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November 1999, Week 3

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Subject:
From:
Elizabeth Haas <[log in to unmask]>
Reply To:
Film and TV Studies Discussion List <[log in to unmask]>
Date:
Tue, 16 Nov 1999 15:50:20 -0500
Content-Type:
TEXT/PLAIN
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TEXT/PLAIN (43 lines)
What's also interesting about that phenomenon (ff's as having no past)is
how it differs from the woman's melodrama of that time (40s Hollywood).
Whereas noir casts its femme fatale characters as either bad-to-the-bone
from the beginning, featuring flashbacks that only reaffirm the ff's
present-time venial sexuality (e.g. FILE ON THELMA JORDAN), the melodramas
feature references to the past or flashbacks that explain a particular
sexual reluctance in the present timeline. They revel in characters' past
lives; plots absolutely turn on them. In the case of a film like BABYFACE,
however, the history of exploitation (Stanwyck's character has been pimped
out by her father) explains current ruthlessness and use of sex for social
and monetary power (she literally sleeps her way to the top of the bank).
BABYFACE's genre is open to debate I'd guess.

On Tue, 16 Nov 1999, Mary Celeste Kearney wrote:

> One thing I found intriguing about Jennifer Lopez's femme fatale character
> in  U-TURN was that the audience gets to learn about her past (i.e., her
> relationship with her father), which is used as an explanation for her
> present bad-girl behavior.  To my knowledge, such back-story explanations
> for the development of femme fatale behavior didn't occur in earlier film
> noir. But they make sense in our society's present approach to
> understanding "deviance."
>
> I think another point to consider are *teenage* femme fatales. This trend
> is not new; it has been going on for decades.  However, today's teens
> (especially girls) are far more explicitly sexual than in the past.
> Consider Sarah Michelle Gellar's character in the recent remake of
> Dangerous Liaisons, or the bad girl/fantasy object in American Beauty (an
> interesting twist since she explicitly uses her sexuality as a means to
> power, but then reveals that she's never actually engaged in sexual
> intercourse).
>
> Mary Kearney
>
> ----
> Screen-L is sponsored by the Telecommunication & Film Dept., the
> University of Alabama: http://www.tcf.ua.edu
>

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Screen-L is sponsored by the Telecommunication & Film Dept., the
University of Alabama: http://www.tcf.ua.edu

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