire house and turning it into a haven for capturing and investigating supernatural phenomenon.

The cast includes only two prominent female characters: the spunky, erratic secretary Janine who facilitates the ‘Busters’ business, and their attractive, haunted client Dana. The two talk for only one brief moment when Dana walks in to the office saying that she doesn’t have an appointment, but would like to speak to someone anyways. As I stated the moment is extremely brief but technically speaking meets our requirements for the test. The two do not share any scenes afterward, and there are no other named female characters that share any interaction.

Does it pass? Technically, yes.

5. "Jurassic Park” (1993)

Where “Indiana Jones” created a renewed interest in archaeology, “Jurassic Park" fueled a new generation of paleontologists. “Jurassic Park” made its debut in 1993 and swept the market with its stunning practical effects and compelling story line about a billionaire who just loved dinosaurs so much he wanted to create a theme park around them. This movie gave us memorable lines and heartfelt moments that are, again, referenced to this day and supplied us with two named female characters.

The first is paleo-botanist, Ellie Sattler, whom we meet at the site of a velociraptor skeleton picked up by special computerized equipment. The second is Lex Murphy, John Hammond’s (the billionaire) granddaughter. The two have only one brief on-screen interaction. Before setting out to see the dinosaurs, they have an implied off screen conversation where Ellie tells Lex to sit with Dr. Grant, and on-screen their only interaction is while they are trying to make an escape. Lex tells them where to hide and go to and then asks Ellie if they can call for help to which Ellie says “we have to reboot the system first!” Lex then goes on to get access to the parks systems (phone, security, etc) essentially acting as the savior of the park patrons.

Does it pass? Again, on a technicality.

6."Lord of the Rings: Fellowship of the Ring” (2001)

“The Lord of the Rings” started out as an incredibly popular set of high fantasy novels written by J.R.R Tolkien. The novels had a huge range of interesting and compelling characters and well thought out, interesting plots that made for a wonderful premise for a movie series.

In the first film, we are introduced to two prominent and deeply important female characters, Galadriel and Arwen. Both women are of elven royalty, but neither shares a scene or any dialogue. To be fair, this does not differ from the books, but the books were also written by a man during a time where women were meant to be delicate housewives taking care of the children and the home.

Does it pass? No.

7.“The Avengers” (2012)

With the success of “Iron Man” in 2008, Marvel studios began growing more and more as a film company. They soon followed suit with films like “The Incredible Hulk," “Thor," and “Captain America: The First Avenger." In each of these films, leading up to “The Avengers," we were introduced to the team: Iron Man, Thor, Captain America, Hulk, Hawkeye, and Black Widow. So, when it was revealed “The Avengers” was a go, fans were insurmountably excited to see their favorite heroes interacting like in the comics.

The movie broke box office records and sat in the number one spot for weeks until the hype died down. The movie features three female characters: Pepper Pots, who only appears in the beginning of the film and is only seen again on a plane showing her concern for Tony Stark (Iron Man). Maria Hill, a SHIELD agent and Nick Fury’s number two. And finally, Black Widow, a Russian assassin employed by SHIELD who is a force to be reckoned with and has red in her ledger to clear.

Now, given that information you would think that at least Maria Hill and Black Widow would talk to each other at some point about the mission or missions in the past. But, alas, they do not. Not once do they begin a conversation about anything at all. Of course, they still go on to save the world and prove themselves incredible assets to the team but, still share no congratulations or anything. Even in the original comics, there was only one woman on the first team, Wasp, who is later joined by Scarlet Witch in the 16^th issue.

Does it pass? Close, but no cigar.

8.“Mad Max: Fury Road” (2015)

When “Mad Max: Fury Road” was released in 2015, people became immediately enamored with it. It told the story of a woman who rebels against a post nuclear apocalyptic war lord by tearing down his empire and saving his five wives and the citizens he had been terrorizing. This movie won six academy awards for Best Costume Design, Best Makeup and Hairstyling, Best Production Design, Best Film Editing, Best Sound Editing, and Best Sound Mixing.

Spoiler Alert: two of the wives sacrifice themselves for the cause, but the others are indeed saved by Furiosa and Max. The movie did extremely well in box office, and with reviews from both critics and audience members, but of course there were people who still expressed their distress over so many women being in one film together that wasn’t a romance, comedy, or combination of the two. There were posts all over the place about being tricked to go see feminist propaganda, and one man even went to comic con that year and asked Tom Hardy (Max) if at any point he felt there were too many women in this movie, “Isn’t this supposed to be a man’s movie?” (I’ll put the link right here because honestly Hardy’s reaction is great. The question starts at about 9:55.)

Does it pass? With flying colors.

Now, you may be saying to yourself or to your computer screens “Well, who cares anyways? Girls don’t typically like this stuff to begin with so why should it matter? Why make such a big stink about the lack of female characters and their interactions between themselves? It would just be boring and add nothing interesting to the story.” Well, let’s look at some facts here.

Roughly half of the entire world’s population is female. Which means on average, about half of the people going to see these movies are women. According to studies done in 2015, women make up 60-65 percent of all science fiction/fantasy and media fans. They make up roughly 45 percent of all comic, video gaming, and hobby gaming fans and the numbers keep growing. Yet, women are barely seen in these movies aside from the occasional cute extra that one of the men has to save from one disaster or another. They’re barely utilized in video games unless they’re the princess in distress or there to fulfill some sort of sexual fantasy for male players. It’s almost as if directors, producers, and writers are afraid to offer audiences more female diversity- and why shouldn’t they be?

Before “Ghostbusters” even hit theaters, male audience members were already giving it scathing reviews. When Marvel released a new series of their Thor comics starring a woman as Thor, male fans made their disapproval known all through Twitter, Facebook, and other social media formats. Shortly after the release of “Force Awakens”, male fans everywhere were in upheaval about how the new character Rey is a “Mary Sue” (for those who are unaware, a Mary Sue is a perfect or idealize character that unrealistically saves the day) despite the fact that she is shown as very flawed, unlike her male counter parts Anakin and Luke.

In 2014, female video game fans were hit with rape threats, murder threats, and messages of hate for being involved in the gaming community following the GamerGate controversy which began with the harassment of female game journalists. When female fans took issue with the way that Joss Whedon handled Black Widow’s back story and character arc in “Avengers: Age of Ultron” (making her biggest strife that she is infertile, meaning she doesn’t have to worry about attachments, meaning she can kill mercilessly, meaning she’s a monster… but it’s okay because the Hulk is too and they have each other now), of course there was an army of male fans there to say that these issues were nothing more than an overreaction. Male fans still even continue to act as gatekeepers to their fandoms, insisting that if you don't know something like the publish date of the first issue of the Avengers then you're not really a fan, or if you don't know every single issue of every single comic series then you don't actually like super heroes.

I digress though; I’m not here to make a point about how male fans are terrible people. That is not my intention in the slightest, what I’m trying to do here is point out that woman fans are treated and represented very differently than male fans, despite making up about half of the entire audience. Where male fans have a multitude of characters to look up to in one movie, women are lucky to get one or two. Across the entirety of seven “Star Wars” movies, male fans get characters like Luke Skywalker, Obi Wan Kenobi, Darth Vader/Anakin Skywalker, Yoda, Boba Fett, Mace Windu, Jango Fett, Count Dooku, Poe Dameron, Finn, and of course Han Solo. In the same amount of movies women are given Leia, Padme, and Rey. That’s and 11:3 ratio, where a more reflective ratio would be along the lines of 7:7, 9:5, or even 6:8.

The point here remains that “geek” culture has a very hard time actually representing their women fans on the big screen and across other platforms. Speaking as a female “geek” myself, I know how disheartening this is. It’s hard to have to search for little, tiny bits of yourself in the one character given to you when your brother and your friends can openly and wholly idolize the characters that represent them the best because that character actually does have multiple characteristics in common with them.

With that aside, regardless of how you feel about there being a new “Ghostbusters” you have to at least recognize that this is doing so much good by putting women in the spotlight. Even if the plot isn’t up to par with the original, even if it isn’t an instant block buster hit, there will be millions of little girls that watch this movie and will be able to expand their interests in STEM fields and the supernatural and feel in some sort of way validated and supported.

There will also, more than likely, be a fair number of fellow actresses, directors, writers, producers and so on who will feel inspired to create something to put women in a better light if the movie is indeed not so great. And if it is they’ll become pressured to create more material like this and honestly, we could stand to see more women represented fairly in this media.