Do you think movies should be evaluated by their portrayal of women? What about their depictions of race or class? Whether they are intersectional? Well, now there’s an app for that. World Economic Forum reports that Mango Meter, an application created by six women, allows users to rate films based on feminist criteria.
With data from user responses, a film will be rated on a scale of one to five mangoes. One mango signifies a film’s misogyny, while five denotes it’s very feminist.
Mango Meter was developed by Chen Yi-Chien, Devi Asmarani, Medhavine Namjoshi, Meggan Evangelista, Sahar Gul, and Sharmee Hosain, who describe themselves as “a group of angry, sexy, crazy, and cool feminists from all across Asia.” Recognizing the sway film has on people and culture, they wanted to create technology that would let users deconstruct women’s on-screen representation.
“Film is such a powerful and influential medium, yet it is very problematic in its portrayal of women, and in perpetuating stereotypes,” explained Asmarani, per WE Forum. “So we decided to create a movie rating app — like Rotten Tomatoes, but with a feminist lens — so we can spark a bigger conversation about sexism and misogyny in the movies.”
According to Asmarani, Mango Meter’s criteria “go a little deeper” than the Bechdel Test, a popular way of determining whether a film or TV show is sexist or not. In order to pass that test, a project must 1) feature at least two women who 2) talk to each other about 3) something other than a dude. In contrast, Mango Meter asks questions about whether the film subscribes to “a western notion of beauty,” its representation of marginalized communities and sexuality, its socioeconomic discussions, character agency, and more.
“By rating films on Mango Meter we can challenge the status quo and let the film industry know that we want better,” the app’s official description declares.
Last year producer and director Miranda Bailey (“You Can Choose Your Family”) and producer and Gurl.com co-founder Rebecca Odes (“This Is Me”) launched CherryPicks, a review aggregate and rating service that features female critics’ voices exclusively.
Mango Meter is available on Google Play.
