It’s Not Just Black and White:

Gender Roles in Film Noir

by Jason McKenzie, Plymouth State University

Film noir's portrayal of the femme fatale…would seem to support the existing social order — and particularly its rigidly defined gender roles — by building up the powerful, independent woman, only to punish her in the end. But a closer look at film noir suggests an opposite interpretation. Even when it depicts women as dangerous and worthy of destruction, film noir also shows that women are confined by the roles traditionally open to them — that their destructive struggle for independence is a response to the restrictions that men place on them. (John Blaser, 'Film Noir's Progressive Portrayal of Women')

The way I’m interpreting Blaser is that film noir is either an accurate representation of how awry value has gone, or a satirized take on the way it is. Six of one, I suppose. In depicting the dilapidated infrastructure of society at large, noir inevitably addresses one of its core institutions, the monolith of marriage. By patriarchal postulation, a dissection of the subject shrinks into just one particular spin on that intellectual enigma, women. Through the noir lens, they are for whom the male rationalizes away the sure bet behind a picket fence- and likely his life in the process (femme fatale); those with whom happiness would be all but assured if not for the impetus of circumstance (good woman), or the emasculating, encumbering obstacle the audience roots like hell for our boy to avoid (the marrying type). If they are good, they are undesirable; if they are unattainable, they are better; and if they will surely kill you, then they are the best.

To say that the femme fatale is just an example of how noir addresses the corruption of society runs the risk of relegating women to the status of victims, insufficiently efficacious to realize their own sovereignty. But in all fairness - and with no disrespect to the feminists - there is an extent to which the human psyche can healthily endure adversity; past that, anyone is a victim. Who knows? As often as noirish  characters are showcased for the abnormality of their internal cognitive processes, destitute, oppressive environs- especially applied to women- contribute at least as much to their despair. The ultimate judgment of the femme fatale’s behavior is made on a case by case basis, assessing her particular psychology and the environment she either chooses or has thrust upon her.

One distinct contribution noir has made to film is in its character depth and development. Gone in noir are the wholly black or white portrayals of good and bad guys and girls. It is this development of the character roles that suffuses them with terror and greatness. It is also this depth of character which makes each hard to stereotype. Two such conventions are the femme fatale and the male victim. More a product of the film industry than the print, these pervasive character types only partially account for the behavior of leading roles. It is when we weigh a character’s sense of individuality against cultural roles that we question the validity of each; this is a particularly apt approach with respect to women and marriage. 

A noir convention in the film adaptation of novels seems to be to infuse male protagonists with a stronger sense of morals, thereby precluding their responsibility for their own situations, than their former print versions and to impose the role of femme fatale on the novel’s closest fit. In doing so, the movie tends toward commercial appeal, while at the same time divorcing itself from the original creation. There is clear evidence of what the rift between print and film indicates in the casting of lead women. In print, They Shoot Horses, Don’t They? and The Postman Always Rings Twice both give initial descriptions of the lead female as unattractive: “I wouldn’t have called her pretty,” (McCoy 111); “…she really wasn’t any raving beauty,” (Cain 4). In the films, however, those roles are played by Jane Fonda and Lana Turner, respectively - actresses heralded for their physical attractiveness. Such a discrepancy suggests that print offers more freedom than the formulaic cinematic equivalent, and that the latter may alter its precedent and create, then impose these character types.

Understanding a character better tends toward rationalizing a character’s behavior, if not his or her motives, too. It is this identification that makes it difficult to typify the characters in every story as one of the dominant gender role types. I question Krutnik’s claim that the male victim is a “passive or emasculated man,” (Spicer, 84) when I examine Frank in The Postman Always Rings Twice. This suggests that Frank is powerless against falling for Cora, but from the beginning of both versions of the story (film and print), he is persistent in his pursuit of an affair with her, “I had what I wanted…and she knew I had her number,” (Cain 6). Also, it is Frank who first suggests murdering Nick, and it is he who plans the two attempts on his life. “I could sell anything to anybody,” Frank in the film, The Postman Always Rings Twice.

Spicer categorizes Cora, the female lead, as a classic femme fatale, but only a portion of Cora Smith’s persona- one of film noir’s archetypes- can be accounted for by the label. This facet exists as a doppelganger to the Cora whose chief goal is harmony with the parameters usually afforded by the role of a woman: faithful wife, devoted mother, and hard working homemaker. She expresses from the beginning of the story her desire to be a mother, “The only one I can have a child by is you,” (to Frank) (Cain, 31); and to make something of herself, “I want to work and be something,” (Cain 13). It would then seem that Cora’s character is a sweeping indictment of the institution of marriage. The “one mistake,” (Cain 13) she made was marrying the wrong man. In all other respects, she accords herself with her prescribed gender role.

The loveless committed relationship is a recurring theme in noir, as we see in Horace McCoy’s They Shoot Horses, Don’t They? Gloria Beatty, the story’s leading female, tells the protagonist Robert about her past relationship with a “Syrian who had a hot-dog place,” (McCoy 112). The confines were so depressing and restricting that Gloria attempted suicide by taking poison just to avoid being his sexual partner. Gloria’s independence and individuality - as well as Cora’s in The Postman Always Rings Twice - is stifled by commitment to the wrong man. Independence, a staple trait in American cinema, is at odds with the contemporary role of women in these noirs. One could argue that it is this sense of individuality that wins out in the end of They Shoot Horses, Don’t They? when Gloria convinces Robert to shoot her so that she will no longer be a victim to men or circumstance.

In the story, Robert is an interesting take on the male victim gender role, but Gloria, like Cora Smith, adds dimension to the conventions of the femme fatale. If, in your interpretation of the story, she persuades Robert to murder her, then she is a femme fatale, because the act sends him irrevocably down the path to his own demise. But, if you attribute both of their actions to the psychological damage inflicted by the grueling dance marathon, then they are both victims, a role usually played by men in film noir.

Kenneth Fearing’s The Big Clock offers another bleak judgment of marriage. The protagonist, George Stroud, is a faithless husband, true only to his sense of independence and curiosity (a nice fit with his profession as a journalist). He is a male victim, in that he is innocent of Pamela’s murder in the story. In the film adaptation, the scope of Stroud’s behavior, at times reprehensible, is reduced to his best qualities. In fact, in the film version, Stroud never does commit adultery. It is thus easier to sympathize with the film Stroud than the print. The fact that he clearly does cheat on his wife in the novel asks the question of whether Stroud’s misfortune is the result of some karmic influence by which he must atone for his apparent misgivings. [Which is clearly suggested by his comments on the Big Clock at the end of the novel.]

The satirically named Georgette Stroud, empowered in the novel by her knowledge of her husband’s affairs - “I knew something was altogether unusual,” (Fearing 483) - is closer to the marrying type, the antithesis of the femme fatale in the print version of The Big Clock. In the film version, though, her role is given much more importance as she supports her husband.

Different generations will likely interpret the same film differently, as cultural norms ebb and flow. Film Noir, one of the first cinematic schools to develop character psychology, offers a glimpse of society as it was, is and might be. The role of women has changed much since these films were made, but in many ways, it has remained the same. Marriage, parenthood, and career are but options the contemporary woman- as well as the contemporary man - has available. These roles are defined and questioned through noir’s classic examples.

Works Cited: 

Blaser, John. “No Place for a Woman: The Family in Film Noir” and “Film Noir's Progressive Portrayal of Women.”   http://www.lib.berkeley.edu/MRC/noir/np01intr.html and http://www.lib.berkeley.edu/MRC/noir/pp-all.html

Cain, James M. The Postman Always Rings Twice.*

Fearing, Kenneth. The Big Clock.*

McCoy, Horace. They Shoot Horses, Don’t They?.*

*appears in: Crime Novels American Noir of the 1930s and 40s. The Library of America. New York. 1997.

Spicer, Andrew. Film Noir. Longman Pearson Education Ltd. New York. 2002.