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).

It is interesting to examine  that she wants to be an actress. Someone who is still looked to for physical beauty, however she is unsuccessful. Even though she is successful in bedding men using her sexuality, she can not seem to be successful  in finding an acting job. When her sexuality is in your face and Bree is naked with her clients, she is successful. But when she tries to be subtly sexual, she is unsuccessful.
Bree could’ve been a multitude of other careers but the decision to make her an aspiring actress says a lot about how different types of sexuality is viewed. She wants to work in a male dominated field where she will constantly be judge for her looks by men but in that field has much less control over her role. The scene when she is auditioning for an ad of some sort and the casting directors simply brush her over for having odd hands struck me. One girl was turned away for being “too pretty.” We never see the casting director’s face in this entire scene. He is simply looking down on all these women. Here the male has successfully dominated these women by being able to look them over quickly and dismiss them.
This film is incredibly subversive. When Bree is challenged in that male dominated world, she creates her own world where her sexuality is her own and no man is equal to her.

The Article is a dissection of the roles of women in noir film, as the title suggests. The article primarily deals with what the author calls the “Spider woman” or the Femme Fatale, the sexy dangerous alluring woman who’s sexual liberty and agency make her dangerous. The Femme Fatale then must be punished as her sexual liberty is  within the narrative a crime against men, and for the man’s own protection she must be destroyed.

In stark contrast to the Femme Fatale there is a homey woman who fulfills the more “traditional” role of woman as caregiver, this archetype offers comfort and nurture without asking for much if anything in return.  This archetype exists to play the foil to the Femme Fatale character and to maintain the ideals set forth by society at the time. The nurturing woman is to be viewed as good, the femme fatale is bad and if if weren’t any clearer the femme fatale is punished for being the femme fatale.

The article then discusses whether Noir is a genre or a movement, highlighting several points and examples to illustrate the point that Noir is movement and therefore transcends genres and noir stylized films or even noir scenes can and do appear in many different genres of film, the most notable example is included via link. While I couldn’t find a video clip (sorry) Ramrod is a western which heavily features Noir elements and themes.

My notes from the article are below and included links to some of the films mentioned.  As are a few critical questions relating to the article.

Which role from the Noir genre as discussed in the article does Bree (Jane Fonda, Klute) fill if any? How about Helen (Dietrich, Blonde Venus) ?

Is Noir a Genre of film or is it a movement and if it is a Movement how is modern Noir accounted for,  Usual Suspects for example.

Is the archetype of the Femme Fatale pro feminist or is it a step backwards in how women are viewed in post war america?

• The woman is defined in relationship to the men
• the femme fatal filling the role of dangerous, sexually liberated dark woman
• the notion of her sexual liberty and agency are what make her dangerous 
• The womans sexual liberation is seen as a crime against men, therefore she must be punished for that crime 
• Despite problems Noir is one of the few period genres in which women are given agency, they are intelligent and powerful
• Rise of the sex goddess (Marilyn Monroe) shifting the archetypal woman post WW2
• We, the audience, do not remember the noir woman’s demise but rather her strong sexuality, her dangerous and exciting nature
• The change in noir film compared to earlier is that the Noir woman must be controlled by the man lest the man be destroyed by her sexuality
• discussion of whether Noir is a genre or a movement, German expressionism, Italian Neo-realism, Soviet socialist realism 
• attitudes on film are reflexive of attitudes of the time, fear of loss of stability, identity and security
• Genres exist through time (What about Noir films produced in modernity, Usual suspects?)
• Discussion of Ramrod
• context is dependent on more than just what’s on screen, previous filmography, era, cultural identities shifting through time etc. 
• Norma Desmond, sunset boulevard, notion of spider woman (clip)
• cigarette as a symbol of womans “unnatural” phallic power 
• strength of the woman is illustrated by cinematography 
• mirror shots to highlight duplicitous nature of the women in the film
• the opposing archetype of the nurturing woman
• woman as a redeeming force
• she gives love understanding and nurture in return asks nothing or very little 
• she is linked to the pastoral elements traditionally associated to her

Christine Gledhill’s article focuses largely on the subversive and often distorted image of the woman in cinema, especially within the film noir genre.

“Frequently the female figure exists as a crucial feature within a dangerous criminal world which hero struggles with in the course of his investigation and as often as not constitutes the central problem in the unraveling of truth. Woman becomes the object of the heroes investigation. Thus the place of the female figure in the puzzle which the hero has to solve often displaces the solution of the crime as the object of the plot; the process of detection…are submerged by the hero’s relations with the women he meets…” (77)

“Rather than the revelation of socio-economic patterns of political and financial power and corruption which mark the gangster/thriller, film noir probes the secret of female sexuality and male desire in patterns of submission and dominance.” (77)

In the case of Alan J. Pakula’s Klute, we can see Gledhill’s argument play out quite clearly. In the movie Klute’s initial suspect (and only lead) is Bree, and even as the two of them go person to person investigating Tom’s disappearance, Klute never takes Bree off the suspect list. For a while their relationship is fairly platonic, but it isn’t long before Bree finds her way into Klute’s bed. In the scene where Bree wakes Klute up because she doesn’t want to be alone, she finds herself slipping into Klutes bed only to sleep with him and walk out. This scene is quite interesting as it establishes non-platonic dynamics into their relationship.

Bree’s relationship with Klute is then further analyzed  in a later moment when Bree is talking to her therapist. Bree mentions how she feels comfortable with Klute around because she’s been on her own for so long and now there is someone there watching/protecting her. Her discussion with the therapist can be read in multiple ways.  In the context of this class, I think it is valid to look at the conversation as a commentary on how films seem to depict women as needing a male presence in order to be comfortable/happy. However, I also feel it is fair to make the argument that Bree has been working as a call girl for so long that she has forgotten what it is like to have a real relationship, and Klute has given her the opportunity to be with someone on equal footing (that is be with someone who is not paying her to be with them).

Going back to Gledhill’s analysis of film noir… Bree’s sexuality is put into question as the longer she is with Klute, the more she seems to fall for him. However, the dynamic in the relationship between Bree and Klute is undermined as Klute is unable to take Bree off the suspect list. Looking at Klue and Bree’s relationship we can see some of the qualities of film noir at work. Although Bree is not our standard femme fetal, it is clear that she is a source of “female sexuality and male desire” as Gledhill explains is common in the noir genre.

Female sexuality is constantly being questioned within this movie. Bree uses her sexuality as a call girl and even explains that she enjoys being a call girl because it gives her confidence by placing her in situations where she is able to put on an act and be in control of the person she is with. But, then at the end of the movie there is an interesting twist placed on Bree’s occupation. When Bree is finally approached by Peter Cable, he makes a statement that I thought was extremely controversial:  “[You] Make a man think that he’s accepted. It’s all a great big game to you. I mean, you’re all obviously too lazy and too warped to do anything meaningful with your lives so you prey upon the sexual fantasies of others.” When I heard Peter saying this I was shocked to hear such a blatant verbalized description of a call girls work. All too often do we hear that being a call girl is wrong because its association with prostitution, but here we get a different perspective. In this scenario we have Bree who has admitted to enjoying the control that her job gives her being contrasted with a man who has felt the negative consequences of that very control.

So in this movie we have a woman who sees opportunity to make a living by demonstrating  her sexual control, confidence, and prowess doing something she enjoys being contrasted with a man who fell for the allure of a call girl then felt that his sexual fantasies  were exploited causing a dark part of himself to be awakened. Subversive? I’d say so!

Gledhill marks Klute as an interesting film as it combines the two very different genres of realism and noir, which typically showcase very different characteristics in their characters, especially female characters.  Film noir usually exaggerates female characters so that they are either the killer femme fatale or the domestic housewife, while humanist, realist films attempt to show women as real people with real problems.

• Gledhill also suggests that there are two ways to read Klute for meaning.  The first is the humanist literary method in which the film and every detail of it can be read for metaphorical meaning.  The second way of reading this film is through Marxist aesthetics.  This theory essentially states that you cannot decipher the absolute meaning of the film, but you can analyze how the meaning is produced.  It also states that this film is a product of all feminist film to come before it and it’s meaning is a result of history that has come before it.

The author identifies five main features of noir film and how they generally tarnish the appearance of the female character.

1) Investigative Narrative

• the hero is usually trying to figure something about a woman
• the woman is either the femme fatale or the domestic house wife
• if she is a working woman it is usually in a degrading job
• she can never both a family and a career, only one

2) Flashback/ Voice Over

• It is usually a man telling the story and dictating which details are shared about the woman.

3) Point of View

• The story is usually told from the man’s perspective and results in a fragmented incomplete portrayal of the female characters

4) Characterization of the Heroine

• The female character always seems to be switching between moral and immoral unlike the straightforward moral trajectory of the man

5) Visual Style

• The way the film is shot emphasizes the sexuality of the woman as it relates to men.
• Her body is usually shown in fragments.

In conclusion, the noir film and realist film (which are shown through the fact that Bree is a working girl, seeking psychotherapy, and taking control of her life) should not be able to coexist in the same film.  How do you think they hold up together?

Sarah Baartman was a South African female sold into slavery in the 19^th century. She was showcased around Great Britain and France because she had a relatively large posterior. An obsession was created among these European societies with her different body type casting Baartman, and therefore all African females, as others against the white European norm. Her body was labeled as grotesque because she was curvy in a way white European women were not. She was overtly sexualized and objectified in front of paying crowds. Her body became an object of desire for white males due to what was considered obscure feminine characteristics thus, leading to the creation of the bustle. White women of higher class wore the bustle to make their rear ends appear larger than they were, but a large rear end was not considered overly sexual on them because at the end of the day, these women could remove the bustle making them superior to Baartman and African females. Baartman’s objectification and sexualization is noted as the origin of the obsession with objectifying and sexualizing women of color, especially their posteriors. The story of Baartman highlights intersectionality of ethnocentrism, race, class, and sexuality. Sarah Baartman’s stage name was Hottentot Venus.

When Marlene Dietrich’s character in Blonde Venus performs for the audience of the film for first time, the stage is a jungle with women of color dressed up in tribal garments performing behind Dietrich. Dietrich undresses from the gorilla costume and puts on the blonde Afro, and is objectified and sexualized by the audience in both the film and the viewers of the film. Dietrich’s character’s stage name in this scene is Blonde Venus. I thought this scene was interesting because I wonder if the name Blonde Venus is correlated to Hottentot Venus. Hottentot Venus being an object of foreign, erotic, African marvel, desire, and primitive sexuality during her parade around Europe. During her performance, Blonde Venus also being an object of primitive sexuality by being surrounded by women of color who are portraying primitive, tribal women.

I tried to research the connection, but there was not any free articles related to the subject.

One of the questions we posed today in class was whether it would be possible or not to create a feminist film. After hearing some of the points brought up in class today, I’d have to say the answer is no, and if yes, then it would be very difficult. The reason for my belief is based off of a double standard that exists among the female population. When women are looked at one way, they are automatically criticized and questioned for not being a different way. An example of this is as follows. Let’s say you make a feminist film. The lead female character is strong, independent, and self-sufficient. Because of the way society is “coded” we will have a problem with this portrayal. “Why isn’t she allowed to be sexually free? Why does she have to be independent and without a man in order to be successful?” These are some of the questions that would follow. Furthermore there is another side to this. Now you make a feminist film, but the female is free, not tied down to one man, and not afraid to use what she has to get where she wants to be. Now the questions will be turned more into statements. “She’s a (fill in the blank here) slut, bimbo, etc.

Sam Potoczak