Last week we were talking about unequal pay between genders in the work place. I recently came across this sketch where John Oliver satirizes that very topic. I thought it was pretty funny, take a look if you have the chance!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4z46JXK92e0

On Monday we discussed the role of the femme fatale in film noir.  The femme fatale is often mysterious, dangerous, and after money or wealth.  More often than not she is more concerned with her own agency and power and has little concern for family or other domestic things that women of her era were expected to take interest in.  This character represented a subversion of feminine expectations and an empowerment of sexual liberation and personal freedom.  Although many femme fatales are not typically nice or good people they are capable of the same autonomy and power that typically only male characters are allowed.  That being said, most femme fatales meet their demise by the end of the film.  Most of the are either killed or punished with jail time or something worse.

What does this punishment say about strong female characters?  Is it enough that the character was seen on screen even though they didn’t live to see the end of the film?  I believe that although it is important for female characters to be portrayed powerfully they must also make it through the movie.  By killing them off, it gives viewers the ability to say because she was a powerful woman she had to be punished.  Some may argue that all bad, power-hungry characters should be punished in the end, but what makes femme fatales stand out from this statement is that their power is based in their femininity.  By punishing them, you are punishing them for being feminine.  In conclusion, although it is important for strong female characters to be displayed in any matter, the fact that they usually by the end of the film is sending the message that strong women should not be allowed to be successful.

http://nyti.ms/1qDAduz

Klute seems like a bit of an oddity in noir genre. The stoic, serious male protagonist is there, there’s the femme fatale who’s liberated sexually and whose arc hinges on the male’s, but some of the deviations the film makes from the standard tropes of the genre make it stand out to me.

Firstly, there’s the vastly different levels of nuance between Klute and Bree. Bree is the one providing the voiceover narration from time to time (Klute would fill this role in a typical noir film) and we see every aspect of her life, even those when she is alone and living her life outside of the plot. One could argue that this adds to the voyeuristic layers of the film, since we pry into her activities in a way we do not with anyone else, but I believe that this helps strengthen and build her character. Bree’s character is built upon complexity, from the various ways she fills her time (sex work, acting, therapy, etc.) to the conflicted thoughts that run through her mind (the one that particularly stood out to me was her weighing the positives of her detached sex work with the intimacy of her relationship with Klute).

Compare this to John Klute. By the end of the film, we know nothing about his life, have not seen him without some relation to another character, and don’t get any major insight into his thoughts or ulterior motivations. It’s almost a wonder that he is the film’s titular character.

Bree’s character arc does ultimately occur due to Klute’s role in the film, but, if the ambiguous ending hints towards her parting ways with Klute, it shows that it is not entirely dependent on him. Bree is the one that holds the film’s attention, the one who has the most layers, the one that we end up remembering the most. The film is really about her and that, in itself, is a noteworthy deviation.

I really enjoyed the conversation we had the other day in class about the stereotypes surrounding single parents. To take this a step further though, I’m also wondering how this relates to race. Women already presumably “made a mistake” when they are seen as single parents. Does the judgment increase further depending on race? I think the answer is yes. In films we are shown time and time again that women in different races and cultures are discriminated against. However, men are looked at as a heroes. They are the powerful father who stepped up to the plate in order to care for their child. Why is it that we have this double standard in our society?

Today I was thinking more about our discussion of whether or not noir films or their themes are feminist. I think it’s a really complicated issue and argument, because on the one hand, some of our authors (Gledhill, Place) have pointed out that in this genre/movement, female characters are not confined in ways they usually are in other genres. Their sexual excess, and thus their deception/destructive possibility grants them more power and agency in the roles they occupy.

In the two movies we’ve watched so far, both of the women are able to provide for themselves or their family because of their ability to capitalize on their sexuality, which seems to be their only marketable skill and avenue for success. Then again, the endings of both of the films, while ambiguous, both seem to negate their previous status and actions and bring them back under the definition of an “acceptable” woman figure.

In Klute, Bree seemed to have been taking care of herself before Klute came around. She mentions in one scene that a year ago she was living a life of luxury when she was in “the business” full-time. She was able to provide materially for herself, even if it was achieved by performing sex work. Still, we see the evidence that she’s trying to escape that world and support herself through attempting to enter into the modeling and acting world.

At the same time, this still reinforces the idea that women are defined in what they represent for men. A career as a sex worker, a model, or an actress is still ultimately objectifying and relying on the body as a source of consumption. For instance, even though she was living alone and supporting herself, Bree was still being financed by men; that is, by her johns and clients, who were the consumers of her sex work.

Additionally, Bree is cast somewhat as a damsel in distress who depends on Klute to save her during times of danger (like the scene where he goes to find the person on the roof of her building, and the confrontation scene with Peter where he saves Bree’s life).

While in some of the voiceovers and scenes with the psychologist we hear that being a sex worker actually allows Bree to have a sense of agency and control (she mentions feeling powerful and taking charge while her clients are awkward and shy), the most exciting scenes are the ones in which Klute swoops in to rescue Bree and is cast as the hero. Additionally, one could argue that Bree is rescued from her life as a sex worker as she leaves with Klute at the conclusion of the film (although the ending is ambiguous as to what her future holds, like we discussed in class).

In this way, even though she was originally portrayed as a strong female character who was finding her own way in the world and relying upon herself, at the close of the film she’s seemed to stop working in the sex industry (which can be read as both a bad and good development) and has relied on Klute for protection and stability. Her sexuality has faded and she seems to be headed for the life she earlier mentioned she wanted no part of (to paraphrase, ironing socks in Cabbageville).

Blonde Venus also has these contradictory feminist and traditional elements. Helen returns to work as the primary breadwinner for her family, albeit after her husband was too sick to work, and after he has protested her entering the workforce. Much like Bree, her career as a performer emphasizes her identity as a sexual being who puts on a show for the men around her.

Helen’s relationship with Nick, while of course not the best message (at least in the beginning it is clear it’s nothing more than prostitution), she seems to hold most of the control in the relationship. When her husband returns, she leaves Nick, who wants to marry her, after having used him to finance Ned’s recovery and her and Johnny’s life in the interim. Later, once she is famous in Paris, we hear that she’s been using men to climb the ladders and attain success. Helen has used her sexuality not only to market herself as a performer, but to enhance her career; almost reversing the convention that men are the users, women are the used. Considering the time period of the production of Blonde Venus, I think this is definitely progressive.

Still, at the end of the film, Helen is returned to domesticity and her role as a housewife. While it is unclear if she will work again, or if she even loves Ned, her deviation from the convention of the loving mother and wife is over. Though she attempted to survive as a single working mother, and was always one step ahead of the detectives and policemen after her, it was not a feasible long term situation. Helen is re-established as a dutiful woman, and though the last scene is her wearing her sexy and dramatic evening gown, engaging in the tasks like giving Johnny a bath and putting him to bed remove all hints of sexuality from her actions.

I think both of these films definitely have subversive and feminist elements, and some of them are not what we would expect. Both main characters use their bodies and their sexuality, which seem to be their only option, but they do so successfully and in ways in which they hold onto some power and agency. However, the ends of both films seem to take these characters who have deviated from prescribed social and gender roles and configures them back into the appropriate norms.

Something that has been somewhat bothering me that we haven’t really touched upon in class is the fact that both women in Blonde Venus and Klute did have questionable jobs, however, these women had these jobs in order to make a living.  Ok, yes, women should probably not resort to showing off their body to make money, but it can be very challenging to make money, especially as a woman.

In Blonde Venus, Helen’s initial motivation for returning to the stage is so she can help out her husband.  Back in the 30s, it was very rare for women to have jobs and earn money, so the fact that she is willing to try to help out her husband so he can get better makes me want to give her serious props.   She is willing to do whatever it takes in order to assist her husband and although she is doing so by burlesque dancing, I commend her on her attempt.

Bree is very similar to Helen in this aspect in Klute.  She is a struggling actress living in Manhattan, one of the hardest cities to “make it,” so she has to resort to being a call girl in order to earn money.  She probably doesn’t take pride in being a prostitute, however, it is the one job that she knows she will succeed in and won’t get rejected.  It is objectifying to women to resort to this sort of job, but sometimes a girl’s gotta do what a girl’s gotta do.  Now I don’t want people to think I am condoning being a prostitute! Absolutely not! But I do think that people should take a second to recognize the fact that both these women, are struggling, and want to do whatever it takes to make it through life.

Today discussion of women being looked upon differently and having different standards than men made me want to write this post.  This ties into the two films we’ve watched in class so far; Blonde Venus and Klute.  In Blonde Venus, Helen plays the role of a single mother for most of the movie as she travels around with Johnny and in Klute, Bri does spend most of her time with detective Klute, but always has the mentality of a independent woman.

In class we talked about how being a single mom comes with the negative connotation of being looked down upon and being slutty.  People also associate the  single mom as a struggling mom who can’t be a good parents without help from a partner.  While in contrast to that, when single dads are mentioned, they are looked highly upon and seen as responsible.; people question where the mom is and place the label of a “bad mom” for not being there with her child and boyfriend/husband.

Helen was not really looked upon as a bad mother, in fact in this movie she shined as being a great mother.  She fought to keep custody of her child by making sure her husband wouldn’t find Johnny, and while being unstable with money and constantly worried about her husband finding them, she still managed to be a good mother to Johnny and make everything seem as if it was fine.  One scene that stood out to me was when she could not afford the meal she had at the restaurant and offered to  wash dishes in exchange for the meal, and she told Johnny “come, lets go see a big kitchen.” That to me proved how much she cared about Johnny and didn’t want him to worry about their current situation.  This film went out of the norm of single women looked upon as being weak.  Helen was the apidimi of a strong independent woman.

Bri in Klute plays a strong woman as well.  She is first the suspect of Klute, but the tables quickly turn as she uses her sex appeal to her advantage and soon enough she was in bed with Klute.  It first starts with that scene where she comes into his room and said she can’t sleep, and he kindly lets her sleep in his bed as he pulls out a bed adjacent to her.  As expected, the only reason she went to his room was to sleep with him and thats exactly what she does.  She is the one controlling Klute, when he should be the one controlling her, being the investigator.

Both Helen and Bri are not your typical femme fetal character, they posses “female sexuality and male desire” as Gledhill describes it.  They are both very wanted by men, but are able to be strong and say yes to the things they want and say no to the things they don’t want.

Something that I found to be very interesting about the film Klute is that framing becomes a very important element to the film. Not only do we see framing in the way that the camera focuses on the subject but also photo frames, window frames, and framed mirrors are repeated elements throughout the film.  So within the camera’s frame (what is contained on the screen) we also see people contained in the various frames in the setting in the film.

According to Janey Place, mirrors and the framed portrait of the woman become very important elements to the film noir genre. Before reading Women in film noir I already had a hunch that those items were crucial to understanding the film because they were almost always present in Klute. Not only in the sense that Janey Placey talks about, but the use of of fences, wires, and even the cage elevator all contribute to the idea of the “framed” or “contained” woman.  She specifically states, “The framed portrait of a woman is a common motif in film noir. Sometimes it is contrasted with the living woman…” She mentions that within the frame a woman is, “under-control, static, powerless” Then she concludes that “The lesson is obvious: only in a controlled, impotent powerless form, powerless to move or act, is the sexual woman no threat to the film noir man.” I think that Place’s point can be taken further and be applied to the use of any type of object to frame the subject. This is something we see with Bree almost entirely throughout the film. However, we never see her in a framed photograph on the wall like we do with the first woman within the first ten minutes of the film. I think that this speaks a lot about what these women stand for in terms of how they control their sexuality.

Something also interesting is the way that we see men’s photographs framed in the film. I mentioned Mrs. Gruneman’s portrait earlier, but during the scene when we see Mr. Gruneman and Mrs. Gruneman’s portraits on the wall we see a man’s framed portrait. In this scene we see that Mrs. Gruneman’s framed portrait is entirely displayed on the wall, whereas Mr. Gruneman’s framed portrait is cut off by the way the camera frames this scene. This might suggest that Mr. Gruneman’s sexuality isn’t contained like Mrs. Gruneman’s sexuality is. (That is, if we are referring to portrait framing in Klute to the containment  of the danger of a sexual being).