Women in film noir

Generally in art there are two archetypal female characters; the whore and the Madonna. In film noir we are introduced to both of these women: the dark, sexual and active spider woman and the maternal virgin. To give a meaningful presentation of the women's role in film noir I will first give you a short reminder of how the traditional family was viewed, and which values it represented in the world of movies in the forties and fifties.

The institution of the family reveals significant social values and beliefs. It functions as an ideological cornerstone of our society with its embodiment of traditional values. It represents the framework for reproduction, because marriage is the only institution that legitimates reproduction. Marriage at the same time both legitimates and conceals sexuality. Married couples are the only ones that are allowed to enjoy the erotic, but they are rarely presented as sexual partners or in any other ways erotisized. With breeding follows the upbringing of children which responsibility traditionally is lain on women. From a feminist point of view these practices of oppressing women are seen to be legitimated by this representation of the family institution. This image of the family, where the man is the family's head and ruler, is also a legitimizing model of a hierarchical and authoritarian society. Here the family can be seen as a metaphor of society on a larger scale. Thus the representation of the family institution in movies contributes to legitimize different social values, among other things the value of the family institution as a social unit, the ruler role of the man, the domestic role of women, and the total dependence of children.

In film noir the family relations are not normal. In some ways the noirs are based on the absence of the family. If a family, or more likely family relations are represented they are often broken up, filled with mutual hatred or in other ways perverted. The movies often concern themselves with what the loss of these family values and satisfactions can lead to. Marriages in film noir are often described as boring and sterile or non sexual. Because of this twisted family life, both men and women seek satisfaction outside marriage in film noir. This satisfaction is not only sexual, but also an attempt to reassure and find themselves in this confused and threatening society, an escape from the frustrating routine in an alienated existence. The violation of the marriages and traditional family values often results in destruction for the violators. In this manner both pleasure and death await outside the family institution. The family represents an antithesis to the femme fatale. I think that instead of showing and offering women an alternative to the traditional family life, film noir shows what happens if one chooses to stand outside the traditional values of the patriarchal system.

The dark, strong femme fatale of noir is the main female character in these movies. These women are given not only sexual powers, but also ambitions. They are longing or looking for independence, often economic, and freedom, often from relationships with men. These women that are masters and possessors of their own sexuality represent a danger to the males. She is--because of her ambitions and independence--a threat to the patriarchal system. On account of this she gives the males a feeling of alienation from his environment, and she must be punished for this to restore the patriarchal balance. The femme fatale is promiscuous, exiting, intelligent and narcissist while her opposite is the boring, but stable wife and mother. The virgin is capable of total devotion to the male, something that the sexual woman is not. The former is thus described as the ideal role for women, and it fits in well with patriarchy.

The sexual women's power and strength are visually expressed in the films, both through the iconography of the image, and through the visual style. It is often the woman that dominates and controls the camera, both because of her own strength and because of the male heroes attraction to her. Thus other participants become static within the image. But in the end when she is destroyed, she also loses her physical motion in the picture.
The dress code is also applied as her appearance defines her moral transformation. In Mildred Pierce for instance, she is dressed up in more manly clothes during the film and her own development. These women also use for example cigarettes and guns for phallic symbols, something I view as an extension of their bid for masculine powers. Filmaticly, the woman that represents an alternative to the dark world of film noir is often placed outside this world.

The spider woman uses her sexual powers in the quest for reaching her own ambitions. The mere possession of such ambitions is unheard of for a woman, and represents a danger to the male. She is a dangerous woman and the males own sexuality along with the patriarchal system are threatened. The only way to control her is to destroy her, something that happens in most noirs. Even though she is destroyed, it is her vital, deadly strength we remember.

http://www.let.rug.nl/~usa/E/noir/noir06.htm