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Sex Ratio, Socio-Sexuality, and the Emergence of the Femme Fatale in Classic French and American Film Noir

2015; Volume: 45; Issue: 1 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1353/flm.2015.a589136

1548-9922

Deborah Walker-Morrison,

Gothic Literature and Media Analysis

Sex Ratio, Socio-Sexuality, and the Emergence of the Femme Fatale in Classic French and American Film Noir Deborah Walker-Morrison Much has been written on the demonization of women in film noir through the emblematic figure of the femme fatale in Classic American noir, the ruthless siren who commits criminal acts and/or lures her male victim into committing them on her behalf before seeking to eliminate him. The widely accepted sociological explanation for the emergence of this spider-woman fatale figure in American noir of the 1940s and early 1950s sees her as emerging from a crisis of masculinity precipitated by the nation’s traumatic experience of the Second World War, especially as ex-servicemen readjusted with great difficulty to civilian life (Schatz 1981: 113-14). A comparison of the American situation with that of France, however, reveals the limitations of this view. Large-scale war inevitably leads to a demographic imbalance: a dearth of marriageable men and a concomitant oversupply of unwed young women seeking partners. Cross-cultural studies informed by socio-economic and evolutionary theory suggest that low sex ratio (i.e., a low number of men compared with the number of women of reproductive age) leads to higher socio-sexuality (“promiscuity”), particularly among women (Schmitt “Sociosexuality from Argentina to Zimbabwe: A 48-nation study of sex, culture, and strategies of human mating” 2005). These studies offer compelling ecological and psycho-sexual reasons for viewing low sex-ratios as a significant contributor to the diverse cinematic representations of feminine sexuality in American and French variants of the femme fatale. Classic femme fatale The femme fatale of classic American film noir (as portrayed by the likes of Barbara Stanwyck, Lana Turner, Rita Hayworth, and Ava Gardner) lures her hapless male lover into committing murder or other violent crimes on her behalf and then promptly sets about disposing of him. This spider-woman is usually set against an ingénue who lacks her prowess so that the power of resourceful, modern woman can be exposed for its villainy and the submission of the misunderstood, good-bad girl can be substituted for it. While accompanied by other feminine figures in many classic noirs in the 1940s and ‘50s (Martin 1998; Walker 2007; Grossman 2009), the spider-woman, who would destroy both earnest men and innocent women, has thus become the most ruthless of fatales, the most memorable and the most emblematic figure of noir paranoia.1 She has thus been read archetypally, and not unproductively, as an agent of cruel fate or as the man’s own lust, greed, and criminal violence displaced and projected upon the aspiring modern woman. The structural positioning of the American noir hero as fall guy or victim (e.g., Double Indemnity, B. Wilder, 1944; Detour, E. Ulmer, 1945; The Postman Always Rings Twice, T. Garnett, 1946; The Killers, R. Siodmak, 1946; Out of the Past, J. Tourneur, 1947; Lady from Shanghai, O. Welles, 1948), who is fatally attracted and caught like a helpless fly in the fatale’s web of criminal deceit, certainly reinforces such a reading. Many commentators have noted how the fatale as spider-woman combines physical seductiveness with lethal ambition: a drive for personal independence within which the man is no longer a romantic object of desire. As Janey Place argues, “what she’s after is not the man. He’s another tool. What she’s after is something for herself” (in Horowitz, Film noir, 1994). Moreover, the fatale’s ruthless agency and narrative power are often signaled by her visual dominance within the frame, as in Double Indemnity, when Neff meets Phyllis Dietrichson: the mise en scène has the insurance salesman in high angle, looking upstairs towards a scantily clad Phyllis, framed in commanding reverse low-angle. However, despite her visual and narrative power, in the classical period, patriarchal order is finally restored through the fatale’s death or imprisonment. [End Page 25] Click for larger view View full resolution The widely accepted sociological explanation for the emergence of this spider-woman fatale figure in American noir of the 1940s and early 50s sees her as a product of the accession of women to positions of greater economic...