I don't seew how you can say this. Female sexuality - long before West and Marlene - has always been visible, exploited, enacted and expected in films. It is MALE sexuality that almost never appeared before Brando. At 05:57 PM 11/15/99 -0500, Peter Warren wrote: >Louie: As some of the replies to your query have indicated, the major >difference between classic and current film noir femmes fatales was the >Hollywood Production Code, which was finally abandoned in the mid sixties. >While it was acceptable to show greed (allowing for "compensating moral >values") overt sexuality was not allowed - particularly female. After all, >it was the aggressive, if comical, sexual come-ons of Mae West - and the >androgony of Marlene Dietrich - which finally made the Hays Office >implement the Code - thanks mainly to the Catholic Church's Legion of >Decency and its threat to boycott all Paramount Studios movies. (Both Mae >and Marlene were under contract to the studio). Also, social movements such >as female equality helped the neo-noir females to show their sexuality, as >well as their classic-noir greed and manipulation of the often weak male >protagonist. A worthwhile exercise is to compare the 1946 and 1981 versions >of THE POSTMAN ALWAYS RINGS TWICE, particularly the seduction scenes. Also, >DOUBLE INDEMNITY in 1944 and BODY HEAT (a virtual remake) in 1981. >Peter Warren > >---------- >> From: louie reayner <[log in to unmask]> >> To: [log in to unmask] >> Subject: Re: QUERY:femme fatales of 90's >> Date: Monday, November 15, 1999 6:22 AM >> >> Hi, >> I am researching the change between the femme fatales of the early noir >> period and those of the nineties. In particular, I am searching for any >> tit-bits on the femmes of the 90's. If anyone can provide any examples >> of how the new femme differs to that of the old then I would be indebted >to >> them. >> >> Thankyou.........Louie Rayner. >> >> ______________________________________________________ >> Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com >> >> ---- >> To sign off Screen-L, e-mail [log in to unmask] and put SIGNOFF >Screen-L >> in the message. Problems? Contact [log in to unmask] > >---- >To sign off Screen-L, e-mail [log in to unmask] and put SIGNOFF Screen-L >in the message. Problems? Contact [log in to unmask] > > Paul B. Wiener Special Services: Anglo-American literature, Gifts, Film & Video, Publicity & Programming SUNY at Stony Brook Library 631-632-7253 ---- Screen-L is sponsored by the Telecommunication & Film Dept., the University of Alabama: http://www.tcf.ua.edu