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November 1999, Week 3

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Film and TV Studies Discussion List <[log in to unmask]>
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Mon, 15 Nov 1999 12:06:49 -0500
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 . . . shooting from the hip, let me offer a somewhat
underconsidered response to louie rayner's question
about changes in the femme fatale over the past half
century . . .

 . . . i venture that the classic noir babes [lana, rita,
barbara] were NOT themselves interested in sex but
used it as a tool for survival [GILDA] or, more commonly,
for achieving wealth/power [DOUBLE INDEMNITY,
POSTMAN, etc.] . . . the contemporary noir dame is, OTOH,
an actively sexual creature who threatens the wholesome
young protagonist not merely through her sexuality but with
it . . . to this extent the contemporary version is less evasive
about what in women threatens men . . .

. . . it's possible to argue, though, that the change is more
apparent than real, a function of changes in the various codes,
formal or informal, that determine what can be shown on
the screen and what can only be hinted at obliquely  . . . a
proof-text might come from comparing DOUBLE INDEMNITY
with  BODY HEAT . . in the former, and despite walter neff's
inability to resist her, phyllis is not [i think] really sexualized . . .
certainly it's hard to imagine her getting it on with her
husband . . . and she seems to USE sex rather than indulge
in it . . . maddy, in B.H., is quite different-- quite explicitly
a highly sexual woman . . .

 . . . what remains to be determined is whether this is a change in
the signifier merely or in the signified as well . . . or, to put
it less stuffily, is maddy really more sexual than phyllis or is
she, to appropriate jessica rabbit's wonderful formulation,
merely drawn that way??

mike frank

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